Thursday, May 5, 2011

Wonder box

Just before Christmas I decided to make my husband a Wonder Box. He built an 18 foot sailboat which we take to Lake Powell every year. And I thought it would be nice to be able to cook as we traveled.

The box is fabric and filled with the small Styrofoam balls you use in bean bag chairs. The pattern can be found here. The cool thing about these is you can start your meal cooking on your stove at home, or on your open fire at the campground, but then if you need to move on, it can be placed aboard (or in the car) and it will continue to cook.

Today, for the first time, Sailor used it. He made some chili for work. They all celebrate Cinco de Mayo and bring some South-of-the-border cuisine for a pot luck lunch. Before work, this morning, he mixed all the ingredients and got it cooking. But chili tastes better if it simmers and steeps all the flavors together, so he packed it away in the Wonder Box in the back seat of his car and headed to work.

This picture shows it continuing to cook in his cubicle. I'm sure the administration building has some wonderful aroma wafting around today. I wonder if anyone followed the scent and found the source?

It was pretty simple to make. I got the Styrofoam beads from JoAnn Fabrics online. I got a free shipping coupon so the total was the cost of the beads, which was about $18. I used fabric I had on hand.

Hope this helps someone out there. What a fun invention.
~a

6 comments:

Significant Snail said...

Lake Powell!!! Oh, how I wish I could go with you!

Sailor said...

It really works well. Being and experienced and fairly well trained husband, I had the soup pot in 3 or 4 supermarket bags, so the Wonder Box didn't get any chili on it. :)

It was in the Box about 6 hours, and was still steaming hot at noon.

Anonymous said...

you contuine to impress me -- your ideas and skill are endless.. gotta live by you..

Mary Ann said...

This is a fantastic idea - would you please consider sharing it at www.rocknquilts.blogspot.com for Toot-torial Tuesday? This could be very helpful to many people.

Darla said...

What a great idea! I could use one of these!

Lynette said...

This is really interesting. How does it do that? Is there any food safety issue involved?

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