Anyone familiar with "Seal-a-Meal" or "Food Saver"?

[buffalogal]

Mine too!!:)

[MelissaO]

We have a Food Saver and one thing I've found is that it's hard to seal really wet or juicy food because the liquid gets sucked up into the seal area and leaves gaps that don't seal.

Anyone else experience this? Have a solution? Otherwise, I love the Food Saver.

I have an old food saver and it doesnt have a switch on it for moist so I either put a bounty paper towel just under where the seal line is of the bag (that way if liquid does come up the paper towel catches it ) or I will put the item in the freezer overnight then seal the next day like mentioned already.



Lotsaraw for apples I would juice them and freeze the juice, or if you are going to freeze a apple whole maybe it could be used for smoothie instead of ice...I dunno how a frozen apple would turn out upon defrost, same thing with pears, cucumbers things with very delicate flesh.

[rawredbone]

I was thinking of trying this. How do you thing the juice would come out I mean as in would it be more water than juice taste wise?

Lotsaraw for apples I would juice them and freeze the juice, or if you are going to freeze a apple whole maybe it could be used for smoothie instead of ice...I dunno how a frozen apple would turn out upon defrost, same thing with pears, cucumbers things with very delicate flesh.[/QUOTE]

[sewrev]

I have the food saver. I really love it.. To seal something with a lot of liquid I take a paper towel fold it to size and place it in the bag just under where I will be sealing the bag. When the machine starts sucking the air and liquid, the paper towel collects the liquid allowing the machine to seal the bag well. Works great .

[tvillemom]

I'm so glad someone told me how to foodsaver my avo's!! I never thought of freezing them first! NOW I will be doing this instead of letting them go bad!

I also use the foodsaver containers.....they are great for spinach and other salad greens, they keep for weeks, instead of days!!

Best of luck!

[Colorawdo girl]

I got a little reynolds brand I think.Its a little appliance for ten dollars and you buy the bags and it sucks all the air out of the bag and tightens the bag right up.Its amazing and no freezer burn.Redo after you take some food out of it.
Freezing reduces some nutrients but not terrible.

[islesgirl]

Glad I got my "Food Saver". I grew my first garden this past summer 08 and froze lots of greens with it. Love it, love it!

[DebB]

Glad I got my "Food Saver". I grew my first garden this past summer 08 and froze lots of greens with it. Love it, love it!

Hi islegirl ~ Can you post how you froze your greens?

We want to do that this summer as organic greens are so spendy here. I'm interested to know the process you followed to get them frozen.

Thanking you in advance! *Ü*

[islesgirl]

Hi Deb - Well, I'll just tell you what I did - don't think I'm an expert at this or anything. The greens were from my first garden in 27 years and I was so proud of it. All I grew was greens! Beets (greens), carrots (tops), kale, swiss chard, collards, parsley, spinach and romaine. I washed them off - that takes time. Then I simply drained them and stuffed the food saver bags with them and sucked out the air using the "moist" setting and popped them into the freezer. The only problem was that if I'd frozen quite a bit per bag I had to cut it or tear it in half and that wasn't always easy. I used these greens to make GS in my vitamix every single day. Of course, if you are using them for smoothies it is much easier to use a smaller amount per bag but the bags are not cheap so I often simply take what I need from a well-stuffed bag and then re-seal it. Does this help?:) I really can't afford organic from the store, but I saw a documentary last night about "sludge" being poured out on farmers' fields and it was scary and made me think I'd better find a way to cut corners and come up with the money for organic. We'll see. Or I will have another garden this summer.

Sue.

[DebB]

Hi Sue ~ Yes - that [I]does[I] help a lot! I wasn't sure which way to go on freezing the greens. It's something I haven't done before. And what a savings it will be, we $pend a lot on green$!

Thank you Sue, I appreciate your posting back with how you froze your greens. *Ü*

[pixie_333]

so it's not true you have to blanch veggies before freezing? or does this not apply to vacum sealing?

i was reading about it last week and everything i read said just fruits don't have to be blanched or cooked.

[iamacranberry]

Course you don't have to blanch veggies before freezing...I never do! But if you buy frozen vegetables from the store, they'll probably have been blanched.

[DebB]

I'm another one that doesn't blanch the veggies I freeze. I do use the Food Saver, but even if I didn't use it - I wouldn't blanch first.

Same with fruits - I don't blanch any of them and I freeze just about every fruit there is - ha.. *Ü*

[pixie_333]

i was just asking :)

i forget now the reasons it was mentioned to blanch veggies. so only thing i left in memory was if i was going to freeze anything at all it would just be fruits.
but if you guys are doing it and find it ok.. then cool and perhaps i'll consider it if i ever freeze.

[k8sl8]

I used to have a ton of apples and routinely made sauce and froze in the FS. worked perfectly. Kids ate applesauce all winter.

I also did quartered apples. They were soft when they were thawed, bit worked in recipes, so would also work well in smoothies. a little moisture (water works and many swear by lemon juice or another citric acid) to coat them before freezing will help retain color.

as for blanching, I believe it is purely an aesthetic thing. It holds the color and makes the thawed veggies "pretty".