We have been considering buy one of these FoodSaver sealers for a few years now. But we just kept putting it off. They are not cheap. We finally bought one. We bought a FoodSaver V2440 Advanced Design. We paid over $100 for ours at the local warehouse store. But ours was packaged with a bunch of accessories, and had some extra features. And the bags are are not cheap. Fortunatly our cames with a couple rolls of FoodSaver sealer bag stuff. We have already gone through one of the rolls.
But I think in the long run it is going to save us money, and even allow us to eat healthier. So far we have used it to seal a few different things. I made a 4x batch of low fat chili. It was almost as easy to make a 4x batch as a normal sized batch. And since I could buy the ground beef in a bulk pack, it brings the per serving cost down. Anyway, I mad the huge bath of chili. We ate what we wanted for dinner. I originally thought that I could just pour the chili into the bags, vacuum seal them, and freeze them. Well after watching the instruction DVD that came witht he FoodSaver, we learned this was not the right way. So I pour the chili into plastic containers, and froze those. Then the next day, we popped the frozen chili out of the plastic containers, into the sealer bags, and then vacuum sealed those. It the plastic containers we always have to worry about freezer burn. But not in the FoodSaver bags!
Another night I made meatloaf. Actually, I multiplied the recipe by four, and made four meatloaves. We ate one meatlaof for dinner, and froze the other four. After they were frozen, we removed them from the metal pans, placed the into FoodSaver bags, and vacuum sealed them. Now we have three meatloafs in the freezer ready to be reheated.
And I used it again last night when I bought a 3 pack of steaks at the warehouse store. We ate one steak for dinner, and I vacuum packed the other two, and froze them.
Our FoodSaver until even came with a couple vacuum canisters. I used the larger one to store brown sugar. Hopefully this will keep it from drying out.
The unit works great, and is easy to use.
Now on to the cost of the bags. For about $30 at the warehouse store, I can buy a box of 4 rolls of FoodSaver bags. That’s three rolls of the 11 inch, and one roll of the 8 inch. But this morning on eBay, I bought 6 rolls of the 11 inch bags for about $30 with shipping). They are not FoodSaver brand, but are Black & Decker. They say they will work in leading brand food sealers (aka FoodSaver). And at $30 for 6 rolls, it brings the cost down to about 27 cents per foot of bag material.
I have also ordered some FoodSaver universal lids. Many times I have made spaghetti, only to use a partial jar of sauce. The jar goes into the refridgerator, only to be thrown out later, because it has started to turn into a science project. With the universal lids, I can seal these jars, and keep the spaghetti sauce fresh for longer.
I think we will get a lot of use out of the FoodSaver! We will be able to make larger batches of the low-fat healthy foods we like, and freeze them. That will make them cheaper, and more convenient!
The day started off healthy enough. A banana to begin the day. I came to work with a bag of Healthy Choice entrees to stick in the freezer. I take a Pepperoni French Bread Pizza with me on my way to my desk, with plans of taking it to the microwave. Then I see it. Signs above my cube neighbors desk. It’s his birthday, and his desk is covered with goodies. Oh god, this might be a rough day. I take the French Bread Pizza, and and cook it in the microwave. It was okay. I wrote a review of it for the blog.
Then I go over and wish him a happy birthday. I scan his desk for something remotely healy to eat. There are bagels, but you gotta have cream cheese witha bagel to do it right, so I pass. But I did take a small bite sized Snickers bar thing. Okay…not bad.
But then a little while later, I was passing his desk. My hand reached out, snatched up a small brownie, and I ate it. It was good! So I had another small one. Okay, enough. But I am eyeing the bag of cheese flavored Gold Fish crackers that he has on his desk.
Okay lunch time. I went off to the library to meet with a friend, and check out the used book sale for some low fat cook books. SCORE! I bought five different cook books! Back to work.
I went to the freezer to pull out another Healthy Choice entree…I think I have a roasted turkey one, and a four cheese manacotti one. But something catches my eye. More free food, and I automatically bee-line for it. There are some wraps, potato chips, a cookie, and some pasta salad. Apparently left over from a lunch time meeting. The wraps look like tuna salad, and one that I think was a chicken wrap. I grabbed the chicken wrap. There were no plates, so I grabbed a napkin, and piled some of the pasta salad onto it. I skipped the bags of Lays potato chips, and the peanut butter cookie. I went back to my desk. The wrap seemed healthy enough with chicken, tomato, lettuce, onion, and who knows what else. It was good. The pasta salad was good also. Okay, I’ll skip the Healthy Choice entree, since I have already eaten.
But then I hear them next door at the birthday cube discussing this chocolate cake. I heard them say it was Ultimate Chocolate Cake. Oh god, I have had that before, and it is so good. Next thing I know, I am over there getting a slice…a small slice of the Ultimate Chocolate Cake. It was good!
Okay, nows it 2:10pm, and the work day is over half over. I think once I make it home, I will be doing okay. My wife will be making something healthy for dinner. And I can snack on bananas, oranges, and other low fat stuff.
I guess eating a little not-so-healthy stuff is okay once in a while. The thing is moderation!!!! I don’t eat like this everyday, and I don’t gorge myself on the stuff when I do eat it. Anyway, like I said in another post, my weight was down to it’s lowest point in almsot 4 years this morning. I really don’t want to lose much more weight. Actually I wouldn’t mind weighing a little more, but of lean muscle.
I weighed in this morning, and I weighed 171.4 pounds. I always weigh myself first thing in the morning. I always seem to lose weight over night, usually a pound or two. I assume I am burning stuff for energy to keep my body running, and maybe expelling water and stuff in my breath, and sweat. Anyway, I weighed in at 171.4 pounds. The heaviest I have ever weight was around 230 pounds. I actually had my weight down to around 168 almost four years ago when I first switched to low fat eating. But that was lighter than I wanted to be. I am not sure where I want to be weight wise right now. I wouldn’t mind keeping my current weight, but cut my body fat percentage down to maybe 6%. Maybe 170-180 pounds of lean muscle? That would be cool!
So I am trying to eat more, but trying to keep it low fat and healthy, and continuing to exercise, so that I can maybe put on more LEAN weight.
Well, it’s lunch time, and I have a couple Healthy Choice entrees in the freezer calling my name.
I really prefer supreme pizzas, But pepperoni pizzas are okay. So when the grocery store had the Healthy Choice entrees on sale 8/$10, I loaded up. I grabbed all of the supreme french bread pizzas they had. Then I grabbed a bunch of the pepperoni ones too. So today I had one for breakfast.
The Healthy Choice Pepperoni French Bread Pizza (with pizza sauce, nonfat mozzarella cheese, and reduced fat pepperoni) has 350 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, and 600mg of sodium. (It seems like every Healthy Choice entree has exactly 600mg of sodium) Weight watchers counts this as 7 points.
My oppinion? They are okay. They are much healthier than say a bagel sandwich from the caffeteria. Would I go out my way fro one? Probably not. I prefer the Supreme French Bread Pizza over this. This even has half a gram more fat. Out of 350 calories, 45 (or almost 13%) come from fat. If the Healthy Choice entrees go on sale again, and they run out of the Supremes, and will probably buy some more. But they are just okay.
Yesterday when trying to figure out what to have for dinner, I decided that meatloaf would be good. I have made this recipe before, and it’s really good. It is supposed to be like Boston Market meatloaf. But I have never eaten the actual Boston Market meatloaf before, so I can’t say if it does or doesn’t. I just know it’s good. Anyway, I decided to multiply the recipe by four, and make four meatloafs. It’s not much harder to make four meatloafs than it is to make one. We ate one of the meat loafs for dinner, and froze the other three. Today, we will pull them out of the freezer, and try to seal them using the Foodsaver. Then we can have them for dinner later on! 
Ingredients:
1 cup tomato sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons Kraft original barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 lbs 90% lean ground beef
6 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 dash garlic powder
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. In a small sauce pan, mix the tomato sauce, barbecue sauce and sugar. Heat on medium, stirring often. Remove from heat when mixture begins to bubble.
3. Set 2 tablespoons of the tomato sauce mixture aside. Place the rest in large mixing bowl.
4. Mix ground beef in with the tomato sauce mixture using a large wooden spoon, your hands, or a potato masher.
5. Mix in the remaining ingredients (flour, salt, onion powder and ground pepper) with the ground beef, again using a large wooden spoon, your hands, or a potato masher.
6. Put the meatloaf mixture into a small loaf pan. If you have a meatloaf pan that allows the fat to drain away, this is even better. But a regular loaf pan will work.
7. Cover the pan with foil, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
8. Remove the meatloaf from the oven, remove the foil, and drain the fat. The more fat you can drain off, the better!
9. Leaving the meatloaf in the pan, slice it into eight slices using a knife.
10. Get the sauce that you set aside earlier, and pour over the top of the meatloaf in aline down the middle.
11. Bake the meatloaf for another 25-30 minutes.
12. Remove from the oven, and let it cool for a few minutes. Then serve.