An alternative method of cooking

Keep in mind this method assumes you have some sort of DC power. In a different post I read (not sure which one) someone mentioned having a small wind generator to use at nights.

Assuming you have this small wind generator and a battery or two this method can work well.

Go to your local truck stop and go to the trucker supply area. There are a plethora of 12v appliances that you can pick up for about $25 each. You can even find these items on the internet. There are 12v coffee pots, crock pots, lunchbox cookers, water heaters, etc. We have a 12v lunchbox cooker in our truck and we use it on a regular basis to heat up canned goods, water, etc. All you have to do is plug it into a cig lighter. You can buy these at any truckstop as well as inverters to change power to AC if you need too.

These 12v cookers are slow but if you don't wanna have smoke giving away your location by using wood .....

Yep, they work.

But aside from being slow, they are also very inefficient. They are designed for an idling semi, not for a small battery bank. I'm sure that there are more efficient models available, but I would bet they are significantly more expensive.

Since the title is alternative cooking, you can also do some cooking in a Thermos. You Heat it to boiling on a stove or fire and dump it into a Thermos and close it tight. I've cooked oats over night, I know you can do some other foods, I've even heard of people making a beef stew of sorts like this, just put it all in a pan, bring to a boil and seal it in the Thermos.

Google Thermos cooking and there are a lot of links.

reply to post by fritzM

If you're going to put oats (or similar stuffs) in a Thermos please, please, please make sure you allow for expansion of dehydrated items. Also, don't let it set in there!

Originally posted by fritzM
They are designed for an idling semi, not for a small battery bank.

Yes, if you are doing any "major' cooking of items, it would require a fair amount of power, however, you don't have to idle your semi for heating up a can of ravioli or a couple cups of water. Plenty of times I"ve heated up food in my cooker without idling my truck with no ill effects to my batteries.

I haven't really tried it without the truck, but if/when I can afford to do so I will run some tests at home to see how "efficient" it is and post my results here.

IMO if you are wanting to heat something up (water, etc) and you have a small portable generator and a couple batteries this method would work quite well without having to worry about running out of cooking fuel or using wood, which causes smoke.