BlakeBlog

New Vacuum Sealer

My five year-old Weston vacuum sealer (similar to this model) finally died today. I’m pretty disappointed in this turn of events, as it was only lightly used and was never flooded. I thought $200 would get me a robust unit, but apparently not. It recently started having a hard time sealing the thicker bags that I like to use, but the final straw was that it wouldn’t create a vacuum even after repeated attempts. It sat there buzzing for minutes without evacuating a cubic millimeter of air from the bag. Smacking it around a bit didn’t revive it, but it did make me feel better.

Since I wanted to sous vide a tomahawk steak for dinner tonight, Raina and I ran out to Cabela’s to give their 15” Commercial-Grade Vacuum Sealer a try. After a quick read through the owner’s manual I tried sealing the tomahawks again. This time the sealer generated so much vacuum that the sharp end of the bone managed to poke through even the thick bags I use.

A few seconds with a microplane took the sharp corner off the rib bone and allowed the bag to seal very nicely. The built-in roll holder and cutter are also nice upgrades over my previous sealer, as is the additional width. Raina had to do a little a little reorganizing in the kitchen cabinets to find room for this larger piece of equipment, but if this model holds up better it’ll be worth it.

Haute Dish in Minneapolis is Amazing

Good grief! I've been coming to Minneapolis for work approximately every other week since November, and this evening was the first time I've gone to Haute Dish for dinner. For a small restaurant without any real pretenses, it offered one of the finest gustatory experiences of my life.

It started with a very competent wedge salad with house-made bleu cheese and French dressings. Now, normally that's not a combination I'd associate together, but they made it work admirably. The vegetables were not only aesthetically pleasing, they were intensely flavorful—especially the tomatoes. Everything was sprinkled with "bacon dust" which provided a subtle bit of meat candy flavoring to the entire dish.

Follow that with "a ribeye," which was actually a very trimmed ribeye cut along with the coulette as a separate piece that together must have approached 16 oz. Accompanying the ribeye were steak fries cooked in duck fat, and a beef bone with the marrow done to perfection. In short, this paleo dieter was in heaven!

The only minor downside was that a martini was $13. C'mon, we're not in New York. However, the food was quite reasonably priced given the quality and the portions ($10 for the salad and $32 for the steak). Haute Dish manages to be head and shoulders above Manny's, Ruth's Chris, and other similar restaurants while maintaining a uncomplicated ambiance. Highly, highly recommended.

The Beef is Here!

We picked up our half a cow this afternoon from Morris Grassfed Beef. You can see the pictures over on the right in my flickr photostream. We got about 70 pounds of ground beef, and 101 pounds of steaks, ribs, etc. from this particular beeve. I didn't realize I'd be getting that much ground beef, proportionally, but I'm not complaining—no need to run out for burgers for a long time, plus there's plenty for chilis, too.

I was impressed with the packaging they did. Each cut was individually vacuum sealed in heavy plastic and labeled, and the ground beef was separated into one-pound packages. This will make it really easy to find a particular cut, and the one-pound packages of ground beef are very convenient.

It was all thoroughly frozen and loaded into four brown boxes with cut-outs for easy lifting. I brought a couple of coolers along with me since I didn't know how the beef would be packaged, but it turns out they weren't needed after all.

(One humorous sight when I arrived at the truck to pickup my beef: It looks like a couple families were splitting an order, as there were several open boxes under the shade of a tree, with packages of beef spread all around in little piles.)

This is the first time I've ever bought beef in quantity before; Michelle's family apparently used to do it yearly when she was younger. It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts us and whether we get sick of beef anytime soon. Being the carnivore I am I seriously doubt I'll get sick of it, but the girls aren't quite as enthusiastic. (Heh, more for me. :)

There are also some cuts I don't have a lot of experience with (flatirons, chuck roasts, shanks), so they'll be fun to try out. They might be a great excuse to get a smoker, as all I have is a gas grill right now. The several pounds of stew meat should cook up nicely in a slow cooker come fall and winter, too.

Oh, and why buy meat in bulk? Well, it's the easiest way to get quality grass-fed beef. There are a lot of health benefits to eating beef that grows up on its natural, traditional diet of grass. Most cows these days are at least "finished" on grains, meaning the bulk up on grain in a feed lot prior to slaughter. While the grains do promote faster muscle growth and more marbling, the cows have to get a lot of antibiotics and hormones to counteract the negative effects of the grains on a cow's digestive system. Beeves that eat only grass are much less stressed and the resulting meat is much higher in omega three, CLA, and other healthy acids. The flavor's a little different, too; more "subtle" is the word I'd use to describe it. I don't mean it's bland, but it is a little different. Plus, it's nice to support local farms and small farmers who are good land stewards.

Now, if only that big ribeye would thaw a little faster…