Inventive cooking methods. Not dishwasher salmon but what's your best cuisine in extermis triumph?

[KnopkaPixie]

Unless you have ever made dishwasher salmon, of course. I haven’t got an oven at the moment and I managed to make a proper layered lasagne with béchamel that went brown on top in a deep frying pan with a lid.

Camping? Holiday flat? That sort of thing.

And did the estate agents listing include the wonderful French property market euphemism:
"À rafraîchir."

See above. I messed up.

Camping you can make toast by putting a slice of bread flat in a dry frying pan.

Not really a cooking one but ideal for outdoor birthday parties or exciting walks with kids. Take hot dogs in flasks of boiling water and they stay hot.

You can make it much tastier by frying bacon in the pan first 😈

I used to cook pasta in a thermos at university

When I first met DH, his kitchen equipment comprised an ancient cast iron girdle, a commando knife, a plastic fish slice that was redeemed with Shell vouchers, and a Le Creuset casserole (god bless MIL). We had a lot of one pot meals.

Have also toasted bread on a fire using an original Tudor toasting fork. I think the copious flaky rust added to the experience, if not the flavour.

You're a woman after my own heart, Sabrina. I like nothing better than being locked into a cast iron girdle like in the times of the Crusaders and flapped about a bit with a plastic fish slice.

I know it was a typo!

Griddle, you daft banana!

Let's all sing an old school hymn:

When a knight won his spurs in the the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold.
With Green Sheild stamps on his arm, and a fish slice in his hand,
For Le Creuset and his mother he rode through the land.

No toaster have I, and no fire blan-ket,
But still to toasting fork battle I ride.
Through back into storyland, dragons have fled,
The rust on the toasting fork, keeps us all fed.

Or something like that. It doesn't scan perfectly but we can work on it later.

He sounds like a good 'un.

I am truly honoured by your stirring ballad (had completely forgotten about the joys of Green Shield Stamps).

It really is called a girdle though. You make girdle scones on it. Wish I’d kept it now - it would be a proper antique.

Yes - https://thelassintheapron.com/2015/03/18/scotch-girdle-scones/

Is it a bit Scottish, saying girdle?

If memory serves, it was one of the legendary fashion editors who said while hungry in a hotel room, cooked rashers of bacon on an upturned iron, and the bonus was that rivulets of fat ran away down the grooves. It was post scripted 'this ist ein joke'. :-)

Running a high powered blender for long enough will get tinned soup warm if no pans or hob.

The tops of some woodburners can keep butter sauces warm if running out of space.

An egg cracked into a cup of boiling water, covered and left for ten minutes, will solidify enough to carefully drain and repeat the process to finish.

Very boring compared to the rest of this thread, but when we had no gas or electric we made a fire in the garden & cooked on that.

Has no one mentioned tin can cooking yet? Using a candle and an old tin to cook egg or beans. I remember doing it in Brownies.Probably wouldn't be allowed now.

Oh, I cross poster and you answered my own question.

I think a girdle hangs over a fire and a griddle sits on a hot plate. Scottish and Irish (and probably Welsh too).

Thankyou. It's been an education every night on this here Mumsnet and I've only been signed up for a week.

You did recognise the hymn/song didn't you? When A Knight Won His Spurs? I just used to love it at school.

I didn’t recognise the hymn / song, I must have gone to the wrong sort of school.

Must admit I am intrigued about the former boarding school pupils all busy ironing toast and bacon. Were you not fed properly?

I

Here's a link to "When a knight won his spurs". But you have to put it on 2.5 speed at least to get the full flavour of Headmistrss Miss O'Hara's 400 shouting eight year olds in school assembly.

We normally followed through with "The ink is black, the page is white, together we learn to read and write." By the third verse even the slowest child could guess the way things were going.

I loved Miss O'Hara. Even if she was some kind of escaped Ulster Catholic nun and made me dress up in green tights and sit behind a cardboard onion which in some way represented Springtime and by association the ressurection of Our Lord Jesus.

All this was normal in Lancashire back in the day.

Love some of these ideas!

Even if she was some kind of escaped Ulster Catholic nun and made me dress up in green tights and sit behind a cardboard onion which in some way represented Springtime and by association the ressurection of Our Lord Jesus.

Miss O’Hara sounds like a hoot.

Did you also have to sing The Lord Of The Dance? They used to bring in the janitor to bang out the tune on an ancient and badly tuned piano for us. Happy days.

Solar oven: you can bake good fairy cakes in a cardboard box lined with foil with a cling film 'door' on a sunny day.

If your toastier maker is more like a panini press than one of the things that presses sliced bread into sandwiches. You can successfully cook 'calzonish' by folding a fresh pizza (or frozen/defrosted) in half and cooking it like a big sandwich. It's thin but delicious!

We used to bake / cook or whatever some sort of bred over the campfire. It's done by wrapping the dough around one end of the stick... when it's cooked, you take it off and fill it with jam or chocolate spred! 😋
Stockbrot for those in the know!

I've boiled eggs in hotel room kettles before now.

Us Scouts would call those dampers! Always a hit.