Heat Sealer

When someone accidentally ripped off the zip-top portion of the re-sealable tortilla package I remembered my Doubleseal vacuum heat sealer and used it to close the bag.  I've had this gadget for years and used to use it all the time to package up meats and produce purchased at the farmer's market (where food is simply wrapped in paper).  It both sucks out the air from the package and uses a heated wire to melt and seal the plastic.

I'll admit it has been hiding in my cupboard for a while now but I still occasionally use it to seal up chip and snack bags or bags of rice or beans.  I still have several rolls of the material to make your own bags and I'm definitely going to start using it again to vacuum-seal food before putting it into freezer bags.  Since my daily household head-count will be getting smaller over the next year or so I will have to portion out more foods for the freezer as we down-size our grocery shopping (since I still like to get the 'club-pack' discount!) and I'm sure I will be using my sealer a lot more frequently.

I think it's a worth-while small appliance if you like to take advantage of sales, large-size packages, preserve summer produce, and you rely on the freezer for longer term storage.  I've been checking out the vacuum food sealers on the net and there are several brands availabe these days (eg. FoodSaver, Seal-a-Meal) with more durable material for freezer storage and better vacuum systems.  They've really come a long way since I got my little machine and now I want to upgrade to one of the fancier models myself!

Comments

[JimsQueenie (Vicki Robles)]

We love our seal-a-meal machine and use it a lot for sauces like spaghetti sauce when made from scratch, chili and other soups for that quick supper at night. We also use it to rewrap meats from the store that we buy in bulk. Love, love that machine!!