Foo - What's The Strangest Cooking Appliance You've Ever Used, and how Much Did It Cost?

In my case, I made pot roast, with the functional equivalent of a $100K crock pot. The recipe is called Engine Block Pot Roast. What you do is double wrap a package of a beef pot roast, onions, and chunked potatoes. You then place the package on the exhaust manifold of a series 60 400 HP Detroit Diesel engine under the hood of either a Freightliner, Kenworth, or Peterbilt Road Tractor, and take off on your trip. Stop 4 hrs later, unwrap, and serves. It will serve 2.

most definitely putting out a sausage grease fire with another sausage that was on the same pan.

I used an $80,000 free-standing autoclave to steam leftover $3.00 hom-bao.

I worked night shift by myself in a hospital. I used to boil hot dogs in the day shifts coffee percolator.

I too used an autoclave... to keep pizzas warm and hidden.

A 12 volt, 2 cup, coffee percolator in my car. It was about 40 bucks back in 1978. Funny there was a time that was a convenience.

One of those camping toasters for making toast over an open stove burner. Cheap and doesn't work too well as it just dries the bread out.

I made a solar hot dog cooker out of some very cheap materials when I was 12. Works pretty good in the Las Vegas weather.

5-gallon bucket and an 1-1/4 box-end wrench to mix up a batch of bilge wine.

Made soup in a galvanized pail hanging over a campfire, one hunting trip. Didn't have a lot of cleaning to do as the gang basicly licked the pail clean.

When I was a kid, we used to have one of these:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm250/willmw/afternuke.jpg

Basically, an electric chair for hotdogs. I think we got more joy out of electrocuting them than eating them afterwards. :D

What happens if you don't wet the sponge?

What happens if you don't wet the sponge?
I guess the spikes eliminated this need. Sure gives an interesting perspective on the results of 'the chair' doesn't it?
"How do you want your execution? Rare, Medium, Well Done?"

Not really cooking, but the trunk of my car makes a good warming oven in the summer.

A housemate and I used a walk-in -20C freezer full of veterinary carcass samples to distill applejack by freezing hard cider and pull off the frozen (water) part every day until it didn't freeze anymore, don't know what the freezer cost.

Also used a leaky water heater to turn a utility room into a dryer to make jerky

Back when I was young and sacked groceries at the nearby grocery store. When we stocked the shelves, we used to burn the boxes in the box burner on Saturday mornings. We'd get a whole fryer hen, wrap it in foil and wrap whole peeled onions in foil. We'd place these on a small shelf inside the box burner and keep burning boxes all morning long. By lunchtime, we had a nice picnic going. The box burner cooked everything just right.
Ernest

What happens if you don't wet the sponge?

Awright Percy, you stand down! :)

Zip Ztove, a small backpacking stove fueled by twigs that you feed in while the food cooks. About $40 back in the '90s. Does a decent job, but I haven't seen one for sale in years.

Zip Ztove, a small backpacking stove fueled by twigs that you feed in while the food cooks. About $40 back in the '90s. Does a decent job, but I haven't seen one for sale in years.

I got one of those from Campmor about 15 years ago....great little stove.

http://www.zzstove.com/

When I was a kid, we used to have one of these:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm250/willmw/afternuke.jpg

Basically, an electric chair for hotdogs. I think we got more joy out of electrocuting them than eating them afterwards. :D

I had one of those when I was a kid. It was fun watching the arching. The ends of the hotdog where the points where always burnt on the inside. And the hot dogs had a very peculiar taste. And it took for ever.

Not me, but I used to know a guy that worked in an electric board assembly place. They used the surface component oven to do pizza and hot dogs occasionally. He also said the board washer removed stains like nothing else.

I once lit a charcoal BBQ with hairspray. We were on a camping trip (Pismo Dunes) and no one wanted to leave the beach that early in the morning, so we had to get creative.

In my case, I made pot roast, with the functional equivalent of a $100K crock pot. The recipe is called Engine Block Pot Roast. What you do is double wrap a package of a beef pot roast, onions, and chunked potatoes. You then place the package on the exhaust manifold of a series 60 400 HP Detroit Diesel engine under the hood of either a Freightliner, Kenworth, or Peterbilt Road Tractor, and take off on your trip. Stop 4 hrs later, unwrap, and serves. It will serve 2.
We used to do foil meals on an old Chevy 350 V8... much thinner than a pot roast though.

The outdoor classics that I can remember are hard boiling an egg in the fire with a paper cup and cooking eggs in a paper bag over open flame. Biscuit on a stick was also popular. A really good one is chicken, bread, or eggs inside an orange peel. Cut the orange in half, hollow it out and you have a small steam oven when surrounded by coals.

Can't say I use weird appliances to cook with, but the only way you're getting my cast iron chicken fryer (basically a dutch oven with a skillet handle) away from me is by prying it out of my cold dead hands. And even then, I'll probably come back as a zombie and take it back (and fry your brains in it).

Once I helped a friend deep fry a turkey. He was lucky I was there, because at one point the deep fryer slipped and came dangerously close to tipping over before I caught it. With several gallons of boiling hot oil and a large propane flame underneath, we could have had quite a Thanksgiving bonfire. But after it was cooked, it was the best Turkey I've ever eaten.

I never used them myself, but when I worked in a ceramic lamp factory, the Mexicans would put a cast iron skillet with their lunch on top of the ceramic kilns to get them toasty hot.

208548
I never actually had one, but I helped the girl across the street cook some stuff. I ate some of the "food" that came out of it too. Their slogan should have been a take-off on Jiffy Pop's slogan, "much more fun to make than it is to eat."

In my case, I made pot roast, with the functional equivalent of a $100K crock pot. The recipe is called Engine Block Pot Roast. What you do is double wrap a package of a beef pot roast, onions, and chunked potatoes. You then place the package on the exhaust manifold of a series 60 400 HP Detroit Diesel engine under the hood of either a Freightliner, Kenworth, or Peterbilt Road Tractor, and take off on your trip. Stop 4 hrs later, unwrap, and serves. It will serve 2.

I've used a flat rock, A #10 can and an orange! I'd guess the orange was about 25 cents, the others free.

"Roughing it Easy", Which also has the trick you listed.

I used nail clippers to remove a mole once, best 3.50 I ever spent.

I used a M1A1 tank to heat a MRE. Well, I didn't actually use the tank. On a cold and rainy day, I was sitting in my cold and damp armored vehicle eating a cold and damp MRE. The Battalion Sargent Major wanders by, sees my plight, and says, "Hey, ALO, you want to heat that up?" I told him I didn't have a MRE heater packet. He grabs my MRE, walks over to the commanders tank and throws my MRE on the louvers on the back of the vehicle. He thens hops up on the deck, reaches into the drivers compartment, and flips the switch to start the turbine motor. He starts timing the cooking on his watch as the engine winds up sounding like the jet engine it is and quickly starts heating my dinner. At the correct time, the Sargent Major flips the switch to shut down the motor, hops off the tank, picks up my MRE and hands it to me. Temperature was perfect. Not sure how much fuel that required.

Attached a plate to my computers CPU and grilled some veggies!

Attached a plate to my computers CPU and grilled some veggies!

/00\ wth ... usb cooking??

http://tekgoblinmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/usb-cooking.jpg

I used a M1A1 tank to heat a MRE. Well, I didn't actually use the tank. On a cold and rainy day, I was sitting in my cold and damp armored vehicle eating a cold and damp MRE. The Battalion Sargent Major wanders by, sees my plight, and says, "Hey, ALO, you want to heat that up?" I told him I didn't have a MRE heater packet. He grabs my MRE, walks over to the commanders tank and throws my MRE on the louvers on the back of the vehicle. He thens hops up on the deck, reaches into the drivers compartment, and flips the switch to start the turbine motor. He starts timing the cooking on his watch as the engine winds up sounding like the jet engine it is and quickly starts heating my dinner. At the correct time, the Sargent Major flips the switch to shut down the motor, hops off the tank, picks up my MRE and hands it to me. Temperature was perfect. Not sure how much fuel that required.

A buddy of mine used a transmitter dish to reheat an MRE. Tied it to a stick and held it in front of the horn for a few good static bursts. About a minute, and it was good to go.

/00\ wth ... usb cooking??

http://tekgoblinmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/usb-cooking.jpg

Holy biscuits, that is a lot of USB ports. 6 cards, 4 ports each = 24 USB ports. At 500mA each, that's... 12A current at 5V, or... *thinks back to circuits* 60W. It's like an EasyBake Oven.

I used a 36" band-saw to cut a cake once (or twice) when we forgot a knife. It works great for ice cream cakes.

Stick welders do a good job on hotdogs too.

Possibly the oddest one was to cook bacon and eggs in a standard paper lunch bag while heating tea water in a paper cup in the same fire.

I once roasted a marshmallow out of my mouth.

A really good one is chicken, bread, or eggs inside an orange peel. Cut the orange in half, hollow it out and you have a small steam oven when surrounded by coals.

Do you use bread dough and let it bake in the coals inside the orange peel? What about the chicken? Do you use chicken tenders, or what? This would be great to do in camp when taking a zero day!

208548
I never actually had one, but I helped the girl across the street cook some stuff. I ate some of the "food" that came out of it too. Their slogan should have been a take-off on Jiffy Pop's slogan, "much more fun to make than it is to eat."

Scott, you can return to those childhood days, the ovens are still available for purchase at various vendors.

I've cooked crawfish in soda cans on a fire. Cut the top off the cans and drop a crawfish in boiling water in each can.

A buddy of mine used a transmitter dish to reheat an MRE. Tied it to a stick and held it in front of the horn for a few good static bursts. About a minute, and it was good to go.
I've heard that an AEGIS fire control radar (that's the small one) will flash-fry a hot dog.

I once used a chainsaw to cut a frozen turkey in half. I didn't want to cook the whole thing at once. That was way back in my bachelor days.

/00\ wth ... usb cooking??

http://tekgoblinmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/usb-cooking.jpg

USB shabu shabu!

My wife and I were discussing the odd things you could cook with a bread machine. Our 2lb Zojirushi comes with recipes for breads, meatloaf, cake, and jam... but I guess anything that needs a few hundred degrees for a few hours and would fit would work, if you configured the cooking cycle right.

A buddy of mine used a transmitter dish to reheat an MRE. Tied it to a stick and held it in front of the horn for a few good static bursts. About a minute, and it was good to go.

I used to work for a guy who was one of the Movers & Shakers in the broadcasting & telecommunications industry, and he used to tell the story of how the idea for microwave ovens came to fruition: Basically, broadcast engineers who used big microwave transmission lines could warm their lunches by putting it inside the multi-kilobuck antenna arrays.

Strangest cooking appliance I ever encountered (but never actually used) was an ethernet-equipped Kim Chee pot made by the LG Electronics company...presumably so that you could check the status of your stinky cabbage from any computer with internet access. I think it sold for ~$100.

{Resurrecting an old thread...**

If you're in the mood for BBQ, but you're in a hurry, there's always LOX method:
http://www.bkinzel.de/misc/ghg/index.html

http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k501/deskrat/stove.jpg

Haven't tried it yet, but one day I'll be
cooking/baking using solar power:)

http://www.cookwiththesun.com/solar.htm