Car engine packed with foil packets of food

The problem with becoming obsessed with your own food blog is finding and using any opportunity to cook or eat food. Not that this particularly troubles me but it may trouble those around me who I forcibly hijack along for the ride. My husband is a very good natured man who goes along with most things and he, used to my inopportune flashes of inspiration, simply rolled with the punches so to speak on this idea.

Foil packets of prawns and potatoes ready for the car

Some men would never consider the idea of cooking in their car. My father being one of them. He won’t even let my sister or I drive his car and he grits his teeth when we open the door lest we scratch it so cooking in his precious baby is most definitely out of the question. However my husband and I agreed, that with the proper research and an abundance of foil, that this wouldn’t hurt the car a bit and planned our Manifold-ish Destiny. I say Manifold-ish as getting a copy of this rare out of print book can set you back $200US on ebay and whilst I’d have loved to buy a copy, I resisted.

There was an invaluable website that showed step by step instructions on how and when and the risks of cooking in your car http://www.instructables.com/id/Cooking…-with-your-car/

I found some hilarious comments on this site such as one from poor Rhoula:

“I tried to cook some chicken the first time, i was driving from oklahoma city to tulsa, when i arrived to tulsa, i looked for my meal but never found it.
I think i lost it somewhere on my way there. I was both hungry and broke, thanks god i had some more raw chicken and vegetables left. on my way back i put everything as suggested in an aluminum foil and covered it with a towel so it woudn’t slip it was about 2 am next thing i know my old chevy truck caught on fire. To tell you the truth i was more worid about the chicken that i was about the truck.
thank god the food was just fine. my truck was still burning when i was enjoying the great chicken and vegetables. I even let my kids roast some marchmellows on the fire. To tell you the truth their marshmellows tasted more like gasoline but I had to keep my kids busy so they wouldn’t eat my a la car te meal or should i say a la burnt truck meal.”

Thinly sliced potatoes with salt and grapeseed oil ready for the car

Garlic prawns ready for the car

Sweet chili prawns ready for the car

That story is surely worthy of a movie script! In any case, as we were traveling to the Blue Mountains (about a 120 minute drive), we couldn’t cook anything that took an overly long time. We chose prawns, pre-bought and pre-skewered from Coles (I was making home made muesli, vegetarian sausage rolls and lime Portuguese custard tarts so peeling prawns and marinating them was the last thing on my mind) and I par boiled some potatoes in salted water and thinly sliced them and wrapped them up in several layers of foil and off we went.

Placing the packets carefully on the car, we noticed one thing straight away. Our car looks nothing like the car on the website. The engine has very few flat places that get hot on which to place the packets of foil. Hmmm a problem. And whatever flat places we had weren’t secure enough. So my husband placed them wherever he could keeping in mind that we didn’t want to ruin our car like poor Rhoula all in the name of one food experiment.

Semi cooked sweet chili prawns

Less cooked garlic prawns (as they were sitting on top of the sweet chili ones and not directly against hot engine)

Semi cooked potatoes

It was only when we set out for the drive that we kept on the lookout for telltale smells and also for falling packets of foil on the road. It was only when we got close to Leura that we smelt the delicious garlic scent of the prawns and when we reached the lodge, we were eager to partake of our spoils. One of the packets were mysteriously cold, it was the one that my husband had put on top of another so this had not actually touched a hot surface. Ah well, this would have to get the grill treatment. The other packet of prawns was slightly cooked but needed a blast under the grill to finish them off. Once everything had a moment under the grill, it was very tasty.

Prawns and potatoes finished off under the grill (we don’t mean car grill)

Experiment over, I would have to say that I would recommend this mainly for people that drive a lot further than 2 hours and if you happen to drive a Peugeot, that unfortunately the lack of hot flat spaces in a Peugeot meant that it isn’t exactly made for cooking

I was also told that my rather unique Father in Law used to do the washing in the back of a truck. That is to say that he filled up a container with water, clothes and laundry powder (or a bar of soap knowing him) and drove around, the movement of the truck being driven giving the clothes a good sloshing around much like a washing machine

My husband also found this item: an exhaust burger for cooking burgers on your exhaust!

Prawns and potatoes finished off under the grill (we don’t mean car grill)

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