New Year’s Eve is a fantastic opportunity to reflect on the highs and lows of the previous years; to commiserate the losses and celebrate the wins. More importantly, it’s a night for looking ahead at all of the exciting opportunities that the new year can bring. Whether you choose to celebrate New Year’s Eve with your nearest and dearest or you’re a fan of bigger celebrations, hosting New Year’s Eve can involve a lot of planning and preparation work. If you’re looking to make your New Year’s Eve as streamlined and as stress-free as possible, your vacuum packer can help.
Preparing for the party
Preparing for the party is half the battle when it comes to hosting, but not to worry, it doesn’t have to be a long and stressful task. You can use your vacuum packer to your advantage to multi-task cooking and cleaning.
Prepare the party food in advance
If you’re opting for nibbles and party food, you can prepare your food well in advance. Fresh food including salads, greens, dips and fruits can be bought and prepared up to 2 weeks in advance. Simply vacuum pack and store in your fridge and serve moments before your guests arrive.
Take the stress out of cooking
If you’ve opted for a sit down meal and are concerned about catering to so many guests at once, you can use your vacuum packer. Meats and fish can be seal packed and then sous vide. This involves dropping the seal-packed produce into a pan of boiling water and letting it cook. You can prepare and season the meat or fish ahead of time and drop the packages into the water as and when needed. You can also use the sous vide method to prepare dessert. If you’re opting for fruit pies you can sous vide the fruit ahead of time and ladle the cooked fruit into your pastry when you’re ready to bake. If you’re opting for a jam or preserve-based dessert you can use your vacuum packer to seal the jars and keep the jam fresh.
Organise your house
If your guests are going to be staying the night - or maybe even a few nights - and you’re running out of storage space, or your house is a bit chaotic in the aftermath of christmas, you can use your vacuum packer to seal out of season or spare clothes into neat little bundles that can be tucked out of sight or in the attic. This will free up a lot of wardrobe space for your guests to use and will protect your belongings from dust or getting musty.
The aftermath of the party
Sadly, hosting doesn’t end once the countdown hits New Year. The next day you’ll probably have lots of cleaning up to do. Use your vacuum packer to make light work of this (and go back to nursing your hangover!).
Keep the wine fresh
If you have opened bottles of wine that you don’t want to go to waste, you can use a special attachment for your vacuum packer that will suck the air out of the bottles and seal them tight. Your wine will stay fresh for up to 14 days.
Make the most of your leftovers
Seal and store leftover food in individual servings and keep in your freezer. Vacuum sealed frozen food can last up to 3 years and you can save the hassle out of hosting your next party by making the most of what you already have prepared. You can also vacuum seal crisps, nuts and popcorn to keep them from going stale.
Keep lost items safe
If you have forgetful guests who’ve left behind valuable possessions, you can keep them safe and protected by vacuum sealing them. Whether it’s coats and scarves that you want to protect from stains or jewelry that you’re keen to keep safe, your vacuum sealer is the perfect way to look after these goods in the short or long term.
Looking ahead
Your vacuum packer is something that you can make the most of year-round.
Get a head start on your New Year’s resolution
It tops the list of resolutions year after year: Getting in shape. For a lot of us, creating and sticking to a healthy diet is the biggest stumbling block. It can be difficult to find the time to prepare and cook fresh meals every day. Try meal prepping!. You can use your vacuum packer to prepare meals in advance and keep them in the freezer for those days when you just can't face cooking, or you can spend a couple of hours each week to shop and prepare veggies, fruit, grains, salads, meat etc. and seal in individual portions. You can keep these packs in the fridge and just grab what you need each day. Your food will keep fresh and delicious, there’ll be less food waste, and you’ll be less likely to give in and order a takeaway if the hassle of cooking has been removed.