Posted: 1/7/2008 8:32:45 AM EDT
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Anyone got any good meal in a bag ideas for a foodsaver? My wife and I got one for Christmas and are looking for ideas. Thanks Travis |
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I usually don't do whole meals in a bag. What I will do since I have a small family - just me, the hubby, and a toddler - is cook up a large roast on the weekend, then freeze and vacuum-seal cooked portions that are enough to thaw for one meal. They're quick and easy to heat up after coming home from work, and I can have a "Sunday dinner" ready 30 minutes after walking in the door. |
Are you looking for keep in the freezer meals or BOB style meals? I use a dehydrator to dry vegetables (dried until crisp) and then vacpack them. I put together meals that fit in a quart size freezer bag of misc. vacpacked stuff for "just add water" meals on the trail. They keep for a long time at room temp and are very light. Big bonus is most dehydrated veggies taste exactly or very close to fresh vegetables once they are re-hydrated. They also retain most of their nutrients. I will say with the exception of tomatoes.  The taste is fine but if you eat them alone, you're eating tomatoe flavored mush. Great for soups though.Here's an example of a meal: 2-3 tbls dried mixed carrots and celery (measure dried - vac-pack) 1/3-1/2 cup instant rice (vac-pack) small serving (1 tsp??) of season all (vac-packed) 4-Pepperidge Harvest wheat crackers (vac-packed - I like these BC they survive the vac-pack and don't break.) 1 foil pack of chicken breast. 1 extra feezer bag if you want..see below Re-hydrate carrots & celery for about 2-3 hours in water. (You can do this by opening up the quart freezer bag, dumping the vegetables and water in. I use the original bag and put the rest of the meal in a pocket on my pack until cooking. Seal the bag removing air and store in a nagalene bottle if you're still moving. If your in camp, just set it in a safe place.) If your in a hurry, you can add the vegetables still dry to the water used for cooking rice at the beginning but they'll be chewy this way. Still good in flavor. Cook the rice in water, at about the halfway point for the rice, add your re-hydrated vegetables. With 2-3 minutes left add your chicken. Season to taste. You can substitute Ramen noodles for the rice but the cook times change. For Ramen, basically dump all in a pot, cook till noodles are done. I'm going to experiment with instant mashed potatoes / instant milk and see how it turns out. Directions call for butter but I'm going to see how they turn out w/o. I'll report back on this. All in all, it's some work but you can make some pretty dang good trail grub. |
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Buy some of those divided plastic plates and when you make large meals, fill the plates with all of the fixins', seal, then freeze. When ready to eat, thaw in the fridge or the microwave, then re-heat. I love to use mine to maranade meat. I apply whatever dry rub I may be using, vacuum seal, then refridgerate for 2 days before cooking, or freeze for longer term storage. |
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Ideas sure recipes I leave to you as I use lots of Garlic 1. If you dehydrate---take all the fixins for soup or stew and place in bag(good way to use left over roast and chicken breast BTW) Seal in ag then when you are ready add water and cook---I usually use potatoes or pasta in these as rice(except minute) and barley take so long to rehydrate. (note dried minced onoin and garlic are great in this--did I mention I use garlic a lot) I used to do this every fall/winter in plastic containers (dry climate here so it would last and I just got a foodsaver for Christmas so I will be doing it this way now)and it was great I could just throw some in a pot or crockpot add water and when it was done dinner!. 2. Take your favorite bean and rice recipes add all the ingredients like the soup. ( I am trying to get some good recipes from a co-worker who grew up in Costa Rica and has made some killer rice and bean dishes from scratch) 3. I hope this one works --- I just bought a bulk(2 4.5 pound bags) box of quaker instant oats and 3 pounds of dehydrated fruit--Vacuum seal in portion size is my plan--I am going to try that this weekend (mon-tues for me) my only issue may be drying the fruit more because it feels soft through the bag (haven't opened them yet still haven't got the Vac sealer set up) |
you might want to check out freezer bag cooking they have some recipes which use freeze dried/dehydrated foods that are very clever. I bot the book for 14 bucks and was not disappointed with the ideas. |
