thermos cooking a la heidi

heidi just did a post over at vansteaders on thermos cooking. i haven't done it in some time, and with the cold weather approaching, will welcome hot food with little effort or fuel consumption. one of my biggest complaints was poor results in cooking brown rice. heidi's blog shows success with that, here

you can read my old blog post on making a reflectix cover for my thermos here.

thermos dimensions: 4" diameter and 7"tall
                    circumference of thermos alone 12.5"
                    circumference with cozy 17.25"
                    20 oz. (0.59 liters)

some photos of my thermos:

Update: Part II....

What I  neglected to mention in part I was that when we were in san antonio, it snowed there for the first time in 12 years. I missed it. Most likely, I was in the bathroom. It never stuck to the ground where we were, news reports indicated some snowman activity in the hill country, though.

A significant portion of our trip was spent in verizon corporate stores trying to fix the pixi. It had multiple issues, like turning itself off repeatedly, frequent screen freezing and error messages, and even dialing *611 spontaneously.

We had been to the SA store 3 times, and they were unable to fix it. They gave me a new one, which had it's own set of horrors. I couldn't believe it. I set across west texas with a phone more gremlin than pixi. The guys in las cruces wanted to replace it again. I said no. I didn't want to lose my bookmarks snd music all over again, like I had in SA. There was a new  update scheduled that weekend, and  I decided to continue on to arizona and hope that the update would fix it.....

To some degree it did. Most of the error messages were gone, but the annoying habit of shutting down spontaneously continued. In a phone that can take 5 minutes to turn itself on, that was unacceptable. What if I had to dial 911? I just wanted a phone that worked.

By then I was in safford, az. Verizon customer service informed  me that there was a VZW store within 25 miles of safford. Turns out, it was more like 25 feet, across the street in thatcher! There, the manager listened to my story, read the lengthy documentation from tech support, and offered me a new solution...a different phone. I was reluctant at first....i wanted the phone I had to work, no more switching and losing apps and music and bookmarks. But after 3 more days of it turning off in the middle of an email or the middle of the night, I decided to go for it.

I switched to a pre. And am I ever glad I did! It just works. It does what it is supposed to do, when I want it to do it. And nothing I don't want it to  do, like dial itself. How simple and perfect is that?

I am so grateful to the folks at the vzw store in thatcher, for making this possible, and for renewing my faith in my phone. It's been almost a week, and not one error message or shut down has happened.

Thank-you Braden and Wendy for all of your kindness and assistance, you went that extra mile. I am so happy with my phone and my service!

During all the phone madness was a bright spot, though. I got to spend a little time with astrobrian at roper lake state park. With Mt. Graham on one side, and roper lake on the other, it was a peaceful place to regroup. Mutt and dina dog had some nice off-leash romps in the desert, too. A storm rolled through, of course, but it was much welcomed rain to ease the drought. An old guy in the walmart parking lot thought I should stay, and offered me the key to the city, if I attracted that much stormy weather :-)

I've been asked to move by the border patrol. I'll finish later.

Http://twokniveskatie.blogspot.com
-- Sent from my Palm Pre

the droid and other stuff

okey dokey. i've been on a computer blackout. and it ain't been pretty.
my palm centro was acting up again. with only 6 months left of my current sprint plan, i didn't want to spring for a $100 co-pay to get a new phone (yet again) . i wanted to switch to verizon, anyhow, cause there are places i have been (like the slabs) where i didn't get service and the verizon folks did. and i wanted to get a phone that did more and could combine tasks of several other things (think downsize) and maybe allow me to get rid of the netbook. enter the droid by motorola.
 
this little phone is pretty awesome. it has one of the largest screens of any phone i've seen, really intense graphics, amazing speakers and more applications available than i ever new existed. i can tune my guitar with this little thing! i'm serious! it has a downloadable app that is an actual guitar tuner! it also has a guitar playing app so i can strum or pick songs! think campfire karaoke!
 
some of my other favorite apps are the mindfulness bell which rings intermittantly to remind me to focus and center myself (you'd love it bri!), a virtual zen rock garden with sand and rake, a 5 megapixel camera with flash that does good closeups for taking hat pictures for etsy, satellite radio, gps navigator, slide-out and virtual keyboard.....
 
what's not to love? heh. the ONE thing i need my phone to do is to cut and paste and trim, especially emails.  and because of connectivity problems (especially at the farm) i need to have an email retrieval ability that will let me do it off-line.
 
the droid does none of that.
 
i think the droid was made for techno savvy folks who don't live in rural areas and have to worry about signal strength too often. so the idea of selling the netbook to cover the cost ($200) of the droid goes right out the window. i need regular online access to do the most important tasks for me...email access and the ability to work with them.
 
it looks like i have several options. because i don't have cell access at my homebase, verizon will let me out of the contract no problem. because it's in the 1st 30 days of purchase i can switch phones and pay a $30 restocking fee. (i don't think i should have to pay this because i was very specific about what i needed the phone to do when i bought it, and everyone including tech support said it would, although no one could tell me exactly how (that shoulda been a clue) and it took a call to motorola droid support one week later to tell me in 60 seconds that the droid smply can't do that. it can be a metal detector, a vibrator (yes, a vibrator, ew!) or a flashlight, for heaven's sake, but it can't trim text?)
 
another option would be to switch to a basic phone plan, and get an air card for my netbook. the cost would be about the same as the monthly data plan of the droid, which was about the same for the sprint palm centro. then i would have broadband access even at the farm, and ditch the dreaded dial-up. or.....
 
i could switch to the "palm pre plus" which verizon just got in yesterday. the reviews have it almost as good as the droid, only smaller screen, only a 3 megapixel camera but a better flash, not as good sound quality, no speaker phone, but it will manage my email just the way i need to. the keyboard is better than the droids, too. i don't know if it can tune my guitar.....
 
if i go with a smartphone with dataplan, i can't add the cost of the aircard to my budget. the air card is an attractive thought, especially if i can use it at the farm. i'm waiting to hear from mar on her take on that, as she had a verizon aircard when she was here.
 
the other attractive thought, though, is having one device perform the task of many. especially when on the road.
 
so if anybody has any thoughts or feedback or ideas, i'd appreciate your comments. i have a couple weeks left in my grace period to make any changes. your input will help me make a better choice.
 
thanks!

grilliput compact firebowl

my fire tongs, out of order. i hate when that happens. they are 13 1/2 " long.

i've had the grilliput compact firebowl for awhile now. it's small and lightweight and provides a contained area for a fire or for charcoal when you are camped where there are no firepits, or you just want a tiny fire for cooking.

it weighs 9 3/4 oz. and sits 1 inch off the ground on 4 metal legs. it is very stable. it measures 7" in diameter closed and 11" opened.

this is the folding backpackers grill i got at rei for around $10. it was a bit unsteady so i returned it for something else but that's a secret yet :-)

i found it was too high off the coals for my liking, and i also wanted legs that were pointed, that could be poked into the ground.

this is the small folding grill i use at rendezvous, and found this worked much better, plus i already owned it. dual purpose! on softer ground, the legs can be poked into the earth to stabilize i, or raise it up a little higher. i have a canvas bag that the 2 items slide into to keep my other gear clean.

i will take pics of it in use this weekend, with my squirrel cooker!

fry-bake pan pizza

okay, i tried the pizza in the fry-bake pans today. i started out by heating the last four charcoal briquets i had in the van in my grilliput collapsible firebowl (that is a whole 'nother blog post, my firebowl!) i used a dry pizza crust mix that i mixed with 1/2 cup warm water from the tea kettle, and let it sit for 10 minutes in a warm place (the dashboard of the van). i smooshed it out into the bottom of the expedition size pan (10 1/2") and added sauce (ragu pizza sauce from a jar)....

and shredded mozarella with "jamaica me crazy", a pepper blend i got at Granzella's this spring, liberally sprinkled on top.

i put the four hot charcoal briquets on top of the pan, which was on my butane one-burner stove using the scorch-buster riser bar. the flame was set on about medium (i never said this was scientific) and i set the timer for the 10 minutes recommended on the crust package. after 10 minutes, it was nowhere near done. it took an additional 10 minutes to finish the baking to get this....

which was a really good tasting pizza that was just slightly undercooked, meaning that the cheese wasn't as bubbly as i would have liked, and the crust, though done, was not browned much.

i think there may be a couple reasons for this.....one, i only had the 4 briquets on top. if you remember my post a few days ago about the cinnamon rolls, i had a real twig bonfire going on that one. i think with more briquets or additional twigs, i would have gotten a better temp for baking. and second, there was a breeze tonight, and the flame did alot of sputtering. i imagine that would effect the temperature. i think i will turn the flame up higher next time.

still the pizza was really good, and certainly a nice break from the usual for dinner. i'm gonna try again next week, and see if i get better results. i'll keep ya posted!

thermos cozy

i recently picked up a double-walled stainless steel thermos to try out for thermos cooking. initial attempts with brown rice and steel cut oats and wheatberries brought mixed results, which i will chronicle in a later post. one thing i decided was to try to make a cozy that would increase heat retention and inprove cooking.

so i have this friend. really. and when he's not out slummin', sometimes he talks to me on the phone and we solve the worlds problems. or even my thermos cooking ones. so the other night ron starts, in the way he is so talented for doing, to throw out all these ideas on how to improve on the cozy i am dreaming up, and then to top it off, he leads me to believe that i am even thinking them up on my own! how sweet is that?

so anyhow, my Stanley Thermos Food Jar is 7" high, and 4" in diameter. i am telling you this because i don't have the can of coconut milk handy that is my universal item for size reference. eh. the jar holds 20 oz., which is a perfect size to cook a meal for me, and not have to worry about refrigerating leftovers. this jar is also unique in that it's mouth is wider than any others i've seen, making clean-up easier. i started out by cutting a sheet of reflectix 16" by 8 1/2 ". this was easy using a 16" wide roll of reflectix that tara left here last year.
i taped it around the jar securely, but not too snugly, using that silver foil tape backed with paper that laren told me was perfect for joining reflectix together. it did this very well, and quite sturdily, considering it is the flimsiest feeling stuff...like sticky tinfoil.

ask michael about the time i sent him out in the dark along a highway with just inches of shoulder to park on, to try to to tape my headlight back on with this stuff, after smacking a deer and bringing a new level of excitement to his vacation. he may have repressed the memory :-)

i cut two discs of reflectix to make a double layer base for the first cylinder

and taped them in place.

i made a second cylinder of reflectix just slightly larger than the first, and put a double thickness base on it.

the larger cylinder slides over the top of the smaller cylinder, efeectively and quickly giving you a double walled cozy surrounding the whole jar. it is light and compact and will work for keeping heat in, for cooking.....or out, for an iced drink.

the project, once ron had inspired it, was simple, and took about 15 minutes to complete. now i can begin, in earnest, my thermos cooking experiments.......

foldable pocket cooker

here is another piece of cooking gear that i have. it is called the foldable pocket cooker, and is available from Sportsman's Guide or at amazon. it retails for about 12.95. it comes in a nylon carry case, as shown below.
i really like this little cooker. it uses twigs, pinecones or even a couple of charcoal briquets for fuel. i have even used those sticks of compressed wood that they sell in camping stores as firestarters. there is a door that opens to adjust draft or to feed the fire.

here you see me using it with 4 lumps of charcoal. the can of coconut milk is for size reference. i am cooking some boneless chicken with garlic and peppers in a foil pouch. it came out really good, and didn't take long to cook. not very scientific, cause i didn't time it when these pics were taken. nor did i take pics of the finished meal. i was hungry :-)

this stove is kinda heavy for backpacking, but i love the idea of using natural fuels. it is a great little back-up stove for the van. i find cooking in a pot on top of this a little unnerving, because i am clumsy and always fear knocking my meal hither and yon, but i love it for foil packet cooking.

i have another piece of gear for cooking. that's the next post. please share any experiences you have had with this stove, and i highly recommend you readers subscribe to comments, cause we get some really informative ones!

No poo three

i just have to come back on this topic. i just love my hair.! i am so glad i went down this path. i am now using 1 tablespoon baking soda in 2 cups of water, mixed in my zyliss shaker, every 2-3 days. i will never use shampoo again, even if it was free....my hair is that good.

after a question from nicole about the necessity of wetting my hair first, i tried applying the 2 cups of baking soda solution to dry hair. it was more than enough to saturate my short, but growing in, hair. it doesn't take much to rinse it, so this is a good low-water solution to hair washing, for those times when i'm doing it over a bucket in the van, or behind a bush on hwy. 1 in california.

nicole is going to try it out this weekend. hopefully she'll weigh in here.... but remember the adjustment period...it took my hair over a week to adjust......

janene has also commented on alternatives to other body products. we're gonna do some experimenting, so if anybody has any ideas to throw in, it would be appreciated!

Fry-Bake pans

i had long been looking for an alternative to my heavy cast-iron cookware that would allow me to bake, just as i did in my dutch ovens, yet was lightweight, versatile, and could withstand the rigors of camping and life on the road. last year i took the plunge, and bought a set of the Fry-Bake pans i had read so much about in backpacker magazine and at the NOLS site. i got the set....the alpine model (8" in diameter) and the expedition model (10 1/2") with the heavier lids. they have been my main cookpans at the farm and on the road. they are hard-anodized aluminum...no non-stick finish to wear off, and you can use metal utensils and scrub them with sand, if necessary, without harming the cook surface. i love them. up til now, i hadn't used them as an oven. i decided to try them out before i hit the road again. so as not to confuse the results with possible recipe errors, i decided to bake some pillsbury cinnamon rolls out of the can. above you see my coleman butane one-burner stove, a bottle of walnut oil, the rolls, the expedition pan, a can of butane, the alpine pan, and the scortch buster "riser bar" that i purchased separately.

the riser bar provides a space between the bottom of the pan and the flame to help prevent scorching.

you need to take extra care that the pan doesn't slip off, but my closest call came when i actually bumped the table.

i used the larger expedition pan (10 1/2 "). the recipe called for a 9" pan, so i could have used the smaller alpine, too.

the raw cinnamon rolls in the pan. this is the part where mutt got interested:-)

i built a little twig fire in the indentation on the top. you can use charcoal briquets or coals from your fire, also.

conflagration not necessary! the recipe called for 17 minutes of baking time. never one to take direction, i decided to make it 20 minutes, assuming that the fry-bake pan would be less efficient than an oven. wrong.

the rolls came out beautiful! the only thing wrong was the bottoms were a little too browned. if i had stayed with the 17 minutes baking time, they would have been perfect.

they were delicious anyway! i had them with spearmint tea.

this is the lid after baking. not a pan you would find in (mumble)artha's kitchen!

so i am pleased as all get-out with these pans. i have already made everything from eggs and bacon to porkchops to spaghetti and stews to oatmeal in them. although these nest compactly, i think i will take the larger expedition model on the road, and leave the alpine as the farmhouse pan.

i think they are worth every cent i spent. this cookware will outlive me, i'm sure.

my next experiment will be to do my homemade whole wheat pitas in them. i'll let you know how it goes.

here's a link to the website:

http://www.frybake.com/

re-inventing the rondyvan

i have been really busy the last few weeks getting ready for the sale at the farm, meant to get rid of stuff before my next trip out. my goal is to leave my half of the farmhouse (which belongs to my brother) with the most basic of furnishings....a bed, a table, a trunk for my clothes, and enough dishes and stuff for when i visit, or when the boys want to come to the farm. think "summer cottage". sparse, simple, and peaceful.

this has been in the planning stages for awhile. what really set me off was reading one of jack's posts (of Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity) with a photo of all he had left in the world. i wanted something like that, or at least close. as a vandweller, you strive for it by virtue of the limited space you have to live in. but after 2 cross country trips in the last year, i was woefuly shy of reaching my goal....at the farm, or in the van. (if you click on the title above, it will take you to jack's blog, and you can see for yourself what he was left with when his process was done).

on saturday, the sale was completed. i sold alot at the sale, gave a ton of stuff to goodwill, and helped fill a giant dumpster my brothers had rented..... yet i am still nowhere near where i want to be. because i look at the van, and it seems overwhelmingly full of stuff. i can't stand it one more minute, because the van is my real home, and i have not been feeling very peaceful in it lately.....just crowded and out of sorts. i need to pull my shelf/ bunk unit out to shorten the legs of the bed, and decide at 5 o'clock on saturday, sunburnt and exhausted, to do just that. and broke it.

now, it can be fixed, but not by me, and not by nightfall. mamma ain't happy if the van ain't right. so i think back to vandweller Vickie's serene and simple modular set-up in her van. then i go back to vandwellers and look at Pan's recent pics of a modular set-up in an astro using crates and air mattresses.

i got a decent redo of the interior in a couple of hours at the cost of less than $20. i spent $11 on a sheet of 1/4 inch hardboard at lowe's (thank-you david hair for the on-site coaching...it was perfect!) i also spent about $8 for 2 more sterilite white crates at the dollar store. it turns out that the sterilite storage drawers i had in the van, the crates, and my 3 gallon porta-potty are all exactly the same height, making the perfect platform for the bed.

this is a photo of the saw that michael gave me in california. we were gonna use it to lower the bed in the van, but we were too busy kayaking and eating hoagies at Johnny D's that we never got it done. so after much trial and error, i figured out how to (very carefully!) run it, and was able to cut the hardboard to size all by myself :-) i love tools!

at left you see the initial arrangement of crates and drawers ready for the hardwood platform.

and this is the platform in place.

the platform is very light, so i can raise it easily to access the crates in the back.

here is the twin mattress that sweet mike's mom bought me in brawley earlier this year when sweet mike was in the hospital, and we had an encampment in the hospital parking lot, right by the helicopter landing pad. i had been pretty much sleeping on plywood. his dad bought me a 12V inflator, too :-) thanks, both of you!!

rear view.

here it is after some rearranging. i am lost without the shelving unit that Bob Wells built me at the slabs, though. when they are repaired they will go right where the canoe chair is now.

but after 2 nights sleeping in a twin bed and having enough room for mutt and i both to move around with out killing each other, i think i will replace the shelving unit , but keep the bed the way it is. it is absolutely luxurious after sleeping on a bunk 26" wide. and i still have plenty of room to move around.

another advantage is that i will buy another sheet of hardboard and cut it to the same size as the first. my yoga mat will layer between them to keep them from sliding. when i need to, i can rearrange the drawers/ bedside table to one level, slide the second piece of hardboard over them, and inflate my full size mattress to fit there. all this versatility and comfort just blows my mind!

but back to simplicity and downsizing and meeting my goals, which, i should add, are rather vague still. when i had every single thing out of the van, i started putting back things with a newly critical eye.....what could i do without? what hadn't i used on the last 2 cross-country trips? what was merely for "just in case"? a great deal of stuff is in the corner of the kitchen now. some really critical things are not yet returned to the van....like my cooler, my water jug, and my guitar. over the next couple days, weather permitting, i'm going to pull all the gear out, photograph it, and prioritize it. see if i can get it all in without compromising the uncluttered serenity. and maybe you all will have suggestions or ideas for me.....

showering on the road

okay, messiest blog ever. don't ask me how this jumble happened, but it took alot of work to create this fiasco, and i'm not gonna redo it. bear with me!

pictured (haphazardly) are the things i use for staying fresh and sweet on the road. above is my Equinox ultralight toiletry bag. silnylon and mesh! when you are packing light, it is annoying to have a bag that's bulkier than what you are carrying. found on a clearance table in a health food store.

the tupperware container is my washbowl when i'm doing a quick wash-up in a parking lot somewhere. i can seal the lid to contain the water til i can get to someplace to dump it, like a public restroom.

i carry a small rubber door mat(below) for standing on where it's rocky or muddy. the green folding table was $9 and has a dozen uses. i use a 3 gallon paint can from lowe's for my potty. it doubles as a shower seat.

this is my outback porta-privy. i got it from cabela's a few years ago for $49. it pops open when taken from the carrying case, and folds down flat like those car sunshades.

it's a great changing room too. it stakes down. or has pockets at the bottom for rocks or sand to help keep it in place. staking is highly recommended when it's breezy!

above is one of those elizabethan dog collars/ cone things that mutt got after surgery once, to keep him from pawing the stitches.

((((that is a dreadful thing for an obedience trained dog to wear. mutt automatically heels to my left whether i tell him to or not. when he wore this, he'd drop into position at my left heel, whack the back of my knee with the cone, and drop me like a rock! entering a doorway was traumatic. it was a long 2 weeks!!!)))

anyhow, folded up, the collar makes a nice extension funnel for a folding bucket for washing hair! neat, eh? also makes a good pee bottle for those of us whohave trouble hitting the nalgene bottle in the dark :-)

magnet hook for holding the hose

this was my outdoor shower in the desert using the MSR dromlite bag. you can buy the shower nozzle for them from campmor. no shower shelter necessary if you can get the boys to point their solar panels away from you :-)