Thermal cookers: have you used one?

moments_of_sanity

SD-253 wrote: »

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.

Absolutely agree with what you are saying and did work out the costings before going ahead with the thermal cook bag. The cost of the cast iron pot and materials to make the bag cost me £20, to run my cooker for an hour costs approximately £0.42p per hour so I need to use the thermal cooking bag for approximately 48 hours to break even.

If you need to slow cook meat in the oven, because of it being a much cheaper cut, it would easily take 3-4 hours so it isn't going to take me long to make the thermal cook bag work for me in terms of cost (approximately 12 times). It is also useful for cooking porridge over night as Memory Girl does, I use it for rice puddings, sweet and sour meals, casseroles, hot pots etc so for me, the thermal cook bag is a great investment.

I would be a hopeless shot so probably a good idea I don't have a gun! :rotfl: Wish I could fish though as that would be another cost saving.

SD-253

JackieO wrote: »

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

Have a generator but my chest freezer will stay frozen for way over 18 hours. Live on Lincolnshire Wolds.

SD-253

moments_of_sanity wrote: »

Absolutely agree with what you are saying and did work out the costings before going ahead with the thermal cook bag. The cost of the cast iron pot and materials to make the bag cost me £20, to run my cooker for an hour costs approximately £0.42p per hour so I need to use the thermal cooking bag for approximately 48 hours to break even.

If you need to slow cook meat in the oven, because of it being a much cheaper cut, it would easily take 3-4 hours so it isn't going to take me long to make the thermal cook bag work for me in terms of cost (approximately 12 times). It is also useful for cooking porridge over night as Memory Girl does, I use it for rice puddings, sweet and sour meals, casseroles, hot pots etc so for me, the thermal cook bag is a great investment.

I would be a hopeless shot so probably a good idea I don't have a gun! :rotfl: Wish I could fish though as that would be another cost saving.

Sounds like
good maths to me!

jim-jim

Hi there, would an oval shaped dish fit?

are the pattens just for round dishes, sorry if that sounds a bit dense but all the photos show round ones and I need a larger dish, 3L or bigger

in my price range they are oval

thank you x

Memory_Girl

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

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

I'm just back from a week in a caravan in the Highlands Andrea - do you fancy having a look at what we cooked when we were away? Granted its mostly packed lunch stuff - but we were out and about from breakfast till dinner ever day and the thermal bag was brilliant.

On its new home for the week



Dinner for the first night - spag bol with half frozen to be remade into chilli later in the week.



Barley and Roasted vegetable salad.



Perfectly cooked white beans



Became Tuna and Bean salad



Then Turkish Piyaz salad on day two



Chilli in a flash


With masses of fluffy rice as a side:


Puy Lentil and Roasted Butternut squash salad was a hit.



As was pinto bean salad with lime:



Three bean salad in salsa was fabulous:



With all the dried beans and grains coming from Approved Food our weeks food cost us buttons. Well worth being organised as it saved me a fortune.

MG

Memory_Girl

SD-253 wrote: »

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.

Some well made points - incidentally - my thermal cooking bag cost me NOTHING to make but took an investment of three hours to figure out the pattern and make the prototype. So my ROI is pretty healthy.

So far hundreds have been made using the pattern and many peeps on keycards are reporting massive savings compared to standard cooking methods. The ROI in this case is not only infinite but priceless!

To "save" money you need to create some margin between what you spend and what you earn ... for many of my lasses on the very bottom rung this has allowed them to build a few quid here and there into emergency funds that are very needed.

A little here - a little there ... as long as you are working towards a goal is a great plan.

MG

greenbee

I was just wondering whether I could be bothered to either slow or pressure cook my chickpeas in this heat (before they disintegrated in the soaking bowl) when I remembered I could use the thermal cooker. So a quick boil on the hob and they should be done by breakfast time :-)

suzybloo

I have been using mine a while now and not had any disasters, and quite a few surprises! I found it was great for making yogurt in, it turned out the best I have ever made, all using the same ingredients. It was thicker with not so much water sitting on the top, so whilst not exactly using it for cooking as such, it worked wonders!
I calculated the cost of the slow cooker to be approx 40p a use for stews, and my thermal bag cost £8 to make so after 20 uses, which I am over now I am quids in! Happy days :-)

greenbee

Chickpeas were perfect by breakfast time. Less effort than the SC, and less worry about them being overcooked. Definitely a good solution to cooking pulses!

maryb

MG how many polystyrene beads did you use? I bought this from http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/polystyrene-bean-bag-filling/601439-1000Hobbycraft which is half a cubic foot. I went for that because the £12 bag would have been too much at 2.5 cubic feet (though clearly much better value if you were making more than one) but I'm not sure I won't need more. I'll raid DD's bean bag if I do