Alternative Cooking

(Because using electricity is like, so last year!)

All can agree that living in Zimbabwe keeps you on your toes. With the unreliable ZESA schedules and all round lack of electricity, we are forced to stay innovative when it comes to what used to be “simple day to day” chores.

In these dark days, look at the brighter side of life – it’s like camping... all day, every day!

When it comes to finding alternative ways to cook the meal you have been planning all day, we often run into a few hiccups. No ZESA to start with, so we attempt to light the trusty gas stove – which every now and then does a sneaky and runs out too!

To spare you some time and effort let me begin by saying; don’t bother to try and balance your oven tray above two candles to try and make toast. Tried, tested and miserably failed by yours truly!

A braai can be fun the odd weekend but when it is past 8pm and you are now trying to light a fire to somehow cook your pre-planned chicken and roast vegetables the whole “fun factor” soon wears off!

You could convince your kids that squatting around the fire in your living room during a heat wave holding your “Jaffle Irons” over the flames to try and cook is an “adventure”.

The sad truth is that it is often 7 minutes of giggling and 23 minutes of mumbling and sweating with an end result of smokey toasted sandwiches and a living room that smells like a camp site.

There is always the option of not cooking at all but let’s be honest, who wants a salad instead of a steak? Good old Julia Child sensibly sums it up; “The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook”

I have found that the Cobb Cooker does me proud every time we have experienced hiccups! We are often too lazy to even light the braai – so we grab the Cobb. We place it on our bar and park off with a few beers – leaning over every now-and-then to check on our steaks. Please note, I consider myself a risk taker: the fire hazard for a Cobb is low - however it does give off Carbon monoxide, my bar is well ventilated so it is ok, BUT, if your man cave is not well ventilated, rather use your Cobb outdoors!

The Cobb is an ingenious way to cook a vast range of meals.

Remember that pre-planned roast chicken/beef/lamb & veg? Toss the veggies into the bottom of the Cobb (surrounding the charcoal) place the grill on top and add your choice of roast. Don’t forget to check on your veggies every now and then to make sure they are not burning!

(That is one “oopsie” that cannot easily be fixed!)

There are accessories that you can add to it to cook things such as breakfast.

The Cobb frying pan can be used in place of the grill and with that you can fry your eggs/bacon/banana – whatever you dig.

When I say it can cook almost everything – no, it cannot cook a lasagne (unless you want to sit there for three days!)

What you could do, if you are like me and tend to let your OCD control your meal plans, is pre-cook your lasagne and freeze it (should ZESA attempt an April Fool’s joke and allow you power for a few hours outside of the grave-yard shift).

You could then use your Cobb to heat up the Lasagne.

Due to our current reliable (SARCASM) load shedding schedules I would suggest if you are going to try freeze your lasagne you should eat it within a few days – I don’t know about you but our freezer is no longer a freezer, its leaning more toward a chilled box that leaks all over my kitchen floor screaming at me to be turned on.

Pop into TBK to get your Cobb and accessories today. Whilst you are doing that – I will be carting water from my swimming pool to try and put into one of those “camping washing machines” (remember the one that sits on your table that you throw your clothes, soap and water into and then wind the handle like a hyperactive person on a sugar high to try get a spin effect going?)

Don’t ever say us Zimbos lead a boring life – we live in a one-of-a-kind place!

Keep your chin up and be kind to one another.