[Hoot Gibson]

And no telling how much money I have saved not knowing what sous vide means lol

Sous vide is French for "under vacuum" and it is actually a cheap way of cooking. It is a great way to cook tough cuts of meat like pork shoulders or beef brisket. You vacuum pack your food or place it in a Zip-lock bag and remove as much air as possible. Then you submerge it in water and cook it with a device called a sous vide circulator, which is basically a heater that pumps water around in the container. You can control the cooking termperature within one degree. It also allows you to cook food at lower temperatures than other methods of cooking. So, if you want a medium-rare steak, you can cook it at 132 degrees and then grill it over a hot grill or in a skillet to brown the surface.

A sous-vide circulator costs under $100 on Amazon. A lot of fancy restaurants have lower paid cooks prepare food sous vide, which gets finished by a chef. I would prefer doing more smoking and grilling but apartment life makes that difficult.

I had never heard of sous vide until one of my coworkers brought a cooler and a circulator to work and cooked a chicken dish at his desk for a pot luck lunch in the office. It is a great way to cood chicken breasts because it doesn't need to be cooked to 165 degrees. Sous vide kills bacteria with longer cooking times at lower temperatures, which also allows it to turn tough cuts of meat tender.

So, you have probably saved $100, although you would make some of that back by using less electricity or gas and buying cheaper cuts of meat. With a sous vide system and a propane torch, you can get by without a stove heating up the kitchen.