Instant Pot: best invention in a long time for home and travel! And other kitchen items.

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Conestoga Chuck here! As you may know my human cooks our food for us and an instant pot is a necessity for our food as well as human food. My human never has to use the propane stove or any other cooking appliance in the RV. Almost everything is made using the Instant Pot! So if you want your companions and yourself to eat well and have an easily stowed and completely useful cooking device to replace all those other crazy contraptions… invest in an instant pot! Lots of free human recipes online too. My human has a few accompanying pieces that come in handy with the instant pot like a Trivet with Handles (handles make for easy removal of the ramekin, a 7.5″ ramekin which is great for making roasts and meatloaf etc) and you can store left overs and reheat right in the same ramekin! A Instant Pot Tempered Glass Lid, 9 in. 6 Quart, Clear and an extra Stainless Steel Inner Cooking Pot for the Instant Pot (great for storing conestoga chuck’s food in the fridge). And the human keeps an extra Instant Pot Sealing Ring because it occasionally needs replacing. (See bottom of page for links to most used instant pot accessories in Conestoga chuck’s wagon)

Another often overlooked but super handy item is vintage corningware! You can often pick these up at thrift stores and garage sales for fairly cheap (or if you have cash to spare and time is a premium, check out the local antique stores). Look on the bottom to make sure they say range top safe as well as oven and microwave. Also look for the black snap on pot handles! And don’t forget lids. These little beauties take the place of many things in our camp kitchen. Pie plates are used as dinner plates and because of the plate rim no messy spills! Pots are used for bowls for everything from cereal to ice cream to soup. They are super easy to clean, very durable, and you can store and reheat your left overs in them so you don’t need extra storage containers for those tasks. You can use the large casserole pots right on top of the range to boil water and make spaghetti noodles just fine! And yes I have even used mine on the camp fire with no issues (and unlike metal pots and pans the black soot from the fire pit washed right off!). So keep your eyes open for these gems and toss the plastic, disposables, and other single use items… and replace them with these lovely multi purpose kitchen ware items. Snag a matching percolator coffee pot and tea kettle while you are at it. Not only will you love the brew you now have an easy way to heat water quickly for little cleaning tasks without having to turn on the RV water tank heater and waste propane.

One thing you do need to know about cooking with vintage corningware is that they are designed to retain heat. So lower your normal temperature settings, and remove from the burner/heat sooner than you normally would because even tho the heat is turned off it will continue to cook your food. Once you get the hang of it, this is super convenient in an RV because you save propane! Or if you happen to be using electric (at home or camping) you save electric! I can honestly say I don’t own any metal pans or regular dishes anymore and if I’m not using the instant pot, then I’m using the vintage corningware (at home and in the RV) to eat off of, cook, reheat, or store food in the fridge/freezer. Trust me… it sounds like it would take up a lot of space and weight, but when you consider the items it replaces (including disposables) it takes up less space and weight in my experience.

Now to share some egg cooking secrets for those of us who cannot flip an egg without breaking it to save our life! Yes it involves vintage Corningware.

Look at the photos to follow along. Melt a pat of butter and turn the heat down to medium. Toss in two eggs. Put the lid on and turn down the heat to low. After a few seconds the tops of the eggs will turn from clear to white over top of the yellow yolk part (unless you prefer over easy lol). That’s when you take it off the heat, sprinkle on some cheese and put the lid back on for a few more seconds to melt the cheese. I like to crumble saltine crackers on top of mine. Breakfast is served… yes served in the same pan you just cooked it in! Now how simple to clean up is that? Love it! Everyone gets fresh hot eggs made to order and no big mess to clean up!