It has been a while since our last post because we have been burning the candle at both ends! To help with our meal planning/prepping we have been learning about a french method of cooking under pressure for an extended period of time to slow cook the food. Many of us have eaten sous vide meals without even realizing it as this method is popular with many restaurants.
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We watched several videos on you tube prior to taking the “plunge”. Our favorite YouTuber is Sous Vide Everything, He does a fantastic job of explaining the process and gives very helpful tips and tricks. While he recommends the Anova or Joule circulators, we are on a budget and went with another recommended model the kitchen boss.
We already had a small vacuum sealer but it just did not perform as we would like, so we also picked up a food saver model on sale at Target. The vacuum is an important part of the process and we are much happier now with the upgraded model. The only issue we seem to have is that this model does not work as well with the mason jar attachment. A little bit of sandpaper removed the letters from the lids giving us a much better seal for our freeze dried foods so we fixed that issue.
Our first attempt, since we LOVE the ones at Starbucks, was of course…eggs! We always have eggs coming out our ears in the spring/summer since our girls are very good producers. We have listed the recipe below for those who want to give it a try, we promise the eggs are delicious 😋
Ingredients
6 eggs
6 tablespoons cottage cheese
½ cup cheddar cheese
½ cup Gruyere cheese finely shredded
¼ teaspoon of salt
¼ teaspoon of white pepper
¼ cup of precooked cubed ham
Directions
- Set your sous vide to 167 degrees.
- In a small skillet, fry the ham over a medium heat until crispy. Set to one side.
- Using a blender, add the eggs, cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, salt, and pepper. Blitz until smooth, around 20 seconds.
- Grease 6 small mason jars with lids. Sprinkle each jar with some Gruyère cheese and a few ham pieces — around a teaspoon each.
- Pour the egg mixture into jars around ¾ full. Carefully screw on the lids, but not too tightly, then place the jars into the sous vide. Cook for 45 minutes, until they’re set.
- Use tongs to remove the egg bites from the water bath and let them cool for around 10 minutes. Then, carefully remove the lids and use a knife to remove your egg bites from the jars. You can also serve them in jars and use spoons to eat them.
Our next attempt was all in with some baby back ribs for our upcoming trip to our off grid property. We pre-seasoned the ribs with everglades seasoning and a rosemary garlic rub. We then vacuum sealed them and cooked them in the sous vide at 185 degrees for 6 hours. When they were finished, we tossed the whole bag into an ice bath to quickly bring down the temp and then they went into freezer camp until it was time to put them in the cooler for the trip.
At camp, we kept them in the refrigerator until everyone was gathered for dinner time. While everyones food was cooking on the grill we opened our bag, slathered a quick bit of Stubbs bbq sauce on them and heated them on the grill for 7 min each side. The true test of a good meal is how easy it is to cut, let us tell you the meat just fell off the bone. We were able to cut them with a plastic knife to share with everyone. We never dreamed that it would make as much of a difference as it did but we can truly say after having one a couple weeks, the food is AMAZING!!!
The Blue Riverhaus 