Gas leaks
The hunt for Gas continues, Beverley had just put in a new cylinder of gas and one week later, it was completely empty. We must have a gas leak. Beverley used soapy water over the hose, to see if she could find bubble. What she found was that if the hose was twisted one way, there was no bubbles but if she twisted the hose in another way then bubbles started to appear. This is why the gas locker has a slot at the bottom of the door so that if you have a leak like we do, then the gas comes out of the locker and out of the boat. We have even put a vent on the locker where we store the spare gas cylinders, for exactly this reason.
Beverley found some new hose in our spares, so she fitted it straight away, using Teflon tape over the gas fitting so that the hose slid onto gas valve. She then put the jubilee clip over the hose to make sure the gas hose was secure. What was really hard for Beverley was putting the new hose onto the gas fitting inside the locker. She had a few cuts and bruises for her trouble but eventually the job was done. She checked the rest of the hose for leaks and that was fine, so that job which was not on our list was done.
Thermal Cookers
Thinking about gas got us thinking about how we could cut down on gas consumption, and one way that you can do that is to use a thermal cooker. So we decided to buy Mr D's thermal cooker, We bought the 3litre version which is a great size for two people, we also bought the top pot so that we can cook rice or veg in with the meat.
Our first meal
For our first meal Beverley decided to cook Beef and chorizo casserole.
Ingredients - Beef, onion, chorizo, garlic, oil, tomato purée, dried herbs, stock cube and potatoes
Method - Dice the onion and fry in a little oil with a clove or two of crushed garlic. Add 1/2 of a chorizo which has been finely sliced, add the beef and continue to fry for a few minutes. Add some mixed herbs, a table spoon of tomato purée and the stock cube dissolved in boiling hot water. Do not add too much water as the cooker does not evaporate like a normal cooker, so add cornflour in a little cold water to thicken if required.
Once the food was up to heat, just put it into the thermal cooker and leave for two to three hours.
We put the potatoes in the top pot in boiling water and that became our mash.
