A while back, there was a thread in which I picked up what seemed like a fantastic tip for cooking omelettes (or something resembling them) by putting the ingredients in zip-seal bags and immersing them in boiling water.
I thought this would be ideal for camping, because of the dish washing hassles, plus it should make it easier to cater for people who don’t like one or more of the ingredients on offer.
Anyway, it doesn’t work. I thought I’d try it out at home on the weekend - I put a plain two-egg omelette mix in one bag, another with cheese and mushrooms and a third (mine) with onions, mushrooms, chorizo and red peppers. I placed the bags gently into the boiling water and waited.
After about a minute, I went back to check and two of the bags had split open and their contents were ruined.
The plain one was still intact - it looks as though the oils in the cheese and sausage had risen to the top of the mixture and dissolved the plastic - being more or less in the water, the oil can’t have been much hotter than 100 celsius, but I guess it’s just that fats and oils start dissolving the plastic at that temperature.
So, it was a fantastic idea, flawed only slightly by the fact that it doesn’t work.
The plain one was OK - the plastic seemed quite soft, but it wasn’t anywhere near dissolving. They were just zip seal multipurpose food bags - fairly cheap but not those really flimsy ones intended for sandwiches only or something.
Presumably, given your username, you ate the resulting watery mess anyway?
Well done on fighting this particular piece of ignorance. Are you sure the plastic melted? It would seem to me that the air in the bags would expand and cause them to explode that way, or am I missing something?
Never had a bag break, but the results where two moist for me. Wet wet would be a better word. I think some of the moisture needs to evaporate from the eggs.
I squeezed out as much as I could of the air before sealing them - I’m pretty sure they didn’t just burst - the two containing oily things split horizontally along a line approximately level with the top surface of the contents.
And no, this time, I didn’t eat it - I couldn’t be sure I’d removed all the plastic.
We used it recently when camping, and it worked well. We did not, however, have oily additions. I bet you’re right that it was the oil from the cheese and chorizo that dissolved the plastic. We used eggs, red sweet peppers, sliced mushrooms and sliced onion. Once it was cooked, we put it on a plate and then added cooked ham and shredded cheese - the heat was enough to warm the ham and melt the cheese. Used Ziploc brand freezer bags.
But for the OP: my favorite piece of advice that doesn’t actually work is: “Exercise - you’ll get more energy!” Uh, no. Finally a while back a few Dopers confessed to me that exercise sucks and always sucks and you just do it anyway. Maybe a few mutants out there get more energy from exercise, but not everyone.
That’s interesting. I always note that my general energy level rises after a good workout. Not if I work myself to exhaustion, but just a good cardio workout where your heart rate stays up for 20 minutes or so.
We’ve actually done the omelets in a bag several times and they’ve always turned out great! It’s true, though; make sure to squeeze all of the air out first. I was truly amazed that it worked. Open bag, perfectly formed omelet rolls out. I do kind of miss the crispy bits, but, overall, they were quite the success. We even just used regular strength bags. We had a build-your-own omelet party for brunch once (set out bowls of veggies, meats and cheeses) and it was a lot of fun! Sorry it didn’t work for you.
I agree. If I do a good cardio workout, followed by some light weights and a little yoga, after a nice shower, I could conquer the world. I’m energized, but also relaxed. It’s a fabulous feeling.
I also find that I have more energy *all the time * when I’m working out regularly. If I go a few days without working out, I find myself dragging.
Exercise “advice”: For me, when I exercise regularly and have a lot of things going on, I don’t find myself as tired and worn out at the end the day. Because I’m exercising, I tend to sleep better.
When I recently fell off in exercising regularly (and didn’t do much else), I was dragging and had low energy all of the time. I also had trouble sleeping, probably creating a cycle.
"Cell phone advice": I recently received an email that had been forwarded from somewhere on “tips that people don’t generally know about their cell phone.” One was, if you battery power has run low, press “*” and some combination of numbers and it pulls up a reserve from somewhere, then presto – you’re good to go for another few hours.
I tried it once when my battery was low.
The screen on my phone showed :dubious: and the battery power remained the same.
I remember making eggs in a bag in Guides… don’t recall ever having the problem of bags exploding from cheese (I’d always toss cheese and ham in mine). I also don’t recall pushing all the air out of the bags either. They were more like scrambled eggs than an omelette, but still good.
As a college freshman, I had a great idea. A jar of honey, a packet of baking yeast from the grocery, and I’d have Viking mead in a few weeks! No. For several reasons, it didn’t work.
Oh, well. I’ve spent more money than that on dumber shit. :smack:
Speaking of using Ziplock type products, anyone try the “ice cream in a bag” recipe? Put the ingredients in a bag, stick in freezer, mush around every half hour, presto! A product that is almost, but not quite, totally unlike ice cream. It’s dairy based, and has flavor, is also really cold, but there the similarities end. Not ice cream, not a quiescently frozen treat, a bastard hybrid of the two.
The Fish In A Bottle trick. You take a glass jar, fill it with water, and put in a live minnow. Tie a string on the jar and hang it several feet below your boat. In theory, predatory fish like crappie or largemouth bass will spot the minnow trying to get out, and they’ll strike at the jar repeatedly. They get so frustrated, they’ll hit any lure you drop near the jar.
Didn’t work for me.
Deer whistles. These little plastic things stick on the front of your car, and they supposedly make a high-pitched noise to make a deer stop, look up, and say “WTF?” There may be evidence that they work, but I haven’t seen any.
I do this with two cans -like a peanut can and a coffee can. Put cream and flavorings (sliced strawberries are good) in the smaller can, the smaller can in the bigger can, and salt and ice in the space 'tween the two. Duct tape the lids to both cans.
Then toss the can to a few kids in a field. Let 'em play ‘soccer’ for 15 minutes. Presto ice cream.
