Sous Vide Cooking

 Have you ever heard of Sous Vide Cooking?  I have heard of it but never had tasted it. 

According to Wikipedia, Sous Vide is the French for under vacuum.   Sous Vide Cooking is known as low temperature long time cooking which is a method of cooking in which the food is place in a plastic pour and cooked in a water bath for longer than usual cooking times at a precisely regulated temperature.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to review a Sous Vide device and over the past week-end, we have cooked not once but twice with it.

The pictures included in this post show you the second meal we have made which was a roast.

We have put the roast in a plastic bag and remove the air in the bag using a vacuum sealer machine.  You can also use a Ziploc bag and press carefully to remove all the air.

Afterward, we set up the Sous Vide cooking device on either a pot that can contain a large quantity of water or a Sous Vide container like this one below.

Our Sous Vide device is KitchenBoss G320 model.  This one is somewhat different than other models on the market as it allows the water to circulate in the container allowing the meat to be cook equally.  This model possess a color LCD allowing you to pick an already set mode or set your own mode like we did below.   We have set the temperature to 140F and the cooking time to 2 hours.

Once the water has reached the desired temperature, you simply have to put your bag in the water to cook it.

 

Once cooked, we can cook the meat to grill it - this usually take less time that you would do usually since you already cooked it sous vide style.  For the roast, we cooked it approximately for 15 minutes in the air fryer.  Look at this beautiful piece of meat!  

We really enjoyed both the meals we have done with the sous vide kitchen tool.   This has become my husband favorite item in the kitchen apart from the air fryer.

The meat was so tender it was almost unbelievable.  Everyone enjoyed their meal when we used it.  

Below are the items we use for sous vide cooking:

KitchenBoss Sous Vide G320

Automatic Vacuum to remove the air 

Rubbermaid 12 Quart Container

Philips Air Fryer XXL 

Two items that we would like to add eventually would be:

Cover for the Rubbermaid 12 Quart Container

 

The rack to hold items in the Rubbermaid Container

Have you ever eaten something cooked Sous Vide?   I would strongly recommend that you try it out.  It is definitively an item that will be part of our lives for years to come.   We look forward in discovering other type of meat to cook with this technique. 

Bon Appétit!

Philips Viva Airfryer with Turbostar

A few years ago, I won the prize of the first ever Pinterest contest at a store in town.  With the money, I was able to purchase a T-Fal Actifry.  This purchase introduced us to the joy of airfrying.   However, after many years of usage our machine broke and we had not had the time to replace it yet when the opportunity to review the Philips Viva Airfryer on Amazon Vine Voices showed up.  Without hesitation, I decided to select this item to review.  We were just starting to miss our old airfryer and were debating if we should get another one or not.

The Philips Viva Airfryer allows the hot air to circulates with speed and precision all around the item you want to cook.   The airfryer itself is built in such a way that you can include a double layer rack in order to maximize the cooking surface.   This specific model is quite small and enables you to cooke approximately 800 gr. of food.

The beauty of an airfryer in a home is that you can use little to no oil in your cooking.   The food is cooked evenly and the taste is absolutely sublime.

The first item we decided to cook were chicken thighs (with bones).   However, So I places three thighs at the bottom and inserted the rack to put the three other ones.   It was all you could insert in it.

The cooking was not as evenly as I would have liked that first time.  We suspect that it was because of how the chicken thighs were placed in the airfryer.   Three of them were stunning and crunching while the other ones were cooked but not as golden looking as the ones that were on the top.

Note that we made the same kind of chicken another time but instead of placing it with the rack, we decided to put the pieces of chicken sideways.  And as expected the chicken thighs were beautiful cooked all six of them.  Success!

A few days later we made french fries with the airfryer.  They were delicious!

Searching for more information on the Philips Airfryer, I have discovered that a bigger model (the XL) do exists in the US but it is not available in Canada yet.  Being a family of six people, we would prefer to have more possibilities with the Airfryer which means a bigger model.  However, we can easily make enough french fries, chicken and even shrimps for everyone at the table.  Worse case scenario if we have guests we can also do two batches of cooking.   Planning will be the key of success in that case.

The Philips AirFryer comes also with a recipe booklet.  Many more recipes can be found online as well.

Our experience with the Philips Airfryer is very positive.  This product is fabulous and I really like it better than the one we had before hand for various reasons.  But the main reason would be how easy it is to clean it up when you are done.  

The Philips Viva Airfryer with Turbostar, Double Layer Rack, Black, HD9622/96 is available for purchase on amazon.ca.

Disclaimer: This product has been provided courtesy of Amazon.ca Vine Voices for review purpose. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by Amazon.ca or the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Philips Avance Pasta Maker with Integrated Scale

I’ve always wanted to make my own pasta but the process seemed a bit too much for me – lots of time and patience was needed.   Even when my husband got me a KitchenAid mixer which also has attchments to make pasta I decided against it.

So imagine my delight when I saw the Philips Avance Pasta Maker available for review on Amazon Vine Voices. I did not hesitate one second and decided to take the opportunity to review this kitchen appliance.

While waiting for the delivery, I proceeded to look at some videos on how to use it.  The more I watched, the more I was getting excited.  I mean this machine was looking absolutely perfect in many ways.  Not only could you decide the type of flour you will use but you could also be original in the liquid to incorporate as well.   Want orange pasta?  Use carrot juice.  Want green pasta?  Use spinach juice. Want pink pasta?  Use bee t juice.   You could even obtain black pasta with squid ink.  You can incorporate spices to make your pasta more interesting.    And in 15 minutes you will get a plate full of delicious pasta for your family.

The HR2358/05 model possess an auto-weighting which weighs the flour and indicates the correct amount of liquid for the perfect texture.   The model also comes with eight shaping discs to make spaghetti, fettucini, penne, lasagna, angel hair, thick spaghetti, tagliatelly and pappardelle.   You will also found in the box a flat scrapping and cleaning tool, a flour cup and water cup as well as a free recipe book with over twenty different recipes to make.

The process is quite easy to follow.  Plug your machine and decide the type of pasta you want to make (basically you choose between regular pasta or egg pasta).  We decided to make egg pasta.  Pour the flour in the machine, close the lid and the machine will indicate how much liquid you need to incorporate.  Note that the liquid cup already contains two eggs because we were doing a double recipe for our family of six.   The book indicates that a double recipe would be enough pasta for 3-4 main meal or 8-10 side dish.  Seeing we are a family of six, I was wondering if I needed to make a double recipe followed by a single recipe.  We decided to stick with only a double recipe.

Once the machine starts, you will have to pour the liquid slowly in order for the pasta to mix equally.

Then for about 2-3 minutes the machine will mix the flour with the liquid. 

Once that time has passed, the pasta already comes out.  We have selected the spaghetti disc for our lunch.

Every once in a while you take the pasta in your hand and proceeded to cut it using the scraping/cleaning tool.  It is so easy to do that my nine years old daughter could do it.

 

Once the bulk of the dough has gone through the disc, the pasta maker will reverse in order to collect the leftover dough and then proceed to push the dough back in to make more pasta.  This happened twice in the 15 minutes it took to make the pasta.

And seriously, we had enough pasta for the whole family.   All we needed to do now was to boil the pasta in hot water.   It took about 4-5 minutes to boil it.

Lunch was super delicious too!   We knew exactly what was in the pasta we made and it was quick to do.

The fact that we can choose the type of flour, the ingredients as well as the liquid makes the Philips Pasta Maker a versatile kitchen appliance. Here’s another advantage to own the Philips Avance Pasta Maker – you can make cookies too!   You can purchase two extra discs which will allow you to make low fat healthy cookies for your family.

This machine is definitively a keeper in our family.   Everyone really like the texture and the taste of the pasta it made and the process was very easy to do.  To top it off, the pasta made with this machine can be store in ziploc bags and put in the freezer for future use.   This is definitively an huge bonus for our family.   We plan to make pasta in advance and freeze it.   My oldest kids also plan to make pasta for a challenge at youth called Master Chef.   Having fresh pasta for a meal they cook during a youth night that will be judge by the leaders would definitively give them an advantage.   

The Philips Pasta Maker is a great gift for a wedding, a birthday, or Christmas. 

The Philips Avance Pasta Maker with Integrated Scale is available for purchase at amazon.ca.

 

You can also get a model without the scale too!

 

And do not forget the extra discs for the cookies.

Disclaimer: This product has been provided courtesy of Amazon.ca Vine Voices for review purpose. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by Amazon.ca or the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Pixie Espresso Machine with Aeroccino

I have been introduce to the Nespresso coffee when I had the opportunity to review Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus back in October.  So I will admit that I was not thinking of getting another Nepresso machine but when the Pixie Espresso Machine was available for review on Amazon Vine Voices, I was curious – could it be that small?   After talking with my husband about it, he thought it would be great for our RV since we are limited in space.    The box is a bit large but once you open it you can see that it is packed strategically.

When I received the Pixie machine I knew we had made a great choice in selecting this machine to review.  The machine is very slim – only 4.33 inches wide which hardly use any space on a counter.   You cannot design a coffee machine more compact that this one! The size of it is perfect for small kitchen or an RV!   It is also very portable since it weighs only 8 lbs.   The coffee machine itself is composed of three main parts – the section that includes the capsule container, the drip tray and its grill, the coffee outlet itself, and the water tank.   Fill the tank with water, select one of the Nespresso coffee capsule, and voilà you are ready to make a delicious specialty coffee from the comfort of your home.  Two buttons are located on the top of the machine which allow you to select the capacities of the coffee you desire to make – espresso (40ml) or Lungo (110ml).     These two capacities can also be reprogrammed to custom volumes.    From the first cup of joe you will have with this machine you will be able to smell the beautiful aroma of the coffee capsule during the brewing process.  

The container of water in the back of the machine will contain approximately 0.5 liters of liquid.  

This specific machine is designed for domestic use only.  This means that if you are considering getting this machine for a business you should not purchase it – unless of course that you have a home business.

Another device is included in the box – the milk frother.   To froth milk you should use whole or low-fat milk that has been refrigerated.   Using it is quite simple – fill the milk frother up to one of the two “max” level, place the lid on the Aeroccino, and press the button to start.  You can either have a hot milk froth or a cold milk froth with it.   And let me tell you that this makes the best hot chocolate you would drink.   Absolutely divine!

If you decide to purchase this coffee machine, you will also receive a Nespresso capsule tasting gift which will introduce you to marvellous flavours of coffee.   Nespresso capsules can only be purchased at the Nespresso website or at their stores located in malls throughout the country.

Bottom line, this machine is perfect for small spaces like in our RV or in apartments where you do not have a lot of counter space or in your kitchen if you prefer to have only a small coffee machine (or you are the only one drinking coffee for that matter!).    The machine is the perfect size and do not weigh a ton.   It is easy to use and will provide delicious drinks with the Aeroccino.   You have everything in one box to make fabulous coffees and to simply relax without waiting in line to get your hands on  your drink.  

The Pixie Espresso Machine with Aeroccino is available for purchase at your favorite store, even on amazon.ca and amazon.com.

 

Disclaimer: This product has been provided courtesy of Amazon.ca Vine Voices for review purpose. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by Amazon.ca or the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

DeLonghi Electric Milk Frother

My kids enjoy having a warm cup of cocoa every once in a while during the winter time.  However, I dislike the taste of hot chocolate made with water and much prefer making it with warm milk.  But putting mugs in the microwave sometimes cause spills when the milk bubbles too much.  A solution would be to have a milk frother and I am quite please with the opportunity to review the DeLonghi Electric Milk Frother.

This kitchen appliance resembles to a miniature kettle.   I would say it is about half the size of a kettle.  It could be store easily in your armoire or left on the counter top.   Using this particular milk frother is very easy – even a child could do it.

You pour milk in it, put back the top over it and the little spinning tool will do it’s magic while frothing the milk.   You can decide to make hot chocolate or simply pour the milk in your coffee if you desire.   

This is how the milk looks like when the frothing is finished.

And it makes a fabulous hot chocolate that is completely divine!

What is particularly interesting with this specific milk frother is that you will have the possibility to froth cold milk as well so that you can have ice cappuccinos.  

As I mentioned, the milk frother is easy to use and even a child could use it.  However, the jug cannot go into the water so it would be preferable that an adult or a responsible child clean it up after use.    You can only wipe a damp sponge or cloth in it in order to remove the residues of the milk you have used.   Apart from that making frothed milk was a breeze.   The appliance is very quiet and it will take about 1 minute or 2 before you get your frothed milk.  

This would make a great gift for someone who desire to have frothed milk in their coffee without spending a fortune on a machine.    It makes delicious hot chocolate that my kids have enjoyed to the last drop.    Quick and easy frothed milk at your disposition anytime you desire.

The Delonghi Electric Milk Frother is available for purchase at your favorite store, even on amazon.ca and amazon.com.

 

Disclaimer: This product has been provided courtesy of Amazon.ca Vine Voices for review purpose. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by Amazon.ca or the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus

I recently received the new Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus.  This new machine will be available on the market in October.  Right after I selected this item from Vine Voices I debated about where I would put it due to the fact we already had another coffee machine from another company.   We thought that this specific Nespresso Creatista Plus would take a lot of counter space in our kitchen.   The product was quickly shipped to me and when I received the box I was surprised – not only it isn’t that big but it naturally fit next to our other machine.   In a way both machines are different – one being more specialized than the other…

The Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus is the first Nespresso machine able to create a barista-calibre latte art.  The partnership of Breville’s customizable Oracle microfoam milk frothing technology with Nespresso’s convenient portioned coffee system makes it possible.   Now I do not have any experience in doing art in latte but I am willing to try for sure.   Before I venture to this new “art” I will check on Pinterest for how-to lessons and ideas.

The first night we got the Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus, my husband and I decided to make a Latte Macchiato and share it.   The instructions in the manual were very clear and numerous images will guide you to do it properly.   We selected the capsule we wanted and our coffee was quickly made before our eyes.  The next day, my 15 year old son came to me and asked if I could make him one to which I said I will make one and we can share it together.   He really enjoyed drinking this and he also learned how to use the machine at the same time.

Now it is specified in the user manual that for best texturing results, it is recommended to use 3.25% milk – even the 2% milk would deliver results..   Well we usually buy skim milk and I knew that I could easily request skim milk when ordering a latte at McDonald’s.  Since we didn’t had any whole milk in the house, we decided to try it with our skim milk.  Result – it frothed pretty well.  The beauty of this machine is that I can adjust the milk temperature and the texture to create a wonderful café experience from the comfort on our home.  I am debating to try it with soy milk to see if the frothing will work with this as well.  

The machine itselt is very stylish.   The water tank is located in the back of the machine which could be an issue for certain people who would prefer not to move the machine all the time to fill it up.  However, the tank is quite large and numerous coffee cups can be made out of that water.   There are various things that I am quite impressed with the Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus; 1) the removable drip tray, 2) the pop out cup support , 3) the capsule container, and finally 4) the display.

The removable drip tray is very useful as it will receive the steam produce from the milk wand when it is cleaned.  The machine cleans the wand every time you use the milk frother by using steam.   The steam turns to water and is collected in the removable drip tray.  You have two choices when this happen, you can decide to clean the drip tray every time you use it or you can decide to let the water there until the indicator let you know that the drip tray is full.   Yes the drip tray possess an indicator which will lit up if the tray is full.    Personally, since I am not using the machine on a daily basis, I prefer to clean it right away.

The machine also has a pop out cup support allows you to use smaller kind of cups (if you possess any of them).  For example, if you have espresso cup, you could use the pop out cup support in order to bring you espresso cup close to the coffee spout and avoid spills to be made. 

The capsule container is a nice bonus on this machine.  You can see that the engineers behind this specific machine has thought of all the little things that would be nice to have in a specialized coffee machine.  The container is nicely hidden above the pop out cup support and can be accessible by a simple push on it.  The capsule container receives the coffee capsules once the coffee is made.  Simple yet so useful when you come to think about it.   I was first introduce to this kind of idea when I took a coffee cup at the orthodontist when my son was having an appointment.  their coffee machine was a bit more sophisticated than mine as it was a business one but I liked the idea very much.  Now my Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus is doing it too!

The display is very easy to use.  Before you even start using the machine, you will go through a little training with the display in order to show you how/when to press the buttons.   There are two buttons – the start/cancel button and the select dial which navigate left or right to allow you to select your drink.   If you press the select dial, you will be able to adjust the espresso volume, the milk temperature or the milk froth.   The display itself is very clear and also display images during the steps of making the coffee.   Depending of the type of drink you have selected, you might have to press the start/cancel button a couple of times.  

There are a few other things that impressed me quite a bit with the Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus.  First, you can empty the system if you will have a period of non-use or for frost protection.   This is definitely not an option on the machine we have at our RV.  Consequently, we need to bring the machine back home to make sure the water do not freeze in it during the winter.   And when spring time come, I need to proceed with a huge clean up before bringing it back to the RV because the water had sat in it for a long period of time.   Anyhow, having this option on the Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus is great for people who would prefer to leave it in their RV or cottage during the winter.  Second, the machine minimizes power use when not making a drink.  The display itself will dims after 2 minutes of no use and will turn itself off after 10 minutes.   However, it would be nice to have a shut off button of some sort for families where only one person drink coffee.  Third, the system also has a milk system cleaning procedure that is recommended to perform on a monthly basis in order to prevent steam tip blockages.

A descaling process is also recommended and you will have to use the Nespresso descaling kit to do so.   At this point in time, I am unsure how much this kit cost.

Needless to say our first hesitation was totally wrong.  This machine is a beauty in itself, will provide you with delicious coffee not made by a regular coffee machine and could be a wonderful addition on your counter top.  

The Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus would be a wonderful gift for someone in your life who really enjoy coffee whether for a birthday, Christmas, or a wedding gift.

UPDATE:   One day I wanted to make a hot chocolate.   However, I totally dislike hot chocolate made out of water.  I usually warm up the milk in the microwave but as I looked at the Breville Nespresso Creatista I wondered if I could froth the milk only.   It turns out that you can choose the option of dealing with only milk and doing so I frothed the milk and then poured it in a cup containing my hot chocolate powder.  The result was impressive.  It was the most delicious hot chocolate I ever had!

The Breville Nespresso Creatista Plus is available for purchase on Amazon Canada.

Disclaimer: This product has been provided courtesy of Amazon.ca Vine Voices for review purpose. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by Amazon.ca or the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

Braun MQ505 Multiquick Hand Blender

The Braun MQ 505 Mutiquick Hand Blender is the perfect tool to have at home or at the RV when it comes to make quick recipes that require blending, mixing or whipping.

The hand blender will fit perfectly in your hand and is quite light to use. 

The motor is German-engineered and offers you the PowerBell system which blends rapidly and finely.  This technology is exclusive to Braun.

Two attachment comes with this device: the beaker and the whisk.   I have used the whisk while make brown sauce to accompany our supper one night.  I decided to whisk the powder in the water before cooking it over the stove in order to thicken it.   This allowed me to avoid have chunks of powder stuck together.  The sauce was beautifully mixed when I was ready to thicken it.  We also used the MQ505 hand blender to mix our greens in water at supper time.  It did a marvelous job at mixing them without the noise of the regular blender we normally use.  

The attachments are easy to remove for cleaning by simply clicking on the sides of the device.   You will also see that there are two levels of power which will allow you to had some boost while mixing a sauce or making guacamole.  Be aware that the whisk itself needs to be remove from the plastic attachment in order to be cleaned.   The second attachment with the beaker and the whish only can be put in the dishwasher.

Also included in the box you will obtain a 600ml plastic beaker which is great to mix your ingredients without being splashed in the process.  This container is also dishwasher safe.

Numerous recipes can be found directly on the Braun website - http://www.braunhousehold.com/en-us/braun-inspiration/recipes/braun-hand-blender-recipes.

This hand blender is perfect for the kitchen at home or at the RV.   We are considering bringing it to our RV in order to be able to mix dips that we eat sometimes like guacamole for example.   This is a great tool that I think should be own by any family.   

One thing I would like to see in the future would be to have a rechargeable version of the hand blender which will remove the awkward cord out of the way when you use it. 

The Braun MQ 505 Hand Blender is available at your favorite store, even on amazon.ca and amazon.com.

  

Disclaimer: This product has been provided courtesy of Amazon.ca Vine Voices for review purpose. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by Amazon.ca or the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.