SEAL-A-MEAL

I posted on Seal-A-Meal once before, but I love this machine.  

About six months ago I bought a Seal-A-Meal vacuum food processor.   It was relative cheap on e-bay.   I don’t remember the exact price, but it ran about forty dollars.  

I had watched a number of clips on YouTube about the machine, but I was still skeptical.   

This machine has changed the way we buy meat. 

There is only two of us; and in the past if we tried to buy meat in bulk it would be freezer burned and grey before we got around to using it.  

We still don’t buy meat in bulk; but if we are in the supermarket and see a particular cut of meat we like on sell we will buy a couple of packages and come home and vacuum seal them.  This way we don’t have to put out a lot of money at one time but our meat supply is varied and builds up enough to keep us ahead for a couple of months. 

Yesterday we bought boneless, skinless chicken thighs for $1.49 a pound.   They were six to a package so we bought two packages.   After putting them in the freezer overnight to firm up I vacuum packed them this morning.  

Here is the recipe we use with chicken thighs:

In the bottom of the slow cooker we pour one can of tomato sauce, one can of diced tomatoes, four diced garlic cloves, we add a heaping tablespoon of dried oregano and a couple of basil leaves.   We salt and pepper the thighs and place them on top of the tomato.    We cook them on high for a couple of hours then turn them on low for about four hours.   At supper time will boil spaghetti or ziti or sometimes noodles, cover it with the chicken and tomato sauce and serve this with a salad.   

We like slow cooking and like to cook our meat until it is tender and falling apart or can easily be separated with just a fork.

At Walmart they sell vacuum food bags but they are terribly expensive.   We buy 50 foot rolls of bag material on e-bay for about ten dollars – this way we can adjust the size of the bag to what we are sealing. 

If you are interested I suggest you check it out on YouTube.  They have vacuum food sealing machines that run upwards to hundreds of dollars, but I find this cheapest Seal-A-Meal easy to use and fits our needs. 

the Ol’Buzzard

MILK - THE FIRST CHOICE OF EVERY MAMMAL

My wife and I began drinking Parmalat milk back in 1985 when we first started teaching in a remote Athabaskan Indian village in the Alaska bush, and it has been our milk every since.  

I have always been a milk drinker and we have cereal most every morning.   Parmalat taste like milk because it is milk.   We drink 2%, but in the whole milk product I have often found cream at the top. 

Parmalat is real milk; not reconstituted or powdered or some fake milk product.  The advantage of the Parmalat is that it keeps without refrigeration until it is opened.   We buy six or eight quarts and keep it in the cupboard until we need it, then shift it to the refrigerator.   Since it is just the two of us, if we bought fresh milk by the gallon it would probably go bad before we could use it all, and if we were buying by the quart we would have to make constant trips into the supermarket. 

Besides the convenience of not having to shop regular for milk, Parmalat is also great to take on trips, camping, or anyplace refrigeration is not available.

Parmalat comes in 1%, 2%, whole milk and chocolate.  Parmalat is available at our supermarket in the baking isle and at Walmart in the baking isle.   

I have no connection with Parmalat other than I buy it and drink it.   Just thought I would post about it because it is a quality and convenient product that we used.   If you are a milk drinker you might want to try it - compare it to your fresh milk.   It has the Ol'Buzzard stamp of approval.

the Ol'Buzzard