Rocket stoves are an incredibly efficient way to burn wood – they burn hot enough that they burn both the wood, and the gases it emits. While people do build them into their houses, I was looking for a simple one for outside for occasional and emergency use. You can build your own, and lots [...]
Archive for the ‘Kitchen’ Category
13 Jan
Bin your Aga – buy a Rayburn
George Monbiot in the Guardian is launching a campaign against the Aga. He reasons that they use a ridiculous amount of oil, and generate an obscene level of CO2. I have to say that I’m with him on this. You won’t find much about Agas on GentleDescent because once I’d done the basic research [...]
6 Jan
Peak-Oil Kitchen Gadgets – Slow Cooker
An interesting one this – a slow cooker based on a thermos. Basically you heat up the pot of food and then pop it into the insulated flask. It’ll keep cooking for eight hours. Think of the energy you save – it only needs to be on the stove for about 20 minutes to cook a [...]
20 Dec
Beautiful wood-fired stoves, ovens and ranges
A recent thread over at powerswitch unearthed a whole range of really beautiful – and practical – woodburning stoves. Here are some of the pictures, click on them to get more details. While I love the look of the Cucinotta Forno, I can’t see it being practical to just have a wood-fired [...]
8 Nov
Preparations: Peak-Oil Kitchen Gadgets
Just been reading some great descriptions of how to make Passata, and Pasta Sauces. I’ve long thought that this could be a good way to make the most of our Aquaponic bounty through the long winter months - delicious home-grown-and-made pasta sauces, flavoured with our aquaponic-grown herbs. I think the Mouli that is already on my shopping list would be good [...]
20 Sep
Preparation: Peak-oil kitchen gadgets
OK, time for another light-hearted one . We’ve been baking bread as part of our after-peak-oil preparations, and it turns out that all our standard two-litre pyrex bowls are way too small for serious home self-sufficiency. So it’s time to go for the classic – one of those huge cream-and-white mixing bowls that everybody’s grandmother [...]
5 Sep
Preparation: Protecting your fridge from Blackouts and Brownouts
As energy becomes more expensive and we all start our descent, we will no longer be able to depend on constant, reliable, electricity through the electricity grid. Don’t believe me? Have a look at this story on the National Grid from the Times. So in a post-peak-oil world it looks like we need to get [...]
26 Aug
Preparation: Peak-oil kitchen gadgets (2)
Of course it won’t all be soup-soup-soup in my peak oil future – when I’m having a baking day it’d be great to throw a Vegetable Gratin into the wood-fired oven – but how to make the breadcrumbs? It might be that the mouli is up to this, but if not then one of these [...]
25 Aug
Preparation: Peak-oil kitchen gadgets
OK, so I’ve accepted that we’ll be eating a lot of soup in my peak-oil future. Thats fine, I love a good vegetable soup. But it occurs to me that I do use an electric blender to make it. Here’s a blast of nostalgia though – a Mouli – the original 1940s-designed classic food processor. [...]
