NEW PAGE! Thermal Cooker Recipes.

You may or may not have noticed the new tab at the top of each blog post which says 'Thermal Cooker Recipes'.

A couple of months after buying the bus, I discovered thermal cooking. It seemed like a good idea so, unwilling to spend the big bucks on a Dream Pot, Shuttle Chef or Eco Pot, I went ahead and bought a cheaper Primus Brand 'Campfire' thermal cooker for $150 at Aussie disposals. It comes with a bag, smaller inner pot and trivet. I also bought the optional mess tin for cooking cakes and bread (I haven't tried it yet).
Click here for their online store: http://www.aussiedisposals.com.au/campfire-7lt-travel-cooker

Source: Aussie Disposals website.

My friends and family own the 'name brand' pots and they work really, really well. I'm not showing a preference for any of the brands, but MY pot is excellent. I love it.

One thing I did do was buy the books from Dream Pot as the instruction manual I got with mine only had about three recipes in it. The extra books were a good investment for a beginner.

The other good resources I found were:

Mr D's Thermal Cooking  http://www.thethermalcook.com/category/all-recipes 

Eco Pot (only a few recipes here) http://www.ecopot.com.au/Contents/Page/Recipes 

Shuttle Chef (apparently they also have a book but I haven't bought it) http://www.thermalcookware.com/main.php?mod=Dynamic&id=23

and

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/

Pinterest isn't just about thermal cooking but people have 'pinned' some of their favourite recipes on there and if you do a search, you'll find them. Also, search for 'slow cooker' or 'crock pot' or even 'dutch oven' recipes because just about anything you can cook in one of those, can be cooked in the thermal cooker.

Of course, the best way to get to know the cooker and what it can do is to EXPERIMENT!

"What does this have to do with buses or motorhoming?" You ask.

Well, they use very little energy.
For a fall-off-the-bone stew, you will use about 20-30 mins of cooking energy. For rice: 2 mins cooking time! This is a great way to save energy on the road.
Although we will have a kitchenette in the bus, we are planning to cook most meals on the camp fire or on a little butane stove outside. This cooker saves lots of energy.

It is a safe and easy way to cook while traveling.
Put the meal on at 8am when you're packing up to go to the next campground. Pull up at  lunchtime and have some of the meal at a park or something (if you'd like to). Keep driving OR enjoy some sight seeing for the day and by dinnertime, when you're tired out and just finished setting up camp, dinner will still be warm (note- if you're frightened of 'bugs' these cookers are safe for around 8 hours, after that, they recommend some reheating, which is no drama, usually only takes a few minutes).

One last reason I REALLY wanted one was because I can prepare most meals at home and pop everything into a large Ziploc bag and freeze them flat. Then, when we go camping, just grab the top one out of the bus fridge or Esky and cook it up! Having frozen meals in the fridge will save on fridge energy, they will defrost slowly and safely and will take up less space all chopped up and flat, also, I won't be spending valuable relaxing time doing food prep. I'm considering buying a vac sealer... but we will have to see about that!

Have I convinced you yet?

Back to the original reason for this blog post...

If you look at the top of the page, I have added a tab labeled 'Thermal Cooker Recipes'. As I experiment, I'll add my 'hits and misses' recipes there, so you can use them too!

Feel free to message me or comment on here if you have any recipes or suggestions that I can add.

Happy cooking!

Painting for the back of the bus

Hubby convinced me that I should do a mural type picture for the back of the bus.

So, a while back, we tootled off to Supercheap Auto and bought a $30 airbrush.

I had a couple of practises and put it away, thinking hubby had forgotten about the whole thing.

Yesterday he said "You know, if you airbrush the back of the bus, I can put all of the lights and handle back on it."

So I did it.

It is inspired by a picture I found on the internet but I can not find the source so I can give him creative credit (so credit to you if you ever see this Mr Artist!)

This is what I did yesterday. I kinda liked it black and white, but hubby wanted colour.

Here it is, all colourful. 

If you ever get the chance to have a go at this sort of thing, do it. It is pretty fun!

Quickie post- Reversing Camera

The power went off the morning so we couldn't get into doing the rest of the bed storage. Instead, we installed the reversing camera.

When we first got the bus, one of the first things I bought was a new touchscreen stereo/GPS/DVD thingy for the hole in the dash where they used to have a cassette player and a radio. It came with a reversing camera.

The whole unit was about $300 from eBay. It is a generic brand (I can't even add a link to the auction because it was soooo long ago!)

Anyway, now that we have installed the bedhead, we were able to put in the camera!
We had to put the old brake light back in and luckily for us, it had a little stand from when it popped up from behind the back seat, when the bus was still a school bus. The little weeny camera fits perfectly under it, so you don't even know it is there.

Now for the pictures:

 Teeny-weeny thing it is!

Connects with regular AV plugs (supplied with the unit). We have tucked them in behind the bedhead and will cover the top of it with grey/black carpet which matches the boot.

Middle of the back window, lines up with the USB socket we have installed on the bedhead too! 

(Note: The USB socket has nothing to do with the reversing camera, that is there for charging gadgets when we are using the bus).

Install the brake light. Reversing camera is invisible. You can't even see it from the outside because of the tinted window... unless you REALLY look for it.

It works!

Bedside Storage

We are on a roll with the storage!

This post is about the bedside storage cabinets for the bus.

First thing to do was to insulate the walls and line the sections with plastic coated paneling. Then we attached the 'brackets' for the cupboards to the side of the bus. In this case, it was a length of pine. The legs have been bolted to the floor using 'L' brackets. We also made a bedhead out of MDF and painted it up. As you can see, this was some time ago as the picture shows untinted windows! The bedhead will have the USB ports for gadgets, reversing camera mounted and the rear brake light on it. There will also be a little more storage on it... but more about that later!

Next we made the boxes from MDF and pine.

Attached them with bolts to the brackets. Ignore the panel at the front. I think we were testing what it might look like with the boor of the bed covered in.

Next we routed, painted and attached the cupboard lids. They have tension hinges so they don't just pop open when we go over a bump and they won't fall on your fingers when they are open. The handles are little ring pull ones in brushed nikel to match the top cupboards. They fold down flush so we won't get anything snagged on them.

The cupboards have been divided into sections using the same lining as on the walls.

All done!

And a comparison with the top cupboards. You can see that we have started some wiring and lighting... but as usual... more on that later!

Top storage cupboards

This post feels like it has been a VERY long time coming.

Remember these?

These are the top lining panels for the bent bits above the windows. I salvaged them from the strip-out, to use around the insides of the cupboards. A bit of paint and some reinforcing behind those cracked parts and they look great.

Anyway, back to the post about these top storage cupboards...

We thought long and hard about the best stuff to use when building these cupboards. Finally we settled on 3mm steel angle. Cheap, paints well, won't cause electrolysis when attached to the steel frame and it is very strong. The engineer stipulated that all steel structural stuff needed to be at least 3mm so this ticks that box.

Once again, the rivnutter came in VERY handy. 

First we insulated the roof and reattached the lining. The insulation has heat AND sound rating which should be good for road noise.

  See the rivnuts for the frame? The rivnuts to attach the steel frame to the bus are M8 but the ones on the frame, which the timber lining will be attached to, are M6.

Frame is bolted on. At this point it looked very weird and wonky but it WAS level... just an optical illusion when compared to the bendy bus.

Other side and big back cupboard too.

We had to see if the melamine dinner set that we got off my family for Christmas would fit in there!

Timber covers the frame (pine). Hubby routed it beautifully and puttied the bolt holes where it is bolted onto the steel. The engineer is very particular about the fact that it should be secured in this way.

Here you can see the bigger end cupboard lining going on. It is laminated pine from Bunnings. The other panel (missing in the photo) has the bus speakers built in. 

Partially painted with the final colour and looking pretty good!

COMPLETED with hinges, doors and special motorhome latches. They are the 'small' size in brushed nickel finish. The knobs pop out when you press them. In this pushed in position, they are locked and will not come open. Whe they are popped out, they clip open like a regular kitchen cupboard latch. I got them for a good price on eBay (click here to see eBay listing: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/321205191473?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 )

Popped out, ready to open.

Open. The hinges are just 'easy-fit' ones from Bunnings.

The deeper back cupboard with speaker installed.

You can't imagine how happy I am! Having these installed means that we can work on the bed/boot with struts and cute side cupboards...

                                                              ...but more about that later!

Last of the tint

The last few bits of tint went in today.

I'm impressed by the white frost tint on the bathroom window (see previous posts for links to the supplier's eBay store).

Nice and frosty! Helloooo, can you see me? This is the view from the inside.

From the outside. The big test will be when it is dark outside and we turn the light on inside.

We decided to only go with the one window and double dark tint the other where the wall will intersect it. When it is double tinted, you can barely see through and it will keep the bus looking a bit more uniform having them all dark except one.

The window is so bright, I'm seriously considering doing away with the glass frosted door that I had planned for the bathroom and building one from ply and Aquapanel instead. 

A little update of the work in progress.

Just thought I'd pop in and give a little update about what we have been working on.

The school year has resumed so I have very little time but hubby has a couple of hours during the day to kill while he waits for his shifts (morning and afternoon). On the weekends we usually take the hour and a half drive to the nearest bigger town to get things we need for the bus, this takes up a good part of Saturday and I do school work on Sunday. That doesn't leave a lot of time but a few things are still happening.

1) The last of the tint arrived.
A sheet of white frost for the bathroom and the larger sheet of road-legal tint for the odd sized driving window. We also found out that you can add layers of tint over others, so we have decided to 'black out' the windows where the pantry will be, one window where the wall for the bathroom doesn't quite line up and parts of the rear window where cupboards will be fitted. This way we know the tint is UV protected and it will not look as odd as taking the window out and filling it with a panel.

2) Hubby has started making the storage cabinets which go above the windows, almost the whole way around the interior of the bus.
He is using steel angle, welding a frame, painting and rivnutting it to the frame of the bus (that rivut tool has been a godsend!) We bought the lining for the bus roof today so he can put in the back cabinet. I can't remember the name but it is thin ply with acrylic sheeting over it, similar to the Laminex product Aquapanel but far cheaper. We will use actual Aquapanel for the bathroom as it is water resistant but for the bus roof, this shiny white lining will be fabulous. We also got the pop-out cabinet locks off eBay this week (I will add a link when I do a full write up about the cupboards).

3) The bathroom goodies arrived in the mail too!
I did a big order from 'Caravans Plus' in the ACT (I will add a link and more info later when I do a post about the bathroom) and it arrived within three days. I ordered the shower/bathroom base, cassette toilet, basin, mixer, retractable shower tap and drainage bits (plugs etc).

4) We attached the solar panels to the roof.
We stupidly bought some of those plastic molded brackets to attach the panels but they didn't have enough clearance for air flow under the panels. An expensive mistake. Eventually we just bought some 3mm steel angle brackets, cut rubber stoppers so they didn't wear into the roof steel as we drove along, used plenty of Sikaflex and rivnutted them to the roof. We think we can fit one more panel on the roof so we will probably do that before we finish that part of the roof interior. Hubby has done a little work with wiring and junction boxes to neaten things up... but more on that later.

 The Sikaflex and rubber also stops the steel from reacting with the panels aluminium frame and rusting.

Bolted the the raised part of the roof, as you would in a regular house, to minimise the risk of leak.

After the tint and cabinets, I think we will be making the base for the bed. The frame and some side storage is already there but we have to make the slatted part which the mattress sits on. The plan is to make it in two parts, from steel box tubing and putting struts under so the storage under it can easily be accessed.

I'd better get out there now and give him a hand!