It’s getting hot in here

One thing that Puffin lacks is an oven. We have two hob burners and a grill which is fine, but sometimes it would be nice to oven bake some delicacies.

I discovered the Omnia oven on a boating web site and it seemed to be just right for our camping style however the purchase price of £45- £50 was putting me off buying one.

Well blow me down with a feather, Ruby only went and bought the extreme knitter and me one for Christmas. This alone is an amazing feat for such a small dog.

The Omnia Oven

The Swedish designed Omnia oven sits on top of a hob burner and heats the ring shaped oven chamber by convecting heat up the central chimney.

The first test was to warm up some part baked rolls bought from Morrisons. These were heated on a low setting for 15 mins. I put them on some tin foil to stop any burning. The results were great.

We bought our Omnia from http://www.simplybrilliantstuff.com/

This will open up our cooking choices instead of just eating bacon bap; we now have a vista of dishes only limited by our imagination and ingredients.

Jacket potatoes, bread, unusual shaped pizzas and even cakes are now on the menu.

The trick to using it revolves around getting the cooking time and the hob burner settings correct.

The recipe book that is downloaded from the Omnia web site gives away the ovens Swedish origins as most of the dishes are fish based.

The book gives you an idea of the cooking times, but it takes some experimentation to get it perfect

I initially thought that it would use a lot of gas. We only have room in Puffins gas cupboard for one 2.72 kg Camping Gaz 907 and one 6kg Calor Gas cylinder and I was worried it would quickly deplete our gas stocks, but the hob burner needs to be set quite low. A rough costing of gas usage worked out at 40 pence an hour

One of the by products of the oven is the heat generated which quickly warmed Puffin up, so for our 40p we are getting roast potatoes and heating Puffin for an hour.

Who would complain about sitting on a chilly winter’s night in a toasty warm campervan eating freshly baked crusty bread and homemade soup?

The oven packs down to quite a small size in its storage bag, so finding room for it in Puffin wasn’t too bad.

 

I’m lucky that I’m given unusual and quirky Christmas presents. The e/knitter gave me a Tiffin sandwich tin that I’ve been wanting for sometime. This is the only cool way to transport your lunch.

I also received a bottle of Camp coffee. I haven’t see Camp coffee since my childhood when it was the only inexpensive coffee available, Nescafe instant was far too costly in those days. It wasn’t always Costa and Starbucks.

I can’t tell you how pleased I was to get a roll of sniper tape and a length of Para cord of my Grandson which will be used in one of my future projects on the campervan.

A favourite Niece (well the only one we have) gave me pair of VW socks and a Ukulele pin badge.

We received a smelly candle in a jar off our Granddaughter that will be used in Puffin to take away cooking smells. We had a very good Christmas.

Tomorrow the Lady extreme knitter returns to hospital to have her plaster cast changed. She’s hoping for a pink one this time, but I think she has plans to knit a big sock for it anyway. Any excuse to get her knitting needles out..

Lady Extreme Knitter

One of the gifts I bought the Extreme knitter for Christmas was her own Scottish country estate. Well it’s a small country estate. Ok it’s a piece of nature reserve land on the Isle of Arran off the coast of Scotland measuring 30cm x 30cm (12inch x 12 inch).

Along with the deeds to the plot came the right to use the title “Lady Elizabeth of Largybey” As yet I haven’t heard her berate any local peasants with “ Do you know who I am” or expect to be seated at the best table in McDonalds. Obviously I bought it for the humorous effect, but it does help support the wild life. I may in future refer to her as Lady extreme knitter. I wonder if this gives her the right to vote on any future Scottish independence referendums.

The up side of this is that we can visit her Scottish estate and take it in turns to stand on it. I feel another Scottish trip coming on for 2016.

 

The extreme knitters bezzie mate bought her a cool VW cushion which now takes pride of place in Puffin.

There is something a foot

The extreme knitter has returned from hospital following surgery on her foot. She is going to be in plaster for 2 months and has to be careful for a further month. Now any one that knows her will tell you that she doesn’t make a good patient and three months is a long time. I hope I can pacify her with knitting patterns.

This has curtailed our travel plans as we had considered camping over the Christmas break, but she has been waiting so long for this operation and it will help her mobility for future trips.

Hopefully we can have some day trips when the pain subsides.

Future posts on the blog will either be few and far between or I’ll be posting total gibberish daily just to have contact with the outside world.

Tomi ala eggy chedwar

During one of our recent trips to Harrogate we had a superb meal in an Italian restaurant.

I had a starter that would make an excellent campervan snack.

I forgot what it was called in the restaurant, so I shall call it “Tomi ala eggy chedwar”

Ingredients:-

One tin of tinned chopped tomatoes (Napoli are by far the best in my opinion)

One egg (large free range from a chicken called Henrietta)

A lump of your favourite Cheese.

Slice of cooked Ham or fried bacon bits.

 

Prepare all the ingredients before cooking the egg.

Slowly heat the tomatoes

Grate the cheese

Cut the ham or fried Bacon into small pieces

Cut a piece of toasted bread into nearly a circle to cover the base of the dish

Poach or fry the egg in a ring or a small frying pan to keep its shape.

Place the egg into the centre of a small shallow metal dish about 6” or 15cm diameter.

In true 1950’s camping style we used white enamel pie dishes.

Surround the egg with a small amount of the hot chopped tomatoes. Imagine your creating a moat.

Lay pieces of ham or bacon over the egg

Then sprinkle cheese over the top of everything.

At this point if you fancy, you could sprinkle the cheese with dried Italian herbs, maybe finely chopped Basil or my new favourite “Good with anything herb sea salt” which is only available from Lakeland shops.

Place the dish under the grill until the cheese browns.

Eat from the piping hot dish. A heat resistant place mat will protect your table top.

A spoon and fork are the best implements to devour the culinary delight.

All washed down with a Barcardi & Coke tipple

As usual the quantities of the ingredients are down to you. A tin of tomatoes would do two servings and it’s obviously one egg per serving.

Although I haven’t tried it yet, the Ham could be substituted with maybe slices of fried sausage pieces or cooked mushrooms.

The tomatoes could be replaced by baked beans.or chuck it all in and see how it tastes.

I’m starting to realise that all my camping dishes are just variations of a full English breakfast, just presented differently.