Hay/Hot Box Slow Cooking
Improvised Hot Box Slow Cooker I read about this method of cooking over at Dani's blog (in South Africa) and thought I'd adapt my own box cooker with what I had on hand to see how this works. I took a large box and nestled a medium box inside surrounded with packing peanuts. The bottom of the medium box was stuffed with some shredded newspaper .. then I placed my filled cast iron Dutch oven full of stew that I had prepared and brought to a boil.. wrapped in a large towel in on top of the newspapers .. packed more paper and another towel around the pot .. closed both boxes .. and covered it with a blanket and a few pillows at 10:15 AM. At 4:00 PM I checked and it was cooked but the meat needed to be more tender so I brought it to a boil again .. packed it up and left it until dinner time at 6:00 PM. Beef stew boiling hot ready to get covered and placed in box. Total cooking time on the stove with browning the meat and bringing to a boil twice was about 25 m...