Paul Kierstead

Outside of the ammonia (and that is a fairly sizable "outside of"), I can't see how it can be argued that it isn't ground beef. You are buying a beef product, clearly processed; grinding it very fine and separating out the fat doesn't make it any less ground. Unless the product listed a specific process, you have no real grounds to complain; expecting it to be ground like you mother did is unreasonable. If you want it like your mother did it, then do it like your mother did, you can't expect some product in a store to be that (whether is says "home-style" or not). Again, outside of the ammonia (and I don't know the health implications of that), feeding this to your children may be giving them poor quality beef, but I can't see how it could be construed as dangerous assuming the beef has the same bacteria counts, etc. that slime-less beef has, and I've yet to see facts presented that say it is systemically bad (naturally there will be cases where it is bad, just like there are cases where spinach is bad, due to poor handling and inspection).

What you showed was pretty much exactly as mine operates. I think you are taking "non-venting" too literally.

I'll fess up and admit that the colour alone kinda makes me want to buy it. Plus some perverse pleasure in just watching something boil over without boiling over. But mostly the colour.

I've found that Halal chickens are often very small (around here at least). Maybe try a mid-eastern shop if you have one.

I use the auto-restart-on-power outage on my unit to hook it up to a timer and have it up to temp when I get home (without food, of course)

What is the problem you are having sealing solids? The only two tricks I've needed to employ is to watch for boiling (as soon as I see signs, I hit the stop button, which doesn't "stop" per se, it actually seals the bag, etc) and to make sure you don't over fill; the liquid must be away from the sealing bar. Taking out the inserts helps. Cold liquids will allow more vacuum to be pulled before boiling occurs; warm liquids will be boil very quickly.

It would likely be the type of bag that did people in. A foodsaver requires the bags with a 'textured' interior; if someone bought the (generally much cheaper) plain bags, they will not work in a food saver.

Have you tried a 48 or 72-hour cook? I'd suggest you try it; I don't think you'll find any tenderness problems after that.

Ikea sells food beyond hot dogs?

It is practical to cook for much longer times in SV then smoking, so your guidance on temperatures will be different. 48 and 72 hour cook times are not uncommon in SV, especially for tough cuts. Remember, it is temperature and time that count.

If you want to do boil-in-a-bag or use quite high heat (relatively speaking) for SV, it might be a good idea to get the boil compatible ones, if available from your source.

Yup I SV more then I expected to, indeed to the point where I suspect my own motives. I also use my Vac pack machine (VP210) much more then I expected, to the point where I no longer were at all about buying all those multiple sizes of 1000 bags...

My VP210 will easily boil water at room temperatures or so, and typically with anything slightly wet, I have to monitor it to prevent boiling. I think the VP210 will pull more then adequate vacuum for the vast majority of cases, particularly if there is any vapour in the chamber which will limit the vacuum that can be generated in any case. Most food applications will have some vapour.

There is always a possibility that you'll desperately want to make that 'one recipe' that has a pressure you don't have, but recipes with non-standard pressure are very very rare in english language cookbooks in my experience. There are guides kicking around to swap between the euro and US standard pressure (and the turbo 21 psi too).

Well, its going there, then.

Because I think for so long people have tried to make it seem so simple to both lose and keep weight off. Aside: I still object to the conflating of "simple" and "easy". Lots of simple things aren't easy. The difficulty I have with many of the arguments that it is biological factors is history. The obesity epidemic is recent, but I'm not seeing the evidence presented that biological factors have changed. I find it difficult to accept that the problem is biological factors if biological factors cannot explain the quite rapid increase in average body weight. If it is biological factors, it should be able to measure and correlate to the current trend. From what I've seen, it is used only to explain certain cases, essentially edge cases, which to the populate as a whole is not very relevant or useful unless you happen to be an edge case. I'd be happy to see evidence that some change in our biology in the last couple of decades has suddenly made us susceptible to being obese but while there is plenty of evidence of changing diets, I'm not seeing the evidence of rapidly changing biology. This does not mean, of course, that it doesn't exist, but I think that an explanation for this is absolutely required or it tends to significantly discredit the biological explanation for the general populace (again, not just for edge cases; we note obesity is very widespread).

Actually, what you (and others) are describing is, in fact, quite simple from a dietary point of view. Cur your carbs and eat lots of veg is hardly complex. Easy is, of course, a whole different (and much more subjective) beast as it is all bound up in behaviour and *that* is not simple. But just because it isn't easy doesn't mean the diet has to be complicated. We strive to consider it complex because we don't like to think something so simple (cut your carbs and eat lots of veg) could be so difficult.

Ideas in Food has a "twice cooked scallops" recipe that brines and cooks them SV, with a pan seared finish. I'm not entirely sure they are *better* in terms of flavour and/or texture, but they are fool proof and easier to do when you have a lot of stuff on the go. I make them fairly frequently.

I've had canned moose meat in a mince-meat kind of application; Yeah, I know, mincemeat is supposedly without meat, but I was brought up with it containing meat, usually red game meat. It was very good.

Rory, I'm not one to dissuade people from making stuff ( I love to ), but I will tell you: The initial geek reflex is that it needs monitoring, etc. It doesn't. Trust me, with a proper PID it will be the most boring monitoring ever; Oh, look it went down 0.1 degree for a minute! Will be about the most excitement you'll get. A PID + Heater (of just about any sort, including slow cooker) will be absolutely rock steady, and short of the water evaporating out (takes a long time normally, unless you are cooking at 80 C or something, and covering will make it almost irrelevant) it will hold there for weeks without a single hiccup. Well, actually, it would hold for years, but evaporation will definitely get you I'd *really* suggest you consider buying a PID unit and rocking out some great SV cooking. Do 2 cooks, and you'll never worry about the monitoring ever again BTW, if you really want to make a monitor, the one monitor that would be useful would be a power outage one. With a PID based unit, you'll never know the power was out or how long (though your other stuff might give you a hint )

"Most", sure. But are you telling me that a place can sell out 3+ days in advance, but can't fill in a small percentage of tables in the last 24 hours? For the majority of cases, I find that hard to believe. No-shows I think are a whole different ballgame. Your only hope is a walk-in. Now I've managed to get into quite a few restaurants even after calling them and being told they were fully booked, but obviously they had no-shows and I have the utmost sympathy for that. If a restaurant insists on 3 days of warning, I'd suggest they should be selling tickets, refundable against the meal, so at least you can re-sell/scalp the tickets.

My gut feeling is that any restaurant that requires more then 24 hours for cancellation notice for groups of 4 or less people doesn't need reservations. I think it is unreasonable. For any restaurant that is busy enough to need reservations, they should be able to fill in small groups in 24 hours. There may be the odd exception, but it should be very rare. And the Fat Duck? Seriously? They take (and have) a waiting list! I'd be they could fill a vacancy in 5 minutes.

That is a very, very cool app.

SV @ 65 C (bath) for 2 hours Deep Fry @ 220 C for 4 min.

On chicken, I regularly use two methods that work well. For legs with thighs attached, deep-frying at 220 C for 4 minutes makes a beautiful skin (taken from MC). For chicken breasts, I place skin down in a medium-high pan for 4 minutes (taken from Keller). Also makes a lovely skin; the only downside is that you need to trim the breast so that all the skin makes contact. Breasts here are generally too large for sane single serving anyway, so I use the trimmings as snacks and lunches.