Vacuum sealer

[Square Peg]

A friend of mine gave me a sealer and a roll of bags. Looks like a useful thing. It has been sitting in my cupboard for 6 months now. Anyone want to share how they use theirs? What kinds of things do you seal?

[xmas]

I seal meat, keeps longer from freezer burn than regular freezer bags.
Also I seal the stuff I dry, like herbs, onions, peppers ond stuff.
Garden grown veggies, in my case porch grown, keep better in the freezer.

[SteveinMN]

My DW brought hers when she moved in. We use it primarily for long-term freezer storage -- meat, stews, soups, ... One summer a farmer friend let us raid his fields just after the first frost to pick up what we wanted, and we sealed a lot of those items because we didn't have a use for them near-term. It is a better barrier than double-wrapping and much better than using the original styro/plastic grocery package.

[ToomuchStuff]

Mom bought one at a garage sale for $10, and is keeping an eye out for me. I use is a lot more then she does, as I get told to pick up meat from our local club for the boss (home), and myself while doing work errands. Since they don't really sell for a single person, I tend to break it up and give them some or have a meal with them. (get several out of the packages)
I really am waiting for one of my own, and maybe to have a garden (had trees taken out and next year the root stuff should be done enough to allow one), for things like green beans.

[herbgeek]

I use mine primarily for sealing jars with dry ingredients such as herbs and dehydrated veggies. I have a separate jar gizmo for this that attaches to the sealer, was about 10 bucks.

[cdttmm]

We use our to freeze blueberries in the summer so that we can eat them all winter long. It works really well for this. I think we've used it for other things, too, but I always associate it with freezing blueberries for some reason!

[Gregg]

We use ours all the time. When meat is on a good sale we stock up, portion it out, vac seal those portions and toss them in the deep freeze. Sometimes, if we have a specific dish in mind, we add flavors to the meat. We also do dried herbs, left-overs and anything else we want to keep in the freezer for more than a week or two. Another thing we're experimenting with is sous vide cooking where you place vac sealed food in a hot water bath that is kept at a constant temperature until the food is done. Not something we do daily, but it's been fun to play with.

[Blackdog Lin]

We use ours frequently as Gregg does: for freezing meats - portioned out - that we purchase at great sale prices. It's paid for itself many times over.

[Square Peg]

Do you freeze meats before cooking? When freezing fruit, do you do anything to it first?

[Gregg]

When we buy meat on sale and in quantity we freeze it uncooked. Leftovers are obviously cooked already. On occasion we do cook extra chicken and freeze it so all we have to do later is drop the bag in hot water until it is up to temp and dig in. I have a smoker, too, and will smoke big batches of meat and freeze most of it because the smoker is a pain to clean so I only want to do it once in a while. Best advice I can give is to use the strip down the side of the bags to write EXACTLY what is in the pack along with the date. That way there is no confusion later.

[Blackdog Lin]

Gregg, you've hit on a great point: LABEL EVERYTHING. I freeze (and save a lot of money by doing so) a bunch of dribs and drabs, like 1/2 can of tomato sauce (for the next homemade pizza), or 2 small grilled pork chops (for the next fried rice), or that 1/2 can of cream o'whatever soup (casserole ala' whatever). Two weeks ago I cleaned out the kitchen fridge freezer, and found 2 unlabeled ziplocks with mystery ingredients. Had to throw them away - had NO idea what was in them.

Lesson learned. I will be more diligent about labeling (and dating) everything.

[bae]

I use mine also to seal up first aid kits, survival kits, boating gear, camping gear, and whatnot.