What did you buy that improved your life?

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Reusable, vacuum sealable ziplock bags. Cuts back on waste & lengthens the shelf life of most foods.
It’s also really nice to be able to buy bulk meats & be able to separate them into vacuum sealed single servings.
And last but not least, it really helps with using the sous vide. I like being able to separate a bulk package of chicken into individual meals with different marinades. Just pull a bag out & defrost it, then it’s 90 seconds a side to gourmet meals midweek.
- How reusable have you found the bags to be? I recently (as in, just today) started looking into getting one, but I don't want to be constantly throwing out bags.
  
  I’ve found that with proper care & paying attention to what I use each bag for helps.
  If I use a bag say for tandoori chicken sous vide…
  When the chicken’s done, I rinse the bag thoroughly, fill it to ¼, add a lil soap, seal it up, & put it back in the sous vide bath, while it’s still warm.
  Let it cool off & then give it a rinse & scrub, before drying.
  It’s gentler on the bag than the dishwasher, but still gets it sanitary & clean.
  I’ll try to continue using that bag for chicken, if not specifically tandoori chicken.
  This is where having two different colors can be helpful. I use gray for meat & blue for everything else.
  Blue bags obviously last a bit longer, but this current batch of gray is a year old & still in decent shape.
- What brand did you get?
  
  Just went with a generic option. I have some that have blue zip tops & some with gray.
  The one big recommendation I can make is to get one with a battery powered suction pump. They’re little bit more expensive, but the handheld pumps have broken on me in the past.
  This is the latest brand I purchased.
  
  Thanks!

196 comments