What is fireless cooking? Well, it’s like a slow cooker, but it does not use electricity at all. The short and sweet of it is that food is heated to boiling for a period of time 5, 10, and 15 minutes and then put into an insulated structure. The covered pot will retain all the heat and the food will slowly continue cooking for several hours. This cooking concept is not new. While doing some research I found a newspaper article from the late 1890s describing the same method. I also found a drawing in the book Experiment Station Work, XLI from 1907. If interested in reading the article it can be found on the Internet Archive.
My cooker is not made from wood but the concept is the same. I was able to duplicate the method using a lidded pot and a cooler. Considering the cooler took up so much counter space and the hot pot warped the plastic on the inside of the cooler I finally decided to purchase a small crock-pot-sized thermal cooker.
It’s very simple to use and there is no worry about leaving an electric appliance plugged.
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The past few days I’ve tried a couple of soup recipes and can say that I’m really pleased with how they turned out.
The first recipe I tried was my own take on a chunky chicken stew. It’s more like chicken and dumplings but without the dumplings.
Chicken Ranch Stew
- 3 Large Chicken Breasts (Remove skin)
- 1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
- 32 oz Chicken Broth
- 1 packet Ranch Dressing Mix
- 1 Medium Onion (chopped)
- 1 cup Carrots (small whole or chopped)
- 5-10 Small Red Potatoes (quartered)
- 1 Small Can Sliced Mushrooms
- Brown chicken lightly with a little olive on in the pot. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil and simmer until everything is hot. Let simmer for about 15 minutes.
- Cover the pot and put it into the thermal cooker for 4-5 hours.
- Remove chicken from the pot and remove bones. Shred the chicken and return to the pot.
- Salt and Pepper to taste. Mix a little cornstarch and water to thicken the soup.
Then again then last night I did a venison vegetable soup.
Vegetable Soup with Venison
- 2 lb Venison (ground (beef can be used instead))
- 1 Medium Onion (diced)
- 2 cans Can Mixed Vegetables (15 oz cans)
- 1 can Lima Beans (15 oz can)
- 1 can Niblet Corn (15 oz can)
- 1 can Sliced Carrots (15 oz can)
- 4 cans Diced Tomatoes (15 oz cans)
- 2 cups Water
- Salt and Pepper (to taste)
- Brown the meat with the onions.
- Mix all the ingredients into the pot with the meat and onions.
- Mix thoroughly and bring to a boil.
- Let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.
- Place the covered pot into the thermal cooker. Let cook for 4-5 hours.
The fun part is that once these soup mixes get heated up and placed into the cooker there is nothing left to do. After 4-6 hours dinner is ready! On the plus side, I have plenty of soup that will end up in the freezer since I made so much! I put 4 quarts in the freezer for later this year!
Remember that this method takes time to cook, so start early!
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Nice recipes! The cooker sounds great, I love experimenting with other methods! We tried a few in Girl Scouts, solar box, dutch oven, card board box oven – fun stuff! This also looks as if it would be perfect for taking a hot dish to share at a pot luck instead of dragging along a crock pot – what do you think?
Thanks for stopping by! I think it would work if one is careful not to tip the pot. The seal isn’t spill proof.