Seal of Approval

As fall comes to a close and winter sets in and it gets colder and darker, we collectively turn our appetites to two major food groups: soups and casseroles.

It makes sense, really. Winter brings with it a sense of defeat. You look outside, see the sun shining, and get your hopes as to what you might do with this beautiful day, only to check your weather app and learn that the temperature is in the single digits and the ‘feels like’ temperature has been replaced by a link to purchase a heated blanket.

In other words, you are left with an excess of time inside but not a lot of vigor. Thus, you need a meal that will warm you up and fill you up. Also, one that requires almost no technique beyond your basic chopping, sautéing, boiling, and/or baking, because, again, who has the energy for anything beyond that these days? Furthermore, it would be nice if said meal cooked for a long time, all the while blasting the stale winterized air inside your home with some delicious smells.

Hence, we return to our original point: it’s the time of year for soup and casseroles.

And certainly, we love a good soup. We love it hot off the stove. And we love the next day when the flavors have really come together sitting in the fridge all night. Also, we love the fact that it’s easy enough to make a whole bunch of soup, or enough for supper one night and then lunch at work a couple days after that.

Casseroles, on the other hand, are a bit harder to scale. If you make something in a 9-by-13-inch pan, you’re going to be eating it for a while (assuming you’re not a family of 10). Yet making a smaller casserole feels like a lot of effort for minimal product. Still, on day one, when that thing’s fresh out of the oven, you’re super excited to dig in!

So, what do you do? How do you keep yourself from cursing the casserole gods when it’s day five of leftover hot dish? You freeze some of it. And how do you freeze something most effectively? You get a good vacuum sealer that’ll remove the air and, in turn, reduce freezer burn.

This is that. But also, it’s more than that because it’s a lot less than that. By which we mean, this is not some whole big contraption you need to set up on your counter just to suck some air out of a plastic bag. Instead, it’s small enough to store in a drawer in your kitchen. Then, when it’s time to seal, you just put the food in the included bags, apply the sealer, and watch the magic happen. Once the meal’s packed, you load it into your freezer and enjoy it at a later date when you’re no longer tired of it.

In this way, your casserole-heavy meal rotation won’t start to feel as depressing and repetitive as the cold weather or the dark nights.

So get one!