Lettuce in a jar

 I read on Pinterest about putting chopped up lettuce in a jar and vacuum sealing.  I was definitely interested as it keeps up to a week or more.  As this was an American pin, I had to hunt around for the actual manual vacuum food pump.  Neither coles or woolworths stock them.  Not in Kitchen shop, eventually by chance I checked King of Knives in Galleria, lucky me, they did and whats more reduced from $19.95 to $3.95.  Now I know you can get the electrical one, but as I  don't have room for any more electrical gadgets I decided against them, also they are $129 and you need to get another gadget that fits over the lid and could only find that online so even though it was only $10 postage would have had to be included.  This is where the internet is so cool, from the Pinterest pin I went to her blog, and on her blog she had lots of comments.  One of them was on using the manual pump.

 Screw jars with the metal lid that has the rubber seal was the one in the demo, but I only had the twist all in one lid, a used clean jam jar.  So heres how I did it following blog instructions.  Pierce a hole in the middle of the lid with a pin you use on pin up boards, this was easier than I thought it would be.  Put a small piece of tape over the hole, it has to be smaller than the end of the pump so I made mine about half centimetre, only needs to cover the hole.  You leave the tape on after sealing.

chop your lettuce, I used a baby cos and chopped it into bite size pieces

 Stuff into your jar, mine was only a meal size, you can use larger jars and pack in quite firmly.

Place your vacuum pump over the taped hole and pump it up and down about 4 or 5 times.  It will be quite stiff to start with, you will see the lid pull down.  And that is it, to check if you have done it correctly, unscrew the jar, it should be firm and you will hear the seal pop.  You then reseal it when you are convinced just by re pumping.  Keep jar of lettuce in the fridge.  If you use a large jar you can just take enough lettuce out for a meal and reseal the jar.  When you have used all your lettuce up, wash and dry your jar and lid ready for the next lot.  How cool is this.  You can find it on my Pinterest by going to pinterest.comjackymcfarlane, it is on the gardening board, I have heaps of good pins on there.  I will share them with you after I have tried them myself to make sure they work and where to get the tools etc.  Give it a go.  You could make up a small jar and take it to work for your lunch with some loose small tomatoes and other salad ingredients, and a small container of your favourite dressing.