New Food Saver!

     Anyone that knows me knows I absolutely love kitchen appliances, but I'm also a cheapy and love a good deal on stuff! I will wait and wait to buy something until I can get a good deal on it. I've been wanting a Food Saver, well forever, but wanted to wait on a good deal on one. If I can find what I think is a good deal I don't mind shelling out the money for a brand name appliance. Well as luck would have it I had been talking to my mother in law about wanting one, and she sends me a message a few days later saying she had gotten her BJ's coupon booklet in the mail and it had a coupon for a Food Saver! SCORE!! She was able to purchase them online and I was able to get one for around $99! My only complaint is the bonus extra's we were supposed to receive we didn't receive, we received something else instead. We received the Food Saver, 1 Food Saver Heat Seal Roll- 11inx10ft, 8 Quart Size Heat Seal bags, and 1 2.25 Quart Marinator. She's contacted BJ's about the difference so I'll keep you updated with that.
     Now onto the fun stuff! I was going to wait to use my Food Saver, but then saw an awesome deal in the Kroger ad for Tyson Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts for $1.79 a pound! I was going to order from Zaycon Chicken in March, but I need chicken now. I will probably still end up ordering from Zaycon too. We go through a TON of chicken! We eat it at least 4 times a week, but usually more! I ended up buying 10 packs of chicken breasts, so I ended up with around 20 lbs of chicken breasts, probably a few pounds more. I'll go back towards the end of the week to pick up a few more packs!

 So for starters here's the Food Saver!!

Another thing you will need if you plan on doing something like this is a food scale. I used it to weigh out a pound of the diced chicken breasts to bag up. These bags of prediced chicken save plenty of time and will be used for recipes like fajitas, chicken alfredo, and soups. I got this one at Walmart!

   I decided I was going to use the roll of the Food Saver bags so I could customize the size bags I wanted to use. I made 6 bigger bags for whole chicken breasts and made some smaller ones for the diced chicken. I ended up using the whole roll and had to use some of the one quart bags that came with my food saver. Here's how I made my bags.

Best thing is it has a built in cutter and a built in holder for your roll! So all you have to do is pull out enough of the material and decide how big of a bag you want. Then simply place it under the cutter and cut!

After you have your bags all cut and ready, next you have a seal. The neat thing about this is all you have to do is slide the bag into the machine and it does all the work. For sealing you just press the Stop/Seal button and it will just seal the bag.

Now your bags are ready!

Another helpful tip is make sure you have all your work supplies ready! I suggest a really good chef's knife and a cutting board!

In all it took me maybe 30-40 minutes to cut, weigh, bag, and seal over 20 pounds of chicken! Best thing is I don't have to worry about freezer burn! I'm so excited about this product! It's awesome! I can see how it could save money, and will end up paying for itself in the long run!

Here's the finished product! I was able to freeze 4 packs that had each 3 whole chicken breasts, 2 packs that each had 2 chicken breasts, 5 packs that each had 1 lbs of diced chicken, 4 packs that each had 1 lb of Teriyaki marinated diced chicken, and one pack that held all the leftover pieces of chicken. When I'm bagging up chicken I like to cut off the ends or the pieces that have leftover skin or fat on them and save them up for when I make chicken and dumplings. I usually throw these pieces in the stock before I cook my chicken.