cooking in the truck

I also us my pressure cooker to cold pack deer meat and beef to eat on the road. You can eat it cold out of the jar or warm it up with some gravy or other recipes. I even cold pack pint jars of squirrel meat in the fall. Makes some great gravy to pour over biscuits or toast made with thick French bread.

I make a big pot of chili or vegetable soup from deer meat and can it to eat on the road. I put it in pint jars for good meal size helpings. The soup or meat you don't have to refrigerate once you can it in jars. Once it is opened then you have to refrigerate it.

I buy cans of Libby's sausage gravy at Wal-Mart. It is really good. I fry up some potatoes of warm up some biscuits and pour it over. Good! Just fry up some extra potatoes when you fix supper. Put them in the cooler. Then in the morning warm them and the sausage gravy up in the microwave. Good fast breakfast and your on the road. You will get 2 or 3 meals out a $1.50 can of Libby's sausage gravy.

A good set down meal is good but I hate paying those thieves high prices at a truck stop. I don't pass up to many good meals in a good restaurant when I get the opportunity, just not much a truck stops.

 

We used to have a guy working with us that mounted a propane BBQ on slides on the side of his drop deck.

 

Just got a 1200w convection oven from walmart, tried out frozen pizza just for something quick and to test it out, worked great. Going to give chicken breasts and potatoes a go next.

 

Thanks to the advise on this thread I invested in a Koolatron cooler, the smaller model that's top load only (the cooler unit in the lid). I've had it a few days now and I'm happy with the temperatures it keeps the food, even with the heat wave in the West and little or no idling in the truck (I just dislike idling).

Now that I've solved the issue of keeping produce, etc. cool, my next step is to be able to cook in the truck. I bought a 12v cooking pot so I could heat water for my coffee in the morning, steam potatoes or other vegetables, make soup, etc. I tried it first time this morning and I was sorely disappointed. First of all the instructions said I had to run the truck when using it, and it took 30 minutes to bring 20 oz of water not yet to a boil but okay for almost hot coffee (I couldn't wait any longer).

I talked with my brother and he is really sold on induction cooktops, but after he tried using it in his RV he said it wouldn't work with the 12v system. Has anyone tried an induction cooktop? If so, what kind and what inverter setup did it require?

 

Induction cooktops, along with most modern appliances are using 'inverter technology'. Most if not all of those appliances will require a 'pure sine wave' inverter. They won't operate properly with the power supplied by the cheaper 'modified sine wave' inverters.

 

If you only need hot water you can get JETBOIL, it boils 24 oz in like 2-3 minutes. View attachment 50486 I prefer to use
propane stove.

 

Since I'm going to have to slip seat for a while I can't really get too involved with inverters or anything. I returned the useless 12v pot and picked up a 12v unit that is supposed to boil water "in 5 minutes". Another piece of bovine fecal tissue. After an hour I had luke warm coffee.

Yep, time to knuckle down and get a backpacking stove. Rather than the JetBoil I'm going to go with the MSR Whisperlite. I've had one years ago and was fantastic, burns unleaded gasoline, simmers like a chef's stove, and brings water to a boil in a hurry. MSR stoves are foolproof and gave me years of service in the backcountry.

Now... to find an REI with truck parking....

 

Try their loading dock

 

You could try a Burton Butane stove available at Petro or Walmart sells a small backpacking propane Coleman stove $25+/-. Lots of parking at the Supercenter and you can get some groceries at the same time.

 

They have some really reasonable 12V combos at Walmart. (around $135)...if your company allows it however, I suggest you put in a minimum 1500 watt inverter and that way you can run a regular refridgerator, mico wave and a coffe maker. That is how I do it now.