Using a Slow Cooker to prepare dinner during long cruise ?

[baz]

I've been in a short discussion with another new Tugnut via Email and was asked how do I prepare a dinner meal. Preparing a dinner is probably the hardest and most labour intensive meal out of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This discussion has given me an idea which I'd like to get feedback on... 🙂

Making a dinner meal after a longish cruise can be quite tiring as it usually is a time to relax and enjoy the destination, plus it can take up time - 1 hour or more in some cases... and if you have your 4-legged friends with you they are going to need your attention before any other activity you might want to do.

So, if one prepared food ahead of the cruise and hooked up a Slow Cooker (is a 12v model avail ? ...or one could use a 110v model via inverter presumably) when starting to get under way this would solve the issue of a lengthy prep time for dinner at the end of the day. A nice Pork Casserole cooked for some 8 hours with pasta added later on would make a nice tasty and well earned dinner plate with minimum effort.

Has anyone prepared dinner in this way ? If so I'd like to get some feedback and any advice for using this method for preparing dinner.

Maybe if this is a practical and workable dinner prep solution we could build up a list of good recipes to share. 😉

Thanks... 🙂

P.S. The above dinner prep method is a method long used by Tin Can haulers, and its where this idea came from.

 

[lornec]

A slow cooker would use up a lot of electricity because it slow cooks. Therefore uses power over a long period of time.

 

[SlackwaterJack]

Check out this link http://www.12volt-travel.com/12-volt-ap ... htmlCached

slow cookers (after they reach their selected temp.) will cycle on and off as required to maintain that temp so maybe they won't run full-time ?

 

[baz]

Check out this link http://www.12volt-travel.com/12-volt-ap ... htmlCached

slow cookers (after they reach their selected temp.) will cycle on and off as required to maintain that temp so maybe they won't run full-time ?

That ref looks interesting... now the question would be can the battery charging while engine running keep up with the electrical energy drain being used by the Slow Cooker ?

I need to ask Andrew if the above equation of energy in vs. energy out is at least balanced.

 

[Levitation]

The alternator is capable of maintaining 60 amps at 14 volts continuous at cruise RPM... This is 840watts input...
I would expect that the alternator will easily keep the batteries charged during cruising even with the added load of the slow cooker... The cooker will be cycling at low temperature and drawing less than 840 watts continuous... Over the road truckers use these pots and their trucks continue to run normally...
You could improve the energy equation by making a blanket to enclose the pot and help hold in the heat while cooking... I see this as an excellent idea...

 

[Bruce Moore]

Don't know much about using a slow cooker on a boat, or calculating power consumption vs. generation. But we do adhere to a time tested method of maximizing our cooking to eating ratio: cook once, eat twice (or three times). More specifically, we cook (slowly) once, and eat (quickly) a few more times. Probably not a new idea to many, but here's what we do.

In keeping with the slow cooking theme of this thread, the approach works especially well with "slow cooked" foods. Dishes like Chili Verde (making a batch this weekend), Coq Au Vin, Salmon Chowder, etc. work especially well. Enjoy the land-based pleasure of slow cooking in your kitchen - and double (or triple) the recipe while you're at it. The incremental time and effort is marginal (mostly prep). After dinner, and after the extra servings have cooled, we put entree portions for two into flat rectangular storage containers and partially freeze them in preparation for vacuum sealing (this prevents loss of fluid and promotes a good seal).

We have several meal entrees stashed in the 12-volt freezer on Moondance. Before we had the freezer, we'd just pull a meal or two out of the freezer at home before heading out to the marina. The first night's meal goes in the fridge for a slow thaw. Now the cooking, and cleaning, time and effort aboard the boat is reduced to boiling water and dropping in the bag. Snip, and serve. Heating your rice/pasta/tortillas is a relatively quick and easy.

This goes a long way to minimize time and effort needed to enjoy a fairly robust meal on board. And, from our perspective (sample of two) it avoids the distraction of having food cooking while underway. (Barry, let me know if you want any recipes)

Cheers,

Bruce

 

[baz]

The alternator is capable of maintaining 60 amps at 14 volts continuous at cruise RPM... This is 840watts input...
I would expect that the alternator will easily keep the batteries charged during cruising even with the added load of the slow cooker... The cooker will be cycling at low temperature and drawing less than 840 watts continuous... Over the road truckers use these pots and their trucks continue to run normally...
You could improve the energy equation by making a blanket to enclose the pot and help hold in the heat while cooking... I see this as an excellent idea...

Now this is the answer/response I was hoping for. Thanks much. 🙂

Actually I got the idea after reading a long blog of a kindred spirit owner of a Flamenco Red colored Volvo XC70 AWD who had traveled from his home in South Wales (UK) to/through Southern England, France, Spain and Portugal towing his Tin Can. I'm also a Volvo enthusiast and have owned Volvos for more than 40 years which is why I read the blog while waiting for our latest Volvo wagon - a MY2012 Twilight Bronze colored XC70 T6. He & family traveled some 5478 Miles (8815Km), his ‘Flamenco Red’ towed the ‘Tin Tent’ for just over 3800 Miles (6115Km) while drinking 190 Gallons (850Ltrs) of Diesel, giving an average of 28.8Mpg (10.37Km/Ltr).

His blog always mentioned using his Slow Cooker for preparing dinner after a long day on the road. This gave me the idea of doing the same on our R-25 day long cruises.

Here's a snippet of his blog... and the mention of his slow cooker...

Quote... "Yesterday evening I thought about the possibility of having Dinner ready for us when we arrived at our next stop, so as we have a 230V ‘Slow Cooker’ and I also have a 600Watt Inverter I thought why not put them together and let Flamenco Red cook Dinner as we travel via the 12V Outlet in the luggage area!

So that is what I did having put the Minced Beef, Sliced Onion, Sliced Mushrooms & Bolognese Sauce in the Slow Cooker that evening, just before we set off I started the engine, then plugged in the Inverter and after a 12 hour day we had Dinner kindly cooked for us by Flamenco Red during the day!"

...and here's a couple of pics from his blog ...and if you have an interest in reading his blog it's at http://www.volvoxc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19941

 

[baz]

...snip...
This goes a long way to minimize time and effort needed to enjoy a fairly robust meal on board. And, from our perspective (sample of two) it avoids the distraction of having food cooking while underway. (Barry, let me know if you want any recipes)

Cheers,

Bruce

Thanks Bruce. 🙂 Swapping recipes is a good idea.

"...about cooking while underway..." -- I was thinking placing the slow cooker in the sink or securing it some other way while placed on top of our Wallas might do the trick. I agree, it is of concern having something like a slow cooker operational especially if bad weather is encountered. Having braved pretty bad weather and big waves I must admit the R-25 gets thrown about quite badly at times, and any loose item gets thrown about like guided missiles.

 

[baz]

I just checked with Andrew Custis (who answered his cell while in Arizona !!!!). He said AOK with the slow cooker while underway.

Assuming a 12v slow cooker drawing say some 240 watts means a amperage draw of 20 amps. The engine alternator with engine at high revs puts out far more amps than this and is capable of running the Refrigerator as well as a slow cooker.

 

[walldog]

We have one of the small cookers from Wal-mart. We keep it on the boat and use it quite often to cook a meal while underway. Even the smallest ones will cook enough for two people to eat on for a couple of days. Ribs are excellent, ask our friends Skip and Nancy, as we just brought the cooker with the ribs in it to happy hour at their boat and the meal was hot when we were ready to eat. We bought this one last year while we were in Anacortes and would not leave the dock without it. The invertor runs it fine while under way. You probably would not want to try to run it at anchor though unless it was a real sunny day.

 

[Bruce Moore]

...Ribs are excellent, ask our friends Skip and Nancy, as we just brought the cooker with the ribs in it to happy hour at their boat and the meal was hot when we were ready to eat...

Slow cooked ribs. Hmmmm. May have to rethink our food prep practices.

 

[HRowland]

Hi Herb,

I would love to have your ribs recipe if you would be willing to share it. It is a great idea to use a slow cooker while underway!

Howard

 

[walldog]

Hi Herb,

I would love to have your ribs recipe if you would be willing to share it. It is a great idea to use a slow cooker while underway!

Howard

We use pork ribs. Very simple receipe, dust with Tony Chachere's "Original Creole Seasoning" place in crockpot and turn on high. About 5 hours of this and the meat will be falling off the bones. I usually just turn it to low until we are ready to eat. The last ones we did we cooked around 7 to 8 hours, after 5 it is not critical. You will need tongs to remove them from the pot.....and serve with a good napkin. Variations could use your favorite BBQ sauce instead of the Tony's. But we are not sauce people that is just a personal preference. My guests do not complain.

Another quick meal: Our fisherman friends keep us supplied with plenty of local fish. Trout, whiting, and red fish. (they do not share the Red Snapper). We filet them and slip about 4 small thin filets in a ziploc and freeze. They thaw quickly and a light dusting with Tony's then saute them for a couple minutes with just a bit of olive oil. They will cook quickly and you will not need to turn them over. Slide them from the skillet to a bed of chopped lettuce on individual plates. A nice healthy light salad dinner for two.

We call it eating good in the neighborhood.

 

[RProffer]

Here is a website with a bunch of 12V items for truckers. I do not know how good their stuff is http://www.roadtrucker.com

 

[HRowland]

After reading about using a slow cooker while underway we gave it a try. During a day cruise on Narragansett Bay this past Sunday we made "Simple Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin". The recipe came from Whole Foods. We did the prep work at home and cooked it while slowly cruising around Prudence Island. We put the slow cooker in the galley sink and had a bungee cord holding the lid in place. We grabbed a mooring in Potter Cove and relaxed a while before enjoying our meal. The slow cooker was powered by the inverter and was drawing about 10A from the house bank while the engine was off, not an issue for a couple of hours or so.
It worked great, our meal was ready, hot, and delicious. This is a very good method for having a meal ready at the end of a day!

Regarding alternator output at low RPM- we were stopped for a while and used a bit of power. The slow cooker was running for a couple of hours, we heated a side dish in the microwave for about 7 minutes, and I made a pot of coffee using a drip coffee maker- all powered by the inverter. The Victron battery monitor I recently installed indicated that I had used about 15% of the house bank capacity. I selected battery current display on the Victron before I started the engine, at idle the initial house bank charge current was close to 100A. The alternator on the Yanmar 4BY2 can put out a lot of current at low RPM! This is good to know.

Howard

 

[knotflying]

Good info Howard. While on the hook I usually will put the engine on when using the inverter to power the microwave or any high watt item.

 

[Gin]

We use a large slow cooker at home for most purposes, which is not what we would want to try to use on the boat. The other thing we have, though, is a high end "fuzzy logic" (microcomputer) rice cooker. But rice is probably the thing we cook least in it. It is the most multi-purpose appliance we have. It will hard boil and soft boil eggs to perfection (1 to 8 of them). In the winter, we cook a lot of steel cut oats in it. It cooks a wide variety of rice (white, brown, wild, and mixed). And other grains (quinoa, etc). And some of them (but this is less common) do double duty as a slow cooker. What it will do that less fancy rice cookers won't is keep whatever you cook warm and moist for long periods after it is done (for hours, if need be; don't do this with your eggs, of course, because they keep cooking no matter what). So, for example, you can start some rice, give it a stir when it is done, snap the lid back down, and it can literally sit for several hours and still be as good as if you serve it the moment it is done. (commercial sized versions of these kind of rice cookers are supposedly what restaurants use when rice is a staple of most meals, as in asian restaurants).

There are a few in a 3-cup version, which I think would be perfect on the tugs (food for one or two). I'm not seeing any of those with the slow cooker option, though. They would work fine for any kind of grain, rice, and probably eggs (you use a plain steam setting for that). There's a 5-cup Panasonic that has 8 cooking settings, one of which is a slow cooker (http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/model/SR-MS103). The catch on these units is that the shell around the interior cooking "pan" adds some bulk, so the large ones are big. We have a 5.5-cup that I think might work on the boat, although I know a 3-cup would be ideal. So, size is a potential downside. The upside is that they are relatively light, plastic, the lid is hinged and snaps tightly into place by a stout catch, and all or most have a large loop handle that would aid in securing them in place while underway. I have no idea of how much electricity they draw, but my guess would be no more than, and maybe less than, a traditional slow cooker.

They are more expensive than most slow cookers, but the fuzzy logic in them really works. We have several friends/family members that now use them and love them after seeing ours in use. Zojirushi is the top of the line, in my view. More spendy, but worth it. Hard to fine a Zoji with the slow cooker setting (and I don't know if one can slow cook using other settings, but maybe). To get the slow cook feature, we went with this Sanyo: http://us.sanyo.com/Microcomputerized-Rice-Cookers/5-5-Cup-Micom-Rice-Slow-Cooker. We've used it for several years now, love it, and has been rock solid quality-wise. Panasonic makes several, like the one I linked to above (a new model).

Sorry for the long post. But no one had mentioned these kinds of cookers, and I wanted to spread the word.

(I won't get started on modern pressure cookers, which we used on our last boat. They are not the pressure cooker of my grandmother's day, and make incredibly short work of what would otherwise be long cook times. They come in somewhat smaller and more boat sized versions these days too).

- Gini

 

[HRowland]

We use pork ribs. Very simple receipe, dust with Tony Chachere's "Original Creole Seasoning" place in crockpot and turn on high. About 5 hours of this and the meat will be falling off the bones. I usually just turn it to low until we are ready to eat. The last ones we did we cooked around 7 to 8 hours, after 5 it is not critical. You will need tongs to remove them from the pot.....and serve with a good napkin. Variations could use your favorite BBQ sauce instead of the Tony's. But we are not sauce people that is just a personal preference. My guests do not complain.

Herb,

We tried your recipe during a day cruise on Narragansett Bay yesterday. We used the Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning you suggested. Fantastic! We did not even cook them for the full 5 hours, they were "falling off the bones" at a little over 4 hours.

Thanks!

Howard

 

[walldog]

Thanks Howard, my wife...Willie, thinks I am a genius at cooking.....just a little Tony's and slow heat. Works every time.

 

[Brian B]

Hi Herb,

I would love to have your ribs recipe if you would be willing to share it. It is a great idea to use a slow cooker while underway!

Howard

We use pork ribs. Very simple receipe, dust with Tony Chachere's "Original Creole Seasoning" place in crockpot and turn on high. About 5 hours of this and the meat will be falling off the bones. I usually just turn it to low until we are ready to eat. The last ones we did we cooked around 7 to 8 hours, after 5 it is not critical. You will need tongs to remove them from the pot.....and serve with a good napkin. Variations could use your favorite BBQ sauce instead of the Tony's. But we are not sauce people that is just a personal preference. My guests do not complain.

Another quick meal: Our fisherman friends keep us supplied with plenty of local fish. Trout, whiting, and red fish. (they do not share the Red Snapper). We filet them and slip about 4 small thin filets in a ziploc and freeze. They thaw quickly and a light dusting with Tony's then saute them for a couple minutes with just a bit of olive oil. They will cook quickly and you will not need to turn them over. Slide them from the skillet to a bed of chopped lettuce on individual plates. A nice healthy light salad dinner for two.

We call it eating good in the neighborhood.

I found Tonys seasoning at Walmart and tried your rib recipe. I cooked them at home and they were delicious. I'm sure they taste even better on the boat. 😀
Thanks for the tip, I'll definetly be cooking them again.