cooking in the truck

Turbocharger works pretty well. One of my favorites was canned corned beef hash. Not gourmet, but good, just the same.

 

I have a mocrowave, a fridge and a coffee pot all plugged into a power invertor. I take food from the house in tupperware and either keep it frozen or cold, take frozen entreis(sorry), keep fruit and canned soups. Don't go into a T/S to eat if I don't have to. Do go in for a salad bar a couple times a week if they have a good one.

 

I always make just as much stew, chili, chicken & dumplings (not all freeze that well) spaghetti, etc.. as if he were here and save a couple servings each time in a freezer bag/container so he'll have some homemade meals to heat up. He also supplements with the salad bars.

He cooks potatoes, (baked) eggs,(in one of those microwave cookers) and reheats leftovers from some of the restaurants that give big helpings.

For emergencies there's always the chicken & rice dinners, No Refrigeration Needed until opened, meals. They're at least less expensive than restaurants when your pockets are empty.



Have you seen Popular Science videos? They test kitchen gadgets and other items. That's how I found the Rocket Grill, although it was boring, it was good to check it out. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/workshop/4202700.html

 

where can I buy lighter plug-in pots n pans, Mighty Mouse?..Truckstop?..Camping stores; Cabellas, etc.?

 

I have a 700 watt Microwave, a Hot plate, a George Forman Grill, and a Coleman 12 vt Cooler, I also have a 1500 watt Cobra Inverter with 3300 surge, I eat in my truck almost ALL of the time. I have canned stews soups, etc. My wife also sends all kinds of left overs to re heat every week.

 

sounds like better fare than the mystery buffet and probably cheaper too.

 

I try to avoid the 12 volt appliances whenever I can. 99% of them are just junk that you'll end up throwing away in less than a year. That lunch box, or the Burton Stove which is what it is marketed as, is one of those. You're much better off with a 400 watt inverter and a $10 crock-pot from Walmart. The 12 volt frying pans and sauce pans are nice, but they aren't going to last long. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a suitable alternative though. The problem is the wiring inside these appliances becomes hard and brittle from heating up and cooling down and will break after you use them so many times. The best thing to get is a microwave, if you can talk your employer into letting you hook up a 1000 watt inverter, mine won't let me.

Burton makes a thermos looking thing that will boil water pretty fast, I've had good luck with that. You can use that for coffee, soups, or even heating up hot dogs.

Another thing I have is something I bought ten years ago, and I haven't seen one since. It is a insulated plastic pouch, and it has a heating pad in it. You plug it into your lighter and the heating pad heats up. You can wrap up a tv dinner in that heating pad, stick it in the pouch, and 45 minutes to an hour later the food is piping hot. It's kind of like what the pizza delivery guy carries, only smaller. I have no idea where you can get one of these today, but I still use mine 3 times a week or more. I think the company that made them is long gone, but it's the best $20 I ever spent.

 

I had a 400 watt inverter with the small Walmart crockpot deal. I cooked everything in it. I lined it with foil so I wouldn't have to clean it up. Chicken and rice was an awesome meal in these things.

I would make two foil compartments in it to cook my egg beaters (in the carton that was stored in my cooler) on one side and grilled cheese sandwich or some kind of canned breakfast meat in the other side. I loved corned beef hash with those eggs! Must be a southern thing. Small cans of beef stew and rice were awesome meals too.

Crock pot was the best thing for me. The possibilities were limitless. Anything canned or fresh that I stored in my cooler could be cooked or heated in it. One more, cut up two apples and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on them and spray the foil in the crock with no stick spray or some squeeze butter...yumm.

 

Over my 18 years I've seen many things to help you out no the road. Some of them great some of them not so great. But we've tried most of them.

This will be a thread for us to show pictures of, talk about, and suggest what helps us cook on the road. Not really a recipe kind of thing more of the actual things we use.

The thing i love best is the inverter. We own our own truck so we can have a big one it's like 3000 at peak. But if you are in a company truck you may have to use a smaller one. Unless they have a don't ask don't tell policey. LOL!! Some companies will let you use them if they hook them up and others just say no. They are hard on your batteries but I think well worth the money they save you. I know this is a huge inverter but it was on sale and we've had it over 10 years i'd guess. We put our inverter under the bed when we worked for crete they never seen it.. we may have unhooked it once or twice from our batteries I can't recall.

With the inverter you can do so many things. Microwave, coffee pot, George Formans, crock pot, just about anything you can think of.

The next thing would be a snappy. I can't find them anymore but they were purple envelope looking thing, and plugged into the cigarette lighter and heated really slow but in about 5 to 8 hours time it would have a can of soup of chilli warmed and ready to eat.

I never used the Burton stove much but some folks loved it.

I'll add more later Don't want to bore you with a long thread.

Jacks

 

Thers a thread already about this use the search engine at the top of the page. Not trying to be rude just helping you out so youre not waiting for people to respond to youre post. LOL