Thermal cookers: have you used one?

[Deleted User]

patchwork_cat wrote: »

You had a duvet in the early '70's very avant-garde!

Yes we bought them on the continent when visiting a relation in Germany where they had been used for longer than we have had them here. I can remember seeing housewives hanging them out of their bedroom windows in Germany in the early 1960s,First time I had seen them, and was so impressed as I thought what a great way to make life easier for bed making it was in 1961 and also the first time I had ever seen a tea bag as well:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

AnnaKoch

I love thermal cooker!! This is ideal for cooking soup or stew which would take a long time using a conventional stove.

moments_of_sanity

I used mine yesterday for cooking the cottage pie filling and today we are having sweet and sour pork cooked in our so 2 days of no gas usage here

Memory_Girl

I don't know if you guys know this but Mooloo has added the making of thermal cooking bags to her wee business.

Mainly for peeps who want one but can't sew ..... but look at what she got by email today. A VERY happy customer!!



I think the expression on her wee face is priceless ... and before you ask I DON'T recommend you cook your baby in the thermal cooking bag;) Or your cat (who I found in mine over the weekend:cool:)

But I did think the picture was too cute not to share

MG

shawnadam

I love thermal cooker!! This is ideal for cooking for all types in which whereby placing hay or straw around a cooking pot of heated food the meal continues to cook without fuel.

Former_MSE_Andrea

Does anyone have any more thermal cooking meal pictures? This is really making me hungry. Time for lunch!

SD-253

We are basically talking about a hay box. If you are attempting to be frugal then buying something when you can make it or get it for nothing is obviously not the way to go.
Some people seem incapable of grasping the basics of frugality. You must take into account the investment costs. How long the item you bought will last and how much you will save during that period. If you take a year to get your money back ...Bargain. If it takes you 10 years iffy. Of course if you get your money back in 1 year and it only last year...pointless. Even if it last forever you still want your money back in a reasonable period of time otherwise you might as well put it in a savings account. Investing to save is always my aim. As every penny saved goes to something I would prefer to spend money on..the pub.
So free or near free or don't bother at all. It is is not worth spend more than £10 on, relative to the savings you will make. I am of course ignoring nipping to the pub and having a hot meal ready...probably at just the right temperature when you get back.
Presently I am waiting for a large cool box to be given to me although I would be prepared to pay £2 as it could be used for what it was intended for. An example of the latter. I have a household spinner which I use to make cider instead of a cider press. It reduce water in clothes far more than washing machine so they dry quicker. It also gives me more juice than a press.
I will find something eventually but I will not be paying much if anything.
Note my maths will be based on a meal being normally just for me.
PS to boil water. A electric kettle is 80% efficient. Microwave 67%. A gas hob 40%. Obviously efficiency and price are not the same but worth taking into account.

SD-253

JackieO wrote: »

I can remember using the 'hay box' method years ago when in the 1970s we had many power cuts and often the electric would go off for 3 hours at a time.I used my DDs big wooden toy box and filled it with a double duvet folded so it made a 'nest' for my casserole dish.I would cook and bring to the boil for 10 minutes the food then put it in the nest and cover with thick cushions and another duvet and blanket so it was completely insulated and just leave it for hours to cook. It was a great way to get hot food into my family when we were sitting by candlelight in the dark listening to a transistor radio as obviously there was no t.v. either.You always had to leave a light on at night though as you never knew when the electric would come back on again:):).I also used to sometimes be cooking something and the lights would just go off with no warning and I'd have to take my pot of food down to my pals house 6 houses down from me as she had a gas cooker and she would finish it off for me I am still great friends with her after over 40 years and she is a regular visitor to me down in the Medway from her home in Dartford.There was a great deal of community spirit generated in those dark (literally ) days of the Winter of Discontent. No one had very much but what we had we tried to share with our neighbours.I lived in a road of about 40 houses and I knew each and every one of my neighbours by name and their children as well, even though I only lived there for 3 years.I have lived in this road for 19 years and know maybe half a dozen at the most of my immediate neighbours just on 'nodding' terms' only.Perhaps we could do with a return of the neighbourliness of yesteryear

Lucky you! I loose my electric regularly for 8 hours plus. Occasionally I am lucky and get an 18 hour cut....£54 compensation, 2 in the last 18 months.

SD-253

PS have I made a good investment? £120 air rifle all in. Shoot wood pigeons at cost of 2.7p per pellet allowing for the occasional miss. Only shoot in summer when there plump. This is because evolution takes place, namely I kill all the stupid ones and am only left with the ultra wary ones. Therefore I have to wait till next summer for the void to be refilled with stupid pigeons.
Roughly 70 pigeons eaten breast only.
Should I use the cost of pigeon breast from the game butchers or the meat forgone because I have eaten pigeon instead of say pork?
Should I take into account the pleasure I get from killing them?

[Deleted User]

You don't live in France by any chance do you,my brother does and there the locals (he is very rural) will only kill things to eat,basically if you can't cook and eat it don't waste a cartridge on it.:):):) He also loses his electric at times but has several oil lamps which he can use, and his chest freezer is very well covered with insulation in the barn.Suprising what you can manage without if you have to