Cooking Dinner In A Coffee Pot

I saw this article recently, and couldn't resist sharing it with you. Just when you think you've seen everything, along comes a new way to cook your food. How or why anyone even thought of it is beyond me, but it is pretty funny. The woman who wrote about cooking in the coffee maker did so because of her nephew who was recently home from Afghanistan. He was complaining about the food in the mess hall. Soldiers were allowed to have coffee makers, so this woman developed recipes using the coffee maker. She created many recipes, like mac'n cheese, short ribs, chicken soup, split pea soup and poached salmon and steamed veggies. The design of the coffee maker gives you three basic techniques.

Steaming can be done at the top of the coffee maker. You can put in broccoli, cauliflower or any vegetable. Poaching can be done in the carafe at the bottom. You can also use it to cook hard boiled eggs, make couscous or oatmeal. Grilling can be done on the burner of the coffee maker. You can grill chicken or fish, or make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Would I ever use my coffee maker as a cooking vessel? I don't think so, but for the men and women in Afghanistan, kids in a dorm in college, or if you're in a hotel room with just a coffee maker, maybe I would. I just thought this story was such a perfect example of how necessity is the mother of invention. All you've got to cook with is a coffee maker, so this woman found a way to do it. Very ingenious.