Most Read Post Of 2022

The DIY thermal cooker workhorse that started it all in our kitchen is just a camping thermal chest packed with old pillows to insulate hot food in a pot. We 
have added a pillow on top since the lid is not insulated.

For the first time in ages, the most read post of the year on this blog has changed. Does this mean that priorities have changed as well?

The most read on the Not Buying Anything Blog has been for many consecutive years the post called Average House Size By Country. Interesting that it is also the most commented on post on this blog, which I take to mean that it is also the most controversial. 

I guess this is unsurprising considering our obsession with size generally. We love things big enough to be imposing and impressive, but also things small enough to be cute.

So you buy a huge house and eat tiny sliders in it, for the best of both worlds. Consumerism, after all, tells us that "You Can Have It All!™".

Anyway, it was heartening to finish 2022 and see that the house size post had been toppled from first place by the more NBA-friendly DIY Thermal Cooker post. The house size post fell to... second place.

Hopefully this means that people are looking more toward ways of being more efficient with their energy consumption, and are placing more importance on frugal and practical methods that save money. 

Store-bought cookers can be very expensive when there is no need to buy anything.

The magic of thermal cookery addresses both. But you do not need to spend $150.00 to $400.00 to purchase a cooker. Ours cost us nothing, and work just as well.

Thermal cooking has transformed the way that we cook and eat in our home. We use our DIY cooker so often that there are many days that our cooking backs up to the point that we need more than one thermal cooker.

An auxiliary thermal cooker for when we need more than one. Just a heavy blanket on the countertop.

When that happens, we use alternatives other than our workhorse, the camping thermal chest.

Most often we just use a blanket on the countertop for the overflow food. 

Recently I went a bit further and MacGyvered an extra thermal cooker out of a yoga mat, cardboard box, and blanket.

It worked out very well, and kept the food inside (a lovely borsht made with our own beets and carrots) steaming hot even after cooking for 2 hours. Today we made white rice in it which turned out perfectly.

My MacGyvered thermal cooker uses things we had on hand.
No need to buy anything. For insulation, it has folded
yoga mat on the bottom with a blanket on top to wrap the pot in.

We made our red workhorse cooker more efficient by devoting an old pillow to go on the lid. This is because the top of the old thermal chest is not insulated, meaning it is a way for valuable heat to escape.

Welcome to 2023, where efficiency and money saving ideas will become more important than obsessing over the size of our house, or SUV, or body parts.

What's in the cooker tonight? Spanish chickpea stew with potatoes and yellow pepper.

Note: The information found on www.thermalcooking.net is one of the best descriptions I have come across, and is a good start toward saving energy and money, and learning about the joy of thermal cooking.

"What is all the hype about trapping heat to cook your food? The benefits include; energy efficiency, easy to clean, portable, quick and convenient, simple to use, “green”, keeps hot things hot & cold things cold, and traps nutrients and flavor inside. Just to name a few.

 

The first step in retained heat cooking is to bring food to a boil in a pot. Then place that pot of boiling food inside of an insulated thermal unit. Food continues to cook as the temperature of the food slowly drops over time. The result, when done correctly, is food which will maintain safe serving temperatures for up to eight hours. Thermal cookers can be purchased or assembled using boxes, coolers, blankets, pillows and a heavy pot, making thermal cooking accessible to everyone."

Read more about thermal cooking at the website here.