New Cooking Bags

I recently had the opportunity to try the oven bags made by the same people that brought us FireWire  (see more about firewire here).  Traditionally, I don't use cooking bags because I cannot see the food and most call for lining the bag with flour, something else I don't like to do.

When selecting a size of bag, don't just look at the size on the front.  In the picture above, you can see that these are large bags - they hold 6 - 11 pounds.  However, if you look at the back, when cooking ham, it falls under the extra large.  As I found when i cooked a 9 pound ham, it was related to the irregular shape of the ham.

I opened the bag, put it in a roasting pan then set the ham in the bag.  You could season the meat at this point, but I was not doing that, so I just placed it and sealed the bag with the ties provided.

The instructions say to cut the top corner off of the bag to prevent steam from building up and to allow the meat to brown. 

I did cut the corner off, but I didn't cut enough off and the steam did cause some inability to see the meat later in cooking unless I tapped on the bag.  This was not a big issue for me, but if you prefer to watch your food brown, either cut a larger hole or make a few slits in the top of the bag.

When I removed the ham and cut the bag, it was browned beautifully and extremely juicy.  Juices from the ham remained in the bag and were ready for use in anything I wanted to use it for.  If I had wanted to glaze the ham, I would have cut the top of the bag about half an hour before it was done cooking, added the glaze and returned the ham to the oven.

This bag worked beautifully and I look forward to cooking the geese and ducks that hubby returns from hunting with.  Unfortunately, cooking my Thanksgiving turkey isn't an option as my turkey is 23 lbs.  I will have to see if they carry a Jumbo sized bag that will allow me to do so.  Finally, these bags are microwave save.  You can cook your foods without making it inedible and still keep it moist.