Do you reuse the bags? If so, is there an easy way of getting them clean & dry? I love the Food Saver, but am finding that if I freeze anything greasy (like stew for example) the bag is a major pain to get clean. If there is any trace of residue left the bag won't seal properly. Any hints?

I put the food into a ziploc bag, then press the air out of it and put that bag into the freezer bag.

One of the top brands of vacuum food sealer is FoodSaver. Tilia (FoodSaver) requires 'Channel Bags'. These are custom manufactured for Tilia by 'Sorbent Systems'. They are multilayer bags specially formulated to hold a vacuum.

My Foodsaver is too old to even have a model number. It works as well as the day I bought it. It is heavier then an anvil, but it works as advertised and it has a vacuum port for accessories.

I was shopping for a vacuum sealer today. I sure was interested in a inexpensive source of bag for them. The units themselves weren't too bad, but the price of the refills is outrageous. The rolls worked out to about a dollar per foot of material,which got me thinking how much I would have to save by buying bargain packs of meats and still come out ahead.

We have a FoodSaver that I really enjoy to use when it comes to preserving food that i know i would like to eat later. But when you do get a foodsaver see that it is the one that you would like to work and would be easy for you to handle. I'm not real impressed with the roll storage, not bad for occasional use, but not real handy for production use.

If you talk to fifty chefs you'll get fifty different answers on packaging. Yes, it is addressed extensively in the training materials and during the seminars. Believe it or not, it is not really a big deal. You just look at the options and decide what's best for you and your clients. It is really not a big deal at all, and you could get fifty or more different answers here.

You can freeze a precooked ham that has been refrigerated and in its original wrapping. Be sure to overwrap the ham ensuring an air-tight seal (vacuum package, zipper bag with all the air removed, foil, butcher wrap, etc.). Ham has a quality freezer life of about three months so plan to use the ham by the 4th of July. With a lot of the food that you buy or get from family or friends and you would really like to freeze it just make sure that when you do that that you use the right containter.

I want to cook soups and freeze them in canning jars and have ordered a product online that will vacuum seal these jars for me. I have never canned but I found online that there are canning jars that I can freeze in. I know that I must leave space in the jar for expansion. Do I wait until the soup is cooled off before putting it into the jars? Must I purchase these jars online only? Would the canning jars that they sell at Ace, etc.

Raw hamburger: has a refrigerator shelf life of 2-3 days after purchase. If you do not use the hamburger within 3 days, it should be frozen for future use. It can be frozen either raw or cooked.

Hummus: It has the typical ingredients - chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. Hummus can be refrigerated in a closed container for up to 5 days and can be kept in the freezer in an air-tight container for up to one month.

If she'd just like to sell recipes, not food, there are a few potential markets, many newspapers and magazines offer a recipe column, some grocery stores provide free recipe cards as a service to customers, and a growing number of internet sites will pay for contributions. She can contact editors, webmasters, and managers of publications and/or stores to find out what each would pay.

With the growing awareness of the importance of healthy food, many people are also becoming vegetarian because it matches the kind of low fat, high fiber diet recommended by dieticians and doctors. Concern about the environment is another factor as people become more aware of the effect raising animals for their meat is having on the environment. Or you may be concerned about wasting world food resources by using land to raise animals for meat instead of growing crops that can feed more people directly.