Heat retention cooking or haybox cooking

[preservefreak]

It's mostly useful for long cooking wet meals like stew. Make the stew as you normally would and put it in your pot/casserole. You will want the pot to be pretty full as lots of air space in the pot will reduce the effectiveness. Then instead of leaving it in the oven or on the stove to cook for a few hours you put the lid on and bring the food to a boil. Let it boil fiercely for a couple of minutes and then then put it in your haybox.

Just a wooden box filled with straw, hay or towels will work great. I've even seen someone make one out of a plastic tub and sheets of polystyrene with a pot shaped hole cut out. When the food has had it's 2 minutes boiling move the covered pot into the box wrapping it in insulation on all sides. You can then leave it for anywhere from 2 to 8 hours. It allows you to make an evening meal in the morning and then go off to your day without using up loads of fuel.

If you use a thermos as I do you can make porridge and rice in it as well as speed soak beans. The trick to cooking with a thermos though is to preheat it with boiling water before any ingredients go in. For porridge for instance fill the thermos with hot water to preheat, then get oats, sugar and milk powder in a bowl. Discard the hot water and then put you ingredients in the empty but hot thermos. Cover them with boiling water and seal. I do this every night before I go to bed so I wake up next to a hot breakfast.