Slaughter:
Off topic (kind of)
You will be happy to hear you now have me hooked on Sous-Vide (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide), we've had one of those foodsaver vacuum sealing machines in our kitchen for years but seldom used it (
http://www.amazon.com/FoodSaver-V3835-V ... aver+v3835). Since watching some of your videos, we have started using the vacuum machine for cooking (sous-vide) as well as food storage for camping (pre made frozen meals cooked and sterilized in the vacuum sealed bags, then frozen). I feel much safer and the food stays pretty safe much longer than anything we have tried before.
Your suggestion about freezing juicy food first is nothing short of brilliant (we have always had a problem with that). After freezing and sealing, the food can then be sterilized in the vacuum bag, then re-frozen (brilliant).
Last week I got some 2 inch thick pork chops at the butcher (pretty much impossible to cook normally, unless you like burnt offering), doing them in the vacuum bag (saus-vide) then finishing them on the grill they came out perfect medium rare and juicy. I've also done steaks, and fish, and everything comes out perfect medium rare every time. We have one of those Nu-wave PIC induction cookers (
http://www.nuwavecooktop.com/?ref_versi ... -TRADEMARK). These have really precise temp control ( I tested ours and it maintains whatever temp you dial in plus/minus a couple degrees), great for sous-vide cooking and not very expensive at all (compared to any sous-vide cookers we have found). The best part is it is small and light weight and uses very little power (as compared to an electric or gas cook top). We use the PIC cooktop when dry camping with our camper, it runs for long periods of time with just the battery in the camper and a small inverter so we don't have to run our generator (which is very expensive to run).
It looks to me like you developed your excellent scupper cart idea (great idea) out of necessity so you can get across the sand to prepare your fantastic meals ( LOL). I think I've learned more about camp cooking on this Hobie forum from you and Keith that any place else.
Bob