Wonderbag Non-Electric Portable Slow Cooker with Recipe Cookbook, Red Batik
- Eco-friendly slow cooking. No plugs, no fuss: Slow cooks your food, unplugged, by retaining the heat from an initial simmer on the stove
- Electricity free and worry free. Away at work or play? Keep your dish cooking for up to 12 hours without electricity, ready-to-serve when you are. No overcooking, no burning. Great for beach outings, potlucks, BBQ’s, camping, or entertaining – anywhere, anytime, any occasion
- Stress free holidays. Perfect for the holidays when stove and counter space are at a premium. Many uses: keeps items cold or frozen, too!
- Buy One, Donate One. For every Wonderbag purchased in the US, one is donated to a family in need in Africa. One Wonderbag per year saves 1.7 trees, 1000 liters of water, 1,248 hours not spent collecting firewood
- Fits your home. Works with 2-9 Quart pots with short handles and lid; metal and cast iron work best
Wonderbag Portable Slow Cooker with Recipe Cookbook, Red BatikWhat’s a Wonderbag? Wonderbag is a simple but revolutionary non-electric, portable slow cooker. Wonderbag’s clever insulation allows food that has been brought to the boil to continue slow cooking or warm while in the bag. No plugs. No Fuss. No electricity required, so it’s worry-free. Slow Cooking with Wonderbag Hearty Chipotle Chili Slow Cooking with Wonderbag To slow cook, simply bring food to a boil on a stove, let simme
List Price: $ 70.77
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Clever little–well, OK, big slow cooker. (Updated),
This just arrived yesterday and today was only my first use. From what I can tell it does what it is supposed to do, though the instructions might not be completely clear.
“Best you know this” announces the back page of the included booklet, and the “Times” chart suggests that rice and grains need five minutes on the stove and at least 45 minutes in the bag. It would be clearer to understand that it means five minutes on the stove *after* bringing the rice to a boil. Expect at least 10 minutes, possibly more for larger quantities.
I brought a pot of short grain rice to a boil, then simmered for 5 minutes to be sure that the rice was heated through. I opened up the Wonderbag, put a dish towel in the bottom (since the rice had boiled over a bit) and put the pot on top of the towel. Then I covered the pot with another towel, put the Wonderbag lid on the pot, and closed up the bag. I set the timer for an hour.
After an hour I opened the bag (and got a blast of steam) and checked the temperature of the rice. It was over 182°F, definitely hot enough to cook a grain. The rice was cooked perfectly.
The exterior of the bag was cool to the touch, and the countertop under the bag was cool. The interior was very hot, which tells me that the bag insulation is doing a great job of retaining the heat.
Since my pots have long handles, I picked up two pots with short handles and tight fitting lids to use in this bag. A 2 quart pot and a tall 8 quart pot both fit in the bag (individually–not at the same time,) and it’s easy to arrange the bag to fit around either pot.
With all this insulation the bag is LARGE. It’s going to take up a lot of space when not in use. I’ll probably air it out and store it in a garbage bag in a closet somewhere. There’s no room in my kitchen for something this large.
There’s also no way to wash the bag. You can spot clean it if something spills, but you can’t toss the bag into the wash. Wrapping the pot up in clean dish towels is a very good idea.
The Wonderbag is big and bulky and takes up a lot of space, and it’s difficult to clean. But it does what it is supposed to do. It saves energy and it’s going to keep my kitchen cool in the summer. In a hot place that last reason is good enough for me.
02/04/2014 update: It turns out that storage hasn’t been a problem. I never store this bag. It gets used almost daily, and when I’m done with it I drape it over a bar stool to air out. I’ve even left it there when friends visit–no one sits on the bar stools anyway, and it creates instant conversation.
I’ve made lots of different things with this bag, but my favorite is rice. With a pot on the stove or even a rice cooker, there’s always an overcooked layer of rice stuck to the bottom. Not with the Wonderbag. I’m still amazed when I open the lid and the entire pot of rice is perfect. I cook rice in the bag for an hour, but I’ve left a pot of rice in the bag for nearly two hours once, and it was still very hot and not overcooked.
Two days ago I started some dried kidney beans just before bed. I boiled them for half an hour before putting them into the bag for exactly twelve hours. They were just slightly firm, so they could have cooked a little more, but even after 12 hours they were warm enough to serve. I’ll probably soak the beans next time. (Thanks to David Garcia for reminding me to point out that kidney beans must be boiled for several minutes!)
I’ve got my share of impulse buys and kitchen gadgets that seemed like a great idea at the time and that never get used. This bag isn’t one of those. It saves me money, since the stove and oven aren’t on for hours; it’s easy, because no stirring or attention are required at all; and it does a great job of cooking food for hours. It keeps food hot enough for long enough that I’m not worried about food safety. It’s such a simple thing and a really great idea. Since my concern about storage has turned out to not be a problem, I guess I should upgrade my review to five stars.
10/25/2014 update: Some suggestions have been made in the comments. Here are a few:
yakoanders has washed the Wonderbag, but puts a dishtowel under the pot to keep the bag clean (comments page 1)
Someone suggested Scotchgard, but 3M said no, don’t use it on the Wonderbag (comments page 1)
I pointed out that if you’re going to buy this bag (or any other item) from Amazon, you can go to http://smile.amazon.com/ and have part of your purchase price donated to the charity of your choice (comments page 5)
HeartofAvalon has instructions for making yogurt (comments page 6)
I also loved Jeri P. Cary’s answer to a question about storage space:
My storage solution might not work for everyone, but I just put it on the couch. It looks like a…
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|Interesting Product,
The food does cook, and it does keep everything hot, but I find that the melding/infusing of flavors that takes place with the crock pot just doesn’t happen as well with this approach. Also, I tried following the instructions for making rice in the Wonderbag, and it didn’t turn out even though I followed the instructions precisely.
I can see where I might use this to transport hot foods to parties, as the insulation is fabulous, and I may use it with soups, stews, or chilis that are already cooked on the stovetop completely and just need to “simmer” and stay hot until dinner, but I won’t be replacing my crock pot or rice cooker with this product.
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|Wonderbag Thermal Cooking,
Over the last ten years I have tried many “slow-cookers” and they have changed considerably. Today’s modern slow-cookers will come to a boil and can cook your food in as little as two hours on high. After repeatedly coming home to burned and dried out food I stopped cooking with my crock-pots unless I was at home to carefully watch and time the food and even then there was always hot-spots where food would stick, scorch or burn if you didn’t stir the food or rotate the stoneware.
Before I decided to purchase a Wonderbag I did my homework and research, read reviews and studied the concept and different designs of thermal cookers or “hay-box” cookers. Why did I decide to purchase the Wonderbag? Most of the recipes I use a slow cooker for require the food to simmer at low heat for longer periods of time. I have several soup and chilli recipes that my now grown children love. All of the ingredients are cooked before going into a slow-cooker and then allowed to simmer so that the flavors infuse and mix together. When I tried the recipes in the newer electric slow-cookers those darned hot spots would burn or scorch if I didn’t check it often and stir it. This is not how slow-cooking is supposed to work. Anyone familiar with a slow-cooker knows that removing the lid causes heat loss and increases the cooking time. The Wonderbag turned out to be an ideal solution to my slow-cooker problem.
My first dish with the Wonderbag was cooking a batch of chilli using my Le Creuset LS2574-2402 Soup Pot, 3-1/4-Quart, Flame. I cooked my ground beef and onions until browned and then added the rest of the canned ingredients (mild chilli beans, salsa, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes and chilli seasoning-I prefer Old El-Paso). I allowed the chilli to come to a boil, reduced the heat to a simmer, covered the pot and allowed it to simmer for 15 minutes. I then stirred it really well checking to make sure it was not sticking to the bottom of the pan, covered again and simmered for an additional 15 minutes before placing in the bag. I did not remove the lid again during the last 15 minutes.
While the food simmered on the stove I prepared the bag by placing two thick cotton kitchen towels inside the bag. This was suggested in the manual to help protect the inside of the bag from food spills or leaks but it also added extra insulation and protection to the bottom of the bag. After removing the pan from the stove and carefully placing in the bag, I placed the small round pillow shaped cover on top of my soup pot, tightened the strings and walked away leaving the wonder bag to do its thing. It was Sunday and I was taking it easy and enjoying a good book while the chilli simmered.
Three hours later it was time to check the results and eat. I returned to the kitchen and removed the insulated top from the bag. The pot was still hot enough to require the use of pot holders to remove it from the bag. When I removed the lid from the pot the chilli was still so hot that steam was coming out of the pan. As for the chilli, it was delicious and best of all no hot spots to scorch or burn food in the bottom of the pan.
I still plan on trying out the bag with several more recipes and to cook rice and dried beans but I will mainly use the bag for simmering soups, stews and chilli. I’ll admit I had my doubts but after cooking with the Wonderbag I’m a believer.
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