Regardless of where you live each of us needs to have an alternative means of cooking food. A portable means is a bonus. If we live in an apartment, a small grill we can cook with on the balcony is good. If we live in a house a BBQ grill is great! A camp stove is good, a grill you can burn charcoal and wood in is better. Why? Because camping stoves use gas for fuel, fuel runs out, a grill you can burn charcoal and wood in allows you to use what is at hand even after the fuel runs out.
Take a day off and plan on trying out your ability to cook during a bad day. Pick a meal and cook everything on your alternate system. EVERYTHING! Do not cheat and see how much you can really do without using the stove or microwave. You can add a new skill to your tool box and if things go horribly wrong, you can cook your regular way and everyone still gets to eat. During a bad day if you burn the food or have no way of cooking the food, your family might go hungry...............
First item to consider is where are you going to cook? Please do not move a BBQ into your living room and try using it there! Find a location outside and practice cooking. Odds are if you have to cook this way you are not going to want the risk of also burning your house down on top of whatever is happening. Find a well ventilated area away from anything which might catch fire.
Next item would be what are you going to cook on? The pots and pans you have in your kitchen are not made to cook over an open campfire type flame. Most items made for a modern kitchen have plastic handles. These will quickly melt over an open fire and could burn you badly if you grab the handle with the melting plastic! Same goes for plastic utensils, they will melt if left in a hot pan or too close to the fire.
During a bad day you can use these if you have to press them into service. I would suggest cutting off the plastic cover on the handles first. Buying a few cast iron cooking pots and pans is a better idea. Add in some of my favorite wooden utensils and you are good to go. Maybe add an old school camping coffee percolator? Do not try to make coffee over an open flame using glass! Odds are the flame will get to hot and break the glass, which would be a waste of water and coffee!!!
Cooking with cast iron takes practice. The flame or heat is not consistent as you are used to. The great thing is you can still cook everything you want, with a little practice and the right tools. The best item to add first is a Dutch Oven. You can cook almost everything in these. You can make eggs, bacon, casseroles, biscuits and even pies!! Wouldn't it be great if your family could have beef stew, greens, biscuits and apple cobbler during an emergency???? This takes practice and cast iron items have to be cleaned differently than what you do normally.
The trick to cooking with an open flame or charcoal is timing the cooking of the food. Food cooks better on hot coals then over raging fires. you also will want to practice to try and have all the food cooked and ready to serve at the same time. This takes practice, especially if you are not going to be reheating anything in a microwave!
While we are practicing cooking we should take a look at what we would serve the food on? Do we have paper plates and cups to use? Do we have zip lock bags or tupperware to put leftovers into? Do we have chairs and maybe a table to sit on outside? The biggest thing to test or learn is what could you not cook? Can you figure out a way to be able to cook more things? What do you have in your food storage you would not be able to cook? No point in storing those items any more.
Most of all, have fun learning something new! Even if you are a master on the BBQ test yourself. Try cooking an item you normally do not cook. Ribs, hamburgers and hot dogs are your specialty? Cook eggs, make biscuits, corn, stew and go for a pie!!!!! Remember, Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!!!
As always,
Stay Safe!!!!
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