Cooking off-grid

Stoves you will use

A camping gas stove, a trangea-style solid-fuel stove, or a well-vented wood stove can all boil water. Pick one you have already cooked on. Indoor use of cartridge stoves and barbecues kills by carbon monoxide; they belong outside or in a proper vented space, never in a sealed room “just this once”.

Keep the pans that fit the stove, a lighter that works, and a spare way to light it. Log fuel canisters with an inspect date. Cold fuel canisters misbehave; know that before you need them.

Fuel is food-adjacent

Count how many boils a canister gives you, not how many canisters look reassuring on a shelf. Oats and rice drink fuel as well as water. Short pasta and tinned food save fuel compared with dried beans from scratch. In a long outage, eat the food that cooks fastest first if fuel is the limit.

Matches, a ferro rod, and a firelighter live with the stove, not in a junk drawer three rooms away. Practise lighting them with cold hands. Once.

No-cook days

Keep a layer of food that needs nothing: nut butter, crackers, tinned fish, breakfast cereal with UHT or dried milk, fruit pouches, oatcakes. The first evening of a power cut is when you are tired and the torch is missing. That layer is for then. Log it as its own foods so you can see it separately from the rice bucket.