OK, rando rant a bit because I'm kind of a dick.
On the youtubes, the thrifty people I follow are doing this "What if" type thing. Fine.
Things like "What if you only had a half a bag of rice, 3oz lentils, and moldy cheese, and you don't get paid for a week and the money is gone...how would you stretch the food and what would you make?"
Mornings with Granny is best at this because I suspect she's been poor for reals.
I was poor once upon a time and now I'm too lazy/cheap/frugal to run in to town when I am lacking an ingredient.
ANYWAY...recently, the ones I watch are "prepping" or stocking up for power outages. Turns out rice is a bad idea without power. Um...like the electric stove or any of the 2 dozen counter top plug in appliances are the only ways to cook???
JEEZ people! One vlogger was talking, this morning, about a power out where they had no way to heat water or cook food. She has other videos where they grill food outside. Does the propane tank and/or charcoal not work when the electricity is out???
Also, candles under an upturned can with holes cut in the can-sides makes a tiny stove. So does a can of crisco with a wick (which can be a bit of dry wood, twisted fabric, wooden skewers, taper candle jammed in a hole, or almost any cooking oil/fat you have around). PEOPLE!!! Electricity is not the only power.
What about a solar cooker? Or the dashboard of your car in mid day? Heat water with those mid day and then put it in a thermos, or even just wrap up the container of hot water with whatever. That reflective dealy in the windshield works well. ALSO coolers keep things warm. They are don't just keep things cool. Then you can heat that warmish water for washing or whatever.
Also...rice, pasta, grains can be soaked for a while, brought to the boil, poured into a thermos or the pan wrapped up and they will cook much faster with very little heat, e.g. over a candle or crisco heater.
Grills hold pots as well as naked slabs of meat. You can even bake bread, cake, whatever on there.
ALL YOU NEED TO COOK IS A HEAT SOURCE.
Other tips for power-outage cookery:
Think about the size and power of your heat source. Boiling a cup of water over a candle will take a while. Boiling a cup of water on the grill is wasting heat...boil up the big pan of water (tea kettle, anyone?) and store the excess because maybe it will still be warm later. Overnight oats/soaked-rice for 4 is too much to bring to a boil over a candle. Not too much on a grill or in a solar cooker.
Frying is faster. Small bits cook faster. You can fry on a grill. Put the frying pan (cast iron is the best option) on the grill. Add fat and whatever. Cook. Don't wander off.
Grill outside. Want to bring some of that heat inside? Heat up clay plant pots and bring them inside in metal buckets, set them on things that won't burn like bricks or the hearth. You want get super warm, but you'll be busy and a bit warmer and NOT die of carbon monoxide.
Butane burners are great, I use them all the time. But the butane runs out pretty fast if you start with cold water and want to boil it up. Hence lots of preheating on the woodstove and storing the water hot in thermoses (thermosi? thermopodi?)...insulated containers!
Things to do now:
Make a "hay box" for your favorite pasta/rice pan. NOT the insta pot. Don't be an idiot. The pan that you can put on the grill, stove, woodstove, etc. Best if it has small handles but just use what you have. Find a box, card board, wood, or a metal milk crate, that fits the pan with several inches to spare on all sides. Line your box with wool blankets or old sweaters if you have it, or hay (hence the name), straw, cardboard, or even metallic bubble wrap. Make sure there is an inch of cardboard or wood or no-flammable at cooking temps fabric between any plasticky crap or fabric and the pan. Make the lining fit tight around the pan. When the time comes, heat the pan up, like on that grill, and when the food is boiling hard, put the pan in the box (which of course you insulted on the bottom and sides and top) and close it up. If you can heat up a rock or plant pot ahead of time and put that in the box while you finish boiling up the food, that will preheat the box and make it work better.
Don't have a box? Make a bean hole in the ground and preheat it like in the olden days. I will let you google that.
You can boil things mid-day in the solar cooker and transfer to the hay box or bean hole or thermos.
When using a thermos, preheating is best.
These all work like slow cookers. Pasta will get mushy fast, whole rye berries hold up super well as do wheat berries, oat groats, and barley. Quinoa is an excellent option as well.
If I am putting meat in, I prefer it to be fully cooked first, either fried up (sliced thin it fries faster/less fuel) or precanned by me or an industrial canning service.
If using a thermos for soup or flavored grains/pasta, you'll want to not use that for coffee or tea water later. No matter what they say, the flavors linger. I have tested glass, plastic, and stainless steel lined thermoses and all retain that stank. It's fine in the next cooked item, but not great in my coffee.
To make the thermos cooking work: invest in a good bottle brush and good funnels. I use a big canning funnel for the wide mouth thermoses and a skinny funnel for the insulated bottle type thermoses.
The water you use to preheat a thermos is fine to use in the next batch of soup, to drink, to give to pets who usually enjoy the vague food stank, or to soak tomorrow's grains.
These practices always save fuel/money/pollution/resources to why not be practicing now??
Rant complete...for now.
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