Conquering Cooking

When Michael and I were designing our bus, we decided that the need for an oven was low.  Of course, our visions of staying in the bus did not include living in it 24-7 for months at a time.

Luckily we have our grill that acts like an oven. It took some getting-used-to.  Because of the smaller volume, following directions from a package usually meant overcooking your food.  I had to lower the temperature because the heat source is so much closer to the food than regular ovens that package instructions have in mind.  My first quiche was certainly edible - in the middle.  The crust was crispy, on the verge of being burnt.  With a lower temp, and longer cook time, I'm able to slow down the crisping of the crust while the eggs have time to de-raw themselves.

Cooking with a wok on the grill has actually been a dream!  The intense temperature gets the stir fried ingredients just right!  I did have a mishap recently though when the ambient temperature dropped to a frosty 30s.  When I dispensed the stir fry sauce into the wok to coat the vegetables, I banged the glass container onto the hot wok a little too hard.  The cold of the air must have made the glass so brittle because it broke!  Onto the food!  Glass shards mixed in with the delicious food!  The sun was setting and I was ready to cry at the waste!  Luckily I had not put the noodles and chicken in the wok and was able to make a new, albeit strange, concoction of Chinese food that was seasoned this time with Spanish spices (because it was the only sauce I had left in the pantry)!  

The blandest, but edible, stir fry

In other culinary pursuits, I've gotten the hang of Mac-n-Cheese, rice and vegetables!  I used to rely solely on a rice cooker to make the rice we would eat, but now I've gotten so adept at making it old-school style - in a pot!  Adding an extra dab of water seems to help, but it has to be watched closely lest the water boil too fast and spill over into the burner.  

I used to try to recycle our propane bottles by trying to refill them with the propane from the 20-gallon tanks, but this proved to be more trouble than it was worth.  No matter what I tried, the little bottles would only refill 1/4 their capacity so I found myself refilling so much.  The little cans are only $2 and last so long that I just buy a new one now.

Another dish I like to make is stew!  In a cast iron pot and simmering slowing in our oven/grill, it always turns out delicious!  I only seem to want to make it when the weather turns colder than usual.  Nowadays it's pretty darn cold everyday so there is no change in weather to spark an inspiration to do stew.  But you know what?  NOW is the time for more stew on more days!    I'll have to revisit it.