I wrote about my initial experience with the SousVide Supreme cooker last month, and I promised I’d follow up with some specific meals we tried in it. Before I continue on, make sure you read that original post if you’re not familiar with the SousVide Supreme (SVS) or cooking Sous Vide in general.

I love lamb, and I especially love lamb when it’s cooked to perfection. Beef has a good range of done-ness that will still make me love it all the same, but lamb … it has to have that perfect, medium-rare temperature for it to really stand out. Being that the SousVide is made for cooking to that perfect temperature, throwing a leg of lamb in that baby was the first thing that came to mind.

Let me again explain the first problem I had with the SVS, besides the initial problem of getting a faulty review unit. The small guide/recipe book that comes with the unit has contradictory and confusing information regarding cooking times. For someone unfamiliar with this cooking method, it can be quite intimidating to see a recipe call for a maximum cook time of 48 hours and a minimum cook time of 24 hours. No, really — apparently you can safely throw a whole leg of lamb in here and cook it for two whole days and not worry about it coming out wrong (not sure I agree, but I’ll come to that later).

In addition to the overwhelming time & temperature chart, the recipes within the book often contradict what the chart specifies — it’s frustrating! Think you can do a simple Google/Bing/Bang/Bong search to find the right cooking times? Not so fast! There’s no definitive guide to be found. Want to call the SVS people to get help? Nope — you’re on your own.

Alright, so getting back to the leg of lamb. We decided that cooking this for two days seemed creepy, so we opted to start cooking it late the night before, around 10 PM or so. We put the kinds of spices we wanted on the meat (salt, pepper, garlic, thyme, rosemary), sealed it in the bag and immersed it in the SVS bath, which was already set to the proper temperature for medium-rare (as defined by the guide book, at least).

Let me share a handy tip for you when trying to get a spiced piece of meat into one of these bags, without getting spices all over the bag seal. Take the bag and fold over the ends so the zipper seal is folder underneath, then put the meat in the bag and seal it up. Makes for a much cleaner seal.

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All week long, over on CliqueClack TV, we’ve been highlighting the non-Friday Black Friday TV-on-DVD deals from Amazon.com. But there’s some great deals on kitchen stuff, too, including gadgets and books — how could we forget? Here are a few notable ones we thought you’d like to be made aware of. Many of these deals run up through Christmas, but you never know when the prices may roll back to their original ones, so act fast!

Books:

• How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition), Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food: 42% off
• So Easy: Luscious, Healthy Recipes for Every Meal of the Week: 56% off
• The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book: 44% off
• The Silver Spoon Pasta (Silver Spoon Book): 47% off

Gadgets and stuff:

• AeroGarden 900100-1200 AeroGarden 3 with Gourmet Herb Seed Kit: 62% off
• Pinzon Wine Pourer, Set of 2: 61% off
• Wüsthof Classic 6-Inch Cook’s Knife: 60% off
• Charcoal Companion CC4051 Portable Baseball Barbeque Grill: 52% off

I got an email from Amazon books today about this Fall into Cooking sale they are having. There are several titles that sound interesting to me. Check them out and see if anything inspires you.

I am especially interested in the Peter Reinhart Artisan breads every day book. The Cinnamon buns recipe listed sounds very good. I will at least have to try it.

There are two things going on at our house right now. One is ensuring that our 3-year-old son, who’s allergic to soy and egg, has enough to eat during and in-between meals. The other is a challenge to eat healthier as a good example for our kids. For some reason, both of those situations have converged over popcorn.

My son has come to love microwave popcorn, particularly Orville Redenbacher, which uses non-soybean based butter. My older kids love it as well. However, eating a bowl or two of the buttery stuff on a daily basis isn’t good for them. So, my wife and I decided the best course of action was to look for a corn popper. That way, the kids could enjoy the popcorn while we controlled the added salt and butter.

Fortunately, thanks to 21st Century technology, we found something that works wonders.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Presto PowerPop Microwave Popper (actually, mutli-popper, but we’ll get to that in a bit). No, it’s not a portable microwave that you may have seen on 30 Rock (and seemed like a terrific idea). This is actually a corn-popping bowl that fits into your microwave and produces fresh popcorn as good as any movie theater worker or Carny makes. And, in the case of the Carny, you don’t feel like you’ve strayed into the middle of Deliverance when your given your box of popcorn.

How does it work? Well, the company line says their “exclusive PowerBase™ and PowerCup® concentrators combine to focus microwave energy so effectively that virtually every kernel pops.” That seems a lot of “blah blah blah,” Mad Men hype. All I know is that it does pop most of the kernels and it’s simple to use. You just put that trademarked PowerBase at the bottom of the registered PowerCup, add a few tablespoons of oil, a half cup of kernels (any type), and microwave for about five minutes. In about three minutes you get a bowl full of popcorn.

Let me append that … you get an overflowing bowl full of popcorn that will cover the bottom of your microwave, your countertop, and your floor. Who knew that a half cup of corn kernels would produce that much popcorn?! Granted, my kids ate it all up, but it was interesting to see. My recommendation: if you want to have popcorn for only two I would reduce the portions of oil and kernels in half.

Now, they call this product a “multi-popper” because it can be used one of two ways: with oil and without. I know they’re folks out there who enjoy air-popped popcorn, so this product may be an advantage to you. Me? I’ve always liked some kind of oil or butter in my popcorn to give it density. By the by, if you do pop with oil you can use any type, including canola, vegetable, olive, and, apparently, motor oil.

So I say, away with you microwave popcorn bags! Good-bye to your greasiness, the bad taste it leaves in my mouth, and the odor that remains in my microwave (and kitchen) for days on end. It’s fresh, popped popcorn for my family from now on!