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Vacuware Airtight Sealing System

Vacuum-Seal Plastic Storage Containers Keep Food Fresh

CAPSULE REPORT: The Vacuware Fresh Food System—containers, bags and jar lids—vacuum-seals your food in just seconds. Can’t finish that loaf of crusty country bread? Only want half an apple? No problem! With Vacuware, you no longer have to throw out stale bread or a browned apple—your food stays virtually fresh. Another great use: marinating. Because there’s no air, the marinade goes right into the food. You can marinate for as little as 15 minutes—or leave your raw seafood or meat marinating for three days! Before long, you’re going to be Vacuware-ing (that’s right, we already use it as a verb) everything in sight!

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Fresh bread is only good when it is well, fresh. As much as we love baguettes, eating the whole loaf in one sitting is a bit much. By the end of the day, it’s toast. The same with extra croissants and other fresh baked goods. Vacuware provides an easy solution: containers, plastic bags and jars with vacuum seals that suck out all the extra air, preventing oxidation and allowing any food to remain fresh-tasting days later. Although the freshness doesn’t last forever, we watched apples and bananas in their Vacuware containers refuse to brown for an entire week.

The key to freshness is in the Vacuware FreshStation, an electric appliance that looks like a modern white phone. The “receiver,” or vacuum, hooks into a green seal located on top of the non-breakable hard plastic containers (or soft plastic bags or jar lids). Then, you push a button on the pump and hold for about 10 seconds; the vacuum hums as it sucks air out, and a green light on the vacuum tells you it’s time to stop. Ta da—an airtight, vacuum seal! To retrieve your potato chips, popcorn, cookies, oysters or whatever, just press down on the green seal and remove the lid.

Rather than use the FreshStation, the more compact FreshPump also does the job—with more elbow grease (think of beating eggs with a wire whisk as opposed to electric beaters). Since it’s small and portable, the size of a corkscrew, and requires no electricity, it can be used on picnics, camping, car trips, boats and other excursions. For testing purposes, we allowed a variety of food to sit in the FreshContainers for about a week. The verdict:

FreshPump: manual work, but no electricity needed.

• Bread: After one day, a sliced baguette remained very fresh—it would have been stale in a plastic storage bag. After one week, well, it was pretty dry, but definitely fresher than it would have been in any non-vacuumed container.
• Chips: Potato chips were still as crisp and delicious as the day they went into the Vacuware.
• Popcorn: Like the chips, the popcorn tasted as if the bag was just opened.

FreshContainers come in three sizes, and can go from freezer to microwave.

Sliced apple: Here was the real test. Apples brown so quickly that we were skeptical that any form of vacuum seal could prevent it. After a week, our apple half had a slight tinge—the kind you’d expect after three hours. We are sold on Vacuware based on the apple test alone. It was truly impressive. We’re confident that any meats, cheeses, soups, desserts or other perishables will hold up admirably. There are all sizes of containers for leftovers, from sandwiches to a pot of stew.

Equally impressive are the FreshPouches, one-time use plastic bags with the same green seal found on the jars and containers. The FreshStation sucked out all the air until the bag was fastened tightly around our croissant. Fast forward one week: We ate a fluffy and buttery croissant that tasted as good as on the day it was baked. You can keep the pouches, along with the FreshPump, at the office, school, or other location to preserve leftovers. Or, use them as a space-savers in the refrigerator at home.

FreshPacks save space at home and are portable anywhere.

PowerMarinating Recipes

In addition to keeping open boxes of cookies and leftovers fresh, Vacuware is a great tool for marinating meat or seafood: As soon as the air pockets are vacuumed out, the marinade has nowhere else to go but into the food. Because there’s no air, you can let your food marinate for as little as 15 minutes—or leave raw seafood or meat marinating for three days! You’ll pick up quite a few recipes for PowerMarinating, but here are two:

Tangy Barbeque Chicken Wings
This recipe can be made in less than a half-hour, but it tastes as if the food has been marinating for much longer.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds of chicken wings
• 2 teaspoons hot sauce
• 1½ cups barbecue sauce
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• ½ cup pineapple juice

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients and toss in the FreshContainer.
2. PowerMarinate for at least 15 minutes or up to three days. Keep sealed and chilled until ready to cook.
3. Grill chicken at 375°F for 10 minutes on each side, basting with the remaining marinade.

Tortellini Salad
Tortellini salad is great for potluck dinners. With Vacuware you’ll have no problem transporting your dish, making an attractive presentation, and storing any leftovers.

Ingredients

• 1 pound cheese or meat tortellini, cooked and cooled
• 1 cup chopped summer squash, in 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup zucchini squash, in 1-inch cubes
• 2 tablespoons chopped Vidalia onion
• 4-6 leaves fresh chopped basil
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
• 1 cup Italian dressing

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients and stir in the FreshContainer.
2. PowerMarinate for at least 15 minutes and up to three days, until ready to serve.

VACUWARE FreshStation, FreshContainers, FreshJar Lids FreshStation, FreshContainer (three), FreshJar Lids (three) $159.96 FreshJar Lids Kit $26.99 Purchase online at VacuWare.com Prices and product availability are verified at publication but are subject to change.

From top left: Freshstation, FreshContainers and FreshJar Lids.

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