Somehow, I think in the course of all my freebie hunting, I won one of these! It came in the mail yesterday.

Today I used it to vacuum seal some chicken thighs, and it worked pretty well. It's just a little hand pump, and you stick it to a spot on the bag and pump the air out. It takes a few tries to get the hang of it. 

It worked pretty well with the chicken, although it didn't get every single bit of air out from the little crevices between the pieces of meat. But it worked much better than my normal method of trying to squeeze air out with my hands. It doesn't work as well as my mom's foodsaver, but I think it'll work for me because I just have a small freezer and usually use things before they get freezer burned. This might make them last longer. 

It wouldn't work with anything liquidy, because the bag and pump have to be flat against a hard surface for the pump to work. 

You do need a special type of bag to go with the pump. I don't know how expensive the bags are because a few came with the pump, but I'm sure they're not cheap since this is a pretty new product. I do have a coupon for them. 

Congrats on winning it !!!

I bought the one by Reynolds. If I'd seen the one you won, that's what I would've bought instead. You have to have batteries for the one by Reynolds.

I also have a Food Saver which is now out of the box and is on a kitchen counter. My goal is to use my Food saver in the next month.

I brought one it wasnt worth the money didnt work at all ... back to the foodsaver vacuum bag system

Virginia Needlewoman:

I also have a Food Saver which is now out of the box and is on a kitchen counter. My goal is to use my Food saver in the next month.

 

My mom gets a lot of use out of hers... I'd buy one, but with just a small freezer I usually use everything up before it gets freezer burned, but I think the Foodsaver is great for long term storage. I've heard you can even put full meals like pasta and sauce in it, and then boil them in the bags... but I've never tried it, so I don't know if it's true. Let us know how you like it!  

In the fall of 2006 Mom got a Home Bistro catalog in the mail. www.homebistro.com We liked the food, but I decided that if we had a Food Saver I could make our meals the way Home Bistro did.

Unfortunately, Mom had a heart attack and stroke in January and went into a nursing home in February 2007.

I finally got it out of the box and my friend from the forums has been urging me to start using it.

I do need to use it so that I don't waste food because I can't afford to waste money.

I can tell you first hand that boiling the Home Bistro bags worked great. As a matter of fact I have an order coming this week. I don't order from them very often because I really do prefer my own cooking.

Because of what you posted, I am thinking of cooking the frozen meatballs with sauce & freezing them in my Food Saver bags. I have 3 unopened bags of meatballs I bought on sale.

I used to make my own meatballs until it became cheaper to buy them on sale.

 Thanks for the review!  I looked at the Ziploc and the Reynolds versions but hadn't committed to buying either yet.  I had a Foodsaver but it died so need to replace it.  Meijer sells a less expensive off brand of a Foodsaver type device but I haven't seen or heard anything about how well it works.

We loved to use the Foodsaver when freezing meats.  We also used it for bbq.  We have a smoker and because it takes as much fuel to smoke one boston butt as it does to do a couple of chickens, turkey breast, and a several boston butts, we'll do a lot at once.  We could put the pulled pork into the Foodsaver bag and pop it in the freezer.  When we wanted bbq, we'd just put the bag into boiling water and have bbq that tasted as good as fresh made.  It didn't taste old like cooked meat sometimes does after being frozen.

My mother started me on this one:  use the Press'n'Seal plastic wrap and then put the item in a freezer bag.  The Press'n'Seal wrap is cheaper than the bags for the FoodSaver, the wrap keeps the foods sealed so they don't get freezer burn (as long as you're careful about how you seal it) and the freezer bags can be reused, because they're not touching the food at all.

I do wrap in freezer paper a few thing before I use the food saver ... I buy my bags on line and get a very good deal on them .

Dear All, We cut up all of the produce before freezing it.  we use fold-&-close sandwich bags to divvy out the portions (1 T tomato paste (after freezing in an ice-cube tray), 1/2 c onion, 1/4 c grated carrots, etc)  Then we put all of the sandwich bags into a gallon freezer bag, pushing all of the air out of the bag.  I have heard it said to use a straw to suck the air out, but it doesn't seem necessary to me.

We always wash & reuse the freezer bags, many times indeed.  However, I do not save the sandwich bags -- bad me!  Anyhow, the veggies stay nice & crisp in the freezer, & thre is no freezer burn.

Yours in HIm, Deb

Kim_150:

Somehow, I think in the course of all my freebie hunting, I won one of these! It came in the mail yesterday.

I got one of these (freebies) too! It came a few days ago. I haven't had an opportunity to use it yet....

Have a blessed day,

Julie