Originally Posted by
blindgeekuk
Well, with the kids packed off to the in-laws, a clear sky for a change, and a new mora clipper to try out, I went out in the garden.
First up, feathering sticks with the mora, so much easier than with the penknife or ancient folding knife I had been doing. Its a comfortable blade to hold and use, and just feel right. I'll admit that I was expecting it to feel flimsy and cheap given how much these cost.
Secondly, with some wood feathered, I decided to light my mKettle to get the wter for a brew. Normally, I use my firesteel onto some cotton wool in the mKettle's base and then surrond that with wood until its burning enough to use the feathered sticks, but I decided to try putting a smaller piece of cotton wool into a small bundle of hay (left over from my guinea pigs who died this weekend) and position that right next to the firesteel, like I've seen some of the guys on here do on the videos. Yup, that works wonderfully, so thats 2 skills I've used today that I learnt from NBC.
Thirdly, in all the talk of billy can meals and camp food, someone mentioned corned beef hash, and that just had to be made. And I thought chopping the potatoes, onion, mushrooms, and corned beef would be a good test of the mora's multi-functionality, and i'd get a chance to see if I can actually cook on esbit.
Given my eyesight problems, I cut my fingers fairly regularly when cooking, so have a fairly well stocked first aid kit in the kitchen. Its a good job as well, because the mora really doesn't take any prisoners and will go through potato and finger with equal ease... Of the 2 cuts I managed, one I didn't feel but bleed like there was no tomorrow, and one removed a small chunk of skin and flesh around a knuckle. Reason learnt... Never use the mora when I'm on my own, its just too sharp.
As far as the cooking goes, I can't seem to get esbit fuel right. It either burns out too quickly, or doesn't get hot enough to boil water or cook onions through. I'm guessing theres a trick with it i'm missing. It did a good enough job though, and my potatoes were lightly 'boiled' to the point of just turning soft, and the fat around the corned beef melted and let me fry the onions, mushrooms and beef. It tasted good, and thats the main thing, and i'm now pretty confident that if I come across a farm while i'm walking hadrians wall selling veg, I could get a few and make a half decent meal.
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