I keep toying with ideas for lazy/single people that eat out all the time...
I am tired of eating out, but I hate cooking meals for my self. Either I eat too much fast food or I over eat what I cook at home because I don't want left overs...
I've been wanting an advantium oven for my place for while, but I don't wanna shell out the money to get it... If I do that, I have to buy new counters, I'll have to get the induction range-top I've had my eye on.. and .. Eh.. :/
We had a Qdoba open recently and ... ... Most of the staff knows me by name now... I've eaten there a lot.
So I keep thinking of how they prepare their food, how they have a few items (two or three types of tortillas, a few meat choices, two rice choices, two bean choices, one soup base, a few salsas and a few quesos) and you can make HUNDREDS of combinations of meals and nothing seems to be the same.
That started down the road of What is keeping me from cooking a bunch of meat up one day, dicing it up, portioning it out and making my own mix and match foods? I thought I could use a vac-sealer for this, but honestly, that would be a lot of wasted plastic. What about vac-sealing jars? I wouldn't technically be canning the product, but just taking the air out so it would last a few days longer than just being thrown in a container and placed in the back of the fridge. FoodSaver's Jar Sealer adapter lets you seal jars with the metal tops so you just screw the rings on. It would all be washable and re-usable.
The next step was How to heat? Don't wanna use the microwave, I don't want mush. Can't use the oven because I don't want it to dry out, I don't want the wax to seal if I leave the tops on. Then I thought of a roaster with some water. K now we are getting some where... But water in motion always carries heat better than standing water. Sous Vide... I started looking at the Sous Vide wands and They all look nice but none seem like they would clip to a roaster, plus, they have their own heating element.
I forgot long ago, I found a link to a DIY Sous Vide cooker. He used those coil drink warmers to heat the water. What if I just put a relay control to an outlet that could power the roaster and use the roaster to heat the water?
So I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm gonna get a new hamilton beach 22 quart roaster so I have plenty of room to play with, a small submersible pump (75gph) to circulate the water, a JLD612 controller, a relay to wire a plug to for the roaster, a PT100 temp probe, an electronics box to put everything in and a new vac sealer since mine broke...
The thought behind all of this is that I could do cooking once or twice a month, cook a ton of protein, have a base seasoning to it all, make a sauce or two, have rice and beans or something and then mix and match it throughout the month with various vegetables etc. Or, if I wanted, I could vac seal a steak or chicken breast, throw it in the hot water, take it out, sear the protein on a pan and have a meal. I could vac seal fresh veggies in a sauce, throw it in and there's a meal.. but the bulk of it would be to heat jars of food to mix and match... That way I can buy bulk packs of meat from sams club, cook it all up and have it ready to go, so I'm not cooking my self supper at 12am because I got so tied up with my work I forgot to eat :/
Oh, not that I have an obsession with tex-mex places, Taco Bell has been doing Sous Vide for their pre-made hot products for at least 12 years... I used to work at one and always thought it was so cool you could pull a bag of frozen taco meat from the freezer and throw it in the bath of circulating water, set the timer and it would come out perfect every time.
(taco bell rethermalizer: http://www.pitco.com/Yum!/PDFs/Taco Bell/L20-115.pdf)
I am tired of eating out, but I hate cooking meals for my self. Either I eat too much fast food or I over eat what I cook at home because I don't want left overs...
I've been wanting an advantium oven for my place for while, but I don't wanna shell out the money to get it... If I do that, I have to buy new counters, I'll have to get the induction range-top I've had my eye on.. and .. Eh.. :/
We had a Qdoba open recently and ... ... Most of the staff knows me by name now... I've eaten there a lot.
So I keep thinking of how they prepare their food, how they have a few items (two or three types of tortillas, a few meat choices, two rice choices, two bean choices, one soup base, a few salsas and a few quesos) and you can make HUNDREDS of combinations of meals and nothing seems to be the same.
That started down the road of What is keeping me from cooking a bunch of meat up one day, dicing it up, portioning it out and making my own mix and match foods? I thought I could use a vac-sealer for this, but honestly, that would be a lot of wasted plastic. What about vac-sealing jars? I wouldn't technically be canning the product, but just taking the air out so it would last a few days longer than just being thrown in a container and placed in the back of the fridge. FoodSaver's Jar Sealer adapter lets you seal jars with the metal tops so you just screw the rings on. It would all be washable and re-usable.
The next step was How to heat? Don't wanna use the microwave, I don't want mush. Can't use the oven because I don't want it to dry out, I don't want the wax to seal if I leave the tops on. Then I thought of a roaster with some water. K now we are getting some where... But water in motion always carries heat better than standing water. Sous Vide... I started looking at the Sous Vide wands and They all look nice but none seem like they would clip to a roaster, plus, they have their own heating element.
I forgot long ago, I found a link to a DIY Sous Vide cooker. He used those coil drink warmers to heat the water. What if I just put a relay control to an outlet that could power the roaster and use the roaster to heat the water?
So I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm gonna get a new hamilton beach 22 quart roaster so I have plenty of room to play with, a small submersible pump (75gph) to circulate the water, a JLD612 controller, a relay to wire a plug to for the roaster, a PT100 temp probe, an electronics box to put everything in and a new vac sealer since mine broke...
The thought behind all of this is that I could do cooking once or twice a month, cook a ton of protein, have a base seasoning to it all, make a sauce or two, have rice and beans or something and then mix and match it throughout the month with various vegetables etc. Or, if I wanted, I could vac seal a steak or chicken breast, throw it in the hot water, take it out, sear the protein on a pan and have a meal. I could vac seal fresh veggies in a sauce, throw it in and there's a meal.. but the bulk of it would be to heat jars of food to mix and match... That way I can buy bulk packs of meat from sams club, cook it all up and have it ready to go, so I'm not cooking my self supper at 12am because I got so tied up with my work I forgot to eat :/
Oh, not that I have an obsession with tex-mex places, Taco Bell has been doing Sous Vide for their pre-made hot products for at least 12 years... I used to work at one and always thought it was so cool you could pull a bag of frozen taco meat from the freezer and throw it in the bath of circulating water, set the timer and it would come out perfect every time.
(taco bell rethermalizer: http://www.pitco.com/Yum!/PDFs/Taco Bell/L20-115.pdf)
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