Hi,
I'm trying to reduce my packing time whilst camping. We went for a weekend recenty with much less stuff, and it helped. But for longer we need to take an extension and camp kitchen for cooking and thats where the packup time starts to get longer. So purely from a faff point of view do you think we could get away with JUST taking a microwave, that we can then use in the tent? The idea being no gas bottle, no grill, no extension, no camp kitchen etc
I've done my time with a tangia and have no moral dilema about it not being real camping ( having electricity is not real camping IMO)
Or can anyone suggest a rain proof way of cooking that does not need loads of equipment?
Microwaves are fine if you are happy with microwaved food but I once had a mini oven which did just about everything. It cost me £30 from Argos and it comprised of two electric heating elements, one at the top and one at the bottom of the oven. The elements can be used together or on their own. This meant that I could just have the top one on to do toast, bacon etc; or both to bake and heat. I am not sure what purpose the bottom one on it's own would have, maybe keeping something warm.
The oven had a timer and variable heating. I could even heat things like tinned peas either in the opened tin or by transferring them to a small tin foil tray. In other words it would do an entire dinner.
I had mine on an alluminium table just inside the tent door. The casing does get hot so it has to be kept several inches away from the tent walls which wasn't a problem.
I guess I can't boil water in an oven though ? What I'm really trying to do is cut the packing up down, so It needs to be less faff than a gas cooker in an extension but do the same.
well a search for electric oven with hob actually brought up camping hobs, which I never knew existed, maye that would be even better. Anyone tried camping with an electric hob instead of gas ? Would it be safe in a tent ?
Would it be quick as qucik to boil stuff as gas ? ( We use a kettle for coffee, so its for spag bog and the like?)
I got a single electric hotplate from Kampa and I found it very slow. I did use a heavy bottomed pan though, so I'm sure that didn't help. I brought a pan from home I don't bother with camping ones. It certainly didn't perform like my own electric hob at home but then it wouldn't get the same amount of electricity delivered to it as my hob would at home either.
I have a Kampa electric hob but rarely use it, the outer casing gets extremely hot and takes a long time to cool down.
In order to save space I now just take my Campingaz Bistro. I have not used my double burner and gas bottle since I bought the Bistro about 12 years ago.
A microwave will rapidly boil water, that is essentially how it cooks food, they don't produce heat primarliy. Their very limited though, how would you cook bacon and sausages and all the other nice camping fare?
A mini oven will boil water in a suitable container...certainly boiled my tinned peas . However, space inside them is limited so you might not be able to boil and cook other things at the same time.
We have a Cobb and ghillie kettle, cadac for gas and home made tarp to cook under. These all cook in the wildest weather and the ghillie works better in stronger winds. The ghillie will boil 2 ltrs of water in a few minutes whilst also heating the cobb up to cook on. ]