Will a thermal cooker work with a teardrop trailer?

A few weeks ago I became very interested in thermal cookers as an efficient, non-electric way to cook food while camping. Video bloggers, Phil and Vanessa live full time out of their Honda Element and use their Saratoga Jacks thermal cooker to make meals on the road without having to plug anything into a socket.

The way a thermal cooker works is by using thermal mass to slowly cook food that has already been brought to a boil. A thermal cooker is essential two pots: one is a thick bottom pot that holds the food and is placed on the fuel source such as a camp stove. The food is brought to a boil and then placed into the second pot, essentially a large Thermos. The food continues to cook for a few hours, providing a hot meal without having to cook something on the spot.

Normally, when we are teardrop camping or on the road our lunches are cold. We have sandwiches, dips, crackers, tuna, etc. I thought a thermal cooker might be a great way to enjoy a warm meal while in transit or while at the campground. We could start it in the morning and within 3-4 hours we could have lunch. Or we could start a dish in the afternoon and have a quick dinner. This could be beneficial if we are camping later in the year when it gets dark earlier or we don't want to cook outside.

Last weekend, I tested a thermal cooker by Cook's Essentials. This was the smallest thermal cooker I could find and one I thought would fit in the teardrop trailer easily. I tested it in my home kitchen with a vegetable curry similar to Phil and Vanessa's road-worthy recipe. In the top pot provided with the Cook's Essentials system, I placed some rice and beans we already had on hand.

I brought the vegetables (sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots, garlic), red curry paste, coconut milk and some Bragg's Liquid Aminos to a boil in the inner pot on the stove. I placed the pot into the thermal cooker and went for a three hour hike in the hills. When I got back...success! I had a tender, vegetable curry that was still hot. The top pan with the rice was less warm, but all the food was cooked and retained heat for quite a while.

I have yet to test this on the road. I would need to find a space in our trailer where the pot won't topple over and spill the liquid. While in camp, the pot will fit nicely in our galley until we return for a hot meal.

I'm now on the lookout for a few good recipes...

Dutch Oven Burn Party

Because I was out setting fires, I totally blew last Friday's Teardrop Photo.

In the high desert, this time of the year is burn season. This means our county gives us seven days to gather up and burn downed tree branches, yard waste, leaves and pine needles and dead sagebrush. It tends to really pile up over the winter, and burn season is a time of celebration and major yard cleanup in order to keep a defensible space against wildfires.

 Of course, this type of hard work doesn't get done without the incentive of having a party. Since burning can be hard and dangerous work, you need help. Each year, we get together with our neighbors to burn collective waste, and celebrate afterwards with a coal fired Dutch oven breakfast.

 

Teardrop trailers and Dutch ovens go hand in hand, so it's nice to be able to break out the Dutch ovens from winter storage and season them up before taking them on the road. We usually make a Mountain Man breakfast, which comes from Outdoor Cast Iron Cooking's channel and

cornbread or cornbread pudding with bacon and sausages. Of course, we always have hot coffee and Mimosas with orange juice and champagne.

 

Five easy teardrop trailer meals

Over the years that I've been camping in a teardrop trailer, I've seen a large variety of meals prepared out of the back of a teardrop galley. Everything from bread and cookies out of camp ovens to appetizers and full course meals. We've done our fair share of major cooking, but sometimes you just want a quick, simple meal at a rest stop or after a long day of exploring.

You will need a basic propane stove or grill for each of these meals. We have a Coleman 2-burner stove with a grill that allows us to cook two dishes at once for a little variety. We can either do the cooking in the galley or on a small table near the galley. If we do this, we use the galley counter for food prep. This usually attracts a lot of attention in parking lots and rest stops.


Burgers and grilled veggies

One of the best camp foods is still one of the easiest to make. The good old burger (meat or veggie) can either be cooked on the grill or in a pan. You can then use the grill for some veggies like peppers, asparagus or corn on the cob.

Quesadillas or grilled cheese and soup

The ultimate comfort dish. We always have tortillas with us and fill them or bread with cheese and ham or prosciutto for the ultimate grilled sandwich. You can also grill up a tuna fish sandwich as well. The other burner can then be used for tomato soup.

Salmon fillet and couscous

This meal is done in about 15 minutes flat. Grill the salmon over the grill pan and cook some packaged couscous in a pot on the other burner. Top the salmon with some mango or tomato salsa.

Tacos

Heat up those handy corn or flour tortillas in some aluminum foil on the grill and cook up some ground beef, ground turkey or even pre-cooked chicken in a pan. Top each taco with premade salsa, quacamole or sour cream.

Shish Kabobs

This is a great way to get both your protein and veggies together on the same dish, but just be sure you pack some metal skewers. Spear some cubed beef, pork or chicken on the skewers with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, peppers and pineapple and grill. The other burner can be cooking up some couscous, orzo pasta or rice. Top both the side dish and the kabobs with tzatziki made with yogurt and cucumber.

Friday Teardrop Photo

Hubby cooking eggs while camping at Silver Lake near the Mokelumne Wilderness area.

Five Favorite Dutch Oven Recipes

Teardrop camping and Dutch oven cooking go together like peanut butter and jelly. I had never cooked with a Dutch oven before getting a teardrop and seeing the pros at the various gatherings tackle the heavy cast iron pots. The cooking method was clinched for me while on a trip to Zion National Park. A nice couple with a vintage canned ham trailer were in the process of making a divine beef stew over the fire and as I watched them top the stew with homemade biscuits, I was hooked.

I'm still a Dutch oven novice and have not done any cooking using briquettes. When we go camping with our other teardrop friends, we only use coals from the fire to keep from having to bring all the briquette cooking accoutrements. We make the process easier and safer by placing both the coals and the Dutch oven in a galvanized steel pan. Other Dutch oven necessities are aluminum foil, a shovel for digging out coals, a pair of welding gloves to lift up hot, heavy pots and of course, a lid lifter.

While we do some experimenting with Dutch oven cooking, we do tend to gravitate toward the same couple of recipes. These are my five personal favorites:


Dutch Oven Quiche

This is a super simple dish for both breakfast and dinner. You will need a Dutch oven large enough to fit your pie crust, but you can just leave it in its original tin. You can also make the quiche in aluminum foil right in the oven (see photo above). I got this recipe from the Texas Park & Wildlife video on Dutch oven cooking.

Dutch Oven Pizza

This is my all-time favorite teardrop dinner. I got the recipe from fellow teardroppers, Dean and Joannie's YouTube channel, Outdoor Cast Iron Cooking. They have a ton of great recipes and videos on how to make some really tasty cast iron dishes. We use their pizza recipe over and over again. The parchment paper and corn meal are essential.

Dutch Oven Lasagna

This is another Dean and Joannie recipe that takes a little longer to make, but is so tasty and filling, especially when you are camping in the cold. It creates a lot of liquid, so I tend to use less cheese and drain out the meat.

Mountain Man

Another recipe by Outdoor Cast Iron Cook is Dean's Mountain Man breakfast, which I've had with him on the California coast and it was the perfect breakfast for a chilly, foggy morning. We've done several variations of this recipe with different meats and veggies.

Dutch Oven Chuck Wagon Casserole

Can you tell I lean toward classic Western cowboy dishes? The Chuck Wagon Casserole with corn, chilis and cornbread is the quintessential Dutch oven dish and is quick to make. I got the recipe from Dutch Oven Dude. In fact, any kind of casserole does well in a Dutch oven. Experiment.


We've learned a few things while teardropping and Dutch oven cooking: this type of cooking takes longer than you think it will, especially when it's cold out, so be sure to have some appetizers while waiting. Also, when you start smelling your dish, it's ready. Remove it from the coals and check it to make sure it doesn't get burned.

There's a learning curve that comes with Dutch oven cooking, and it takes some practice with different recipes to get the hang of it.

Friday Teardrop Photo

Outdoor cooking and camping at the Dam Gathering.
Taken at Antlers Resort & Marina in Lakehead, California near Shasta Lake.

Friday Teardrop Photo

Harry cooking up some marinated chicken in the back of the Sunflower.
Taken at Convict Lake, California (can you guess now that it's one of our favorite spots?)

Teardrop Trailer Food

When teardrop camping, we have a tendency to bring along the same types of food. This is really because we have limited storage space and usually we want to spend our time outside hiking, kayaking or enjoying other outdoor sports. We don't want to spend our time figuring out new recipes. So we have gotten into the habit of bringing along our favorite things every time we head into the hills.

Most of our dinners are cooked in a dutch oven which goes hand-in-hand with teardrop camping, and which I will cover in a future post. However, a lot of our meals are also cooked over the propane stove or over the campfire, and because we've been out and about all day our favorite foods and drinks tend to be high in calories.

Our camping standbys are:

Breakfast

Bagels (toasted on the stove or over the fire) and cream cheese
Grapefruit
Orange juice
Eggs (sometimes mixed with cheese or sweet peppers)
Bacon
Toast
Tortillas
Pancake mix and syrup
Coffee

Lunch (usually eaten on a trail or on a kayak beach)

Tortillas (we love quesadillas with turkey or ham)
Bread and cold cuts
Tunafish salad
Pickles 
Apples and oranges
Cheese

Happy Hour 

Tortilla chips and salsa
Olives
Hummus and veggies
Crackers and goat cheese
 
Alcohol

Pre-mixed margaritas (and a few limes)
Beer with twist caps
Wine with twist caps

Dinner

Various dutch oven meals (stews or pizza are our favorites)
Steak
BBQ Chicken
Steamed veggies in aluminum foil on the fire
Grilled veggies 

Desserts

Jiffy Pop popcorn
Roasted Marshmallows or S'mores
Hot Chocolate
Dutch oven brownies or upside down pineapple/peach cake


No matter what we bring, it always tastes much better out in the fresh air.

Teardrop Trailer Trash

When we go camping, we tend to rely a lot on convenience food for our meals. We love those Bisquick Shake n' Pour bottles of pancake mix, cans of veggies, packaged tortillas and lots and lots of Ziploc bags. Not to mention the copious amounts of beer and wine we tend to drink. Unfortunately after all our cooking and eating, we end up with a lot of camping trash that needs to be tossed in a campground Dumpster.

If we are boondocking, we do take our trash and recyclables back home to put in the appropriate receptacles, but many campgrounds don't have recycle bins and we are forced to dump our cans and bottles in the trash or look for a public or local recycling facility. This is normally not something we want to do while on vacation.

I've tried to become more conscientious about our camping trash and will use plastic containers to store food instead of Ziploc bags, or we will wash and re-use the bags while washing our camping dishes. I will also ask a local or a park ranger where we can recycle our cans and bottles and will suggest that they need to add or update their campground recycling center. Also, to save on plastic bottles, we always have a Nalgene or Klean Kanteen with us in our packs and the teardrop trailer.

What do you do to reduce or recycle your teardrop trailer trash?

Photo by sweetheartsinner/etsy

Ten Best Teardrop Galleys

A few months ago, I was showing my teardrop for the first time to my friend Pedro. He had no idea the trailer had a kitchen in the back, and when I opened up the hatch, he nearly fell over. There is something brilliant and beautiful about a teardrop trailer galley, and they are great examples of smart design and fresh air cooking. This list contains the 10 best teardrop galleys I've run into over the past few years. Many of them are great examples of space-saving ideas, ingenuity, craftsmanship and design.

 

The Little Guy Silver Shadow is a manufactured, stock teardrop, but their 5x10 model has a really nice galley with a sink and roll-out stove. It's nearly similar in design to my galley with a small drawer and the useful top shelf which keeps cups and other items from flying out while going down the road.

 

This is a 1947 Kenskill teardrop featured on the Old Trailer.com website. I really love the way the utensils and the paper towels have been integrated into the older cabinets.

 

This teardrop by Mini Tears is meant to be towed behind a Mini Cooper. The fold-out table, roll-out ice chest holder and rolling cabinet covers give this galley some great details.

 

Big Woody Campers build some of the most beautiful trailers on the road today and their ultimate teardrop galley contains a double sink, a small fridge and a space for your TV.

 

This is a simple, but really well organized galley by Camp ADK. This couple's website is one of the first ones I came across while searching for my first teardrop trailer. I really love that they built the galley around the size of a 5 gallon water tank. 

 

This is a great example of a way to add on extra work space to a galley. Sunset magazine featured this teardrop trailer in an article about glamping.

 

This is one of my favorite teardrops from the Douglas Keister book, "Teardrops & Tiny Trailers".

It was built by Douglas Hoder.

 

This galley has always been one of my favorites. The use of tile and color makes it look so different from other teardrops I've seen.  It was built by Melody Lucero with a Desert Teardrop plan.

 

This Moby1 galley has a place for everything. The design is really smart and well done for such a tiny area.

 

This is one of my favorite galleys on the TNTTT (Teardrops & Tiny Travel Trailers) forum. It's a Camp-Inn trailer that has been customized for a real camp chef. Check out that copper kettle!