Hot Logic Mini

The Hot Logic Mini is a small, portable, electric food heating device. I have had mine for about three months or so. I did not buy it with the pyrex baking dish, I sourced that locally from the grocery store.

The case appears to be nylon with an insulating layer. There is a fabric handle on top and inside is what looks like woven aluminized polyproplyene or mylar. The hot pad itself is slightly smaller than the case and has a power cord with a decent length. I did not measure it, but it's about four feet long. There is a slit in the middle of the rear of the case to feed the cord through. Generally though, the plate just stays in the case.

Here is the data plate on the bottom. 45W isn't much and that makes it critical to have as much contact area as possible. I have seen cooking temperatures in chicken breasts reach 160F. I also experimented with food service grade plastic trays, food cooked faster in them and tended to dry out easily. It is imperative that containers have tight fitting lids.

There is a tunnel on the back of the case where the cord can be rolled up and stored.

This is what the six cup pyrex dish looks like in the Hot Logic Mini. It is a good fit and zips up fine. I have also used a three cup dish with a little foil in the bottom to reheat frozen burritos and a four cup round to make oatmeal. Typically I give it two hours to work for most of the cooking I've done with it so far. Brown rice is the only failure I've had, so I precook that prior to using it in the Hot Logic Mini. 

For the most part I use the Hot Logic Mini to help keep myself to a diet and reduce my instant gratification cycle. Instead of heating something up in the microwave, I put something together in one of the pyrex dishes I have and try to forget about it for a couple hours. I have also used it to hold hot food while I cook other parts of a meal, like the bacon so I can make dirty eggs or a stack of pancakes so everyone gets to eat together.

Depending on what you want to cook, this can almost replace a crockpot. While brown rice and beans can be done in a crockpot, the Hot Logic Mini doesn't have the horsepower to be successful with them. That said, if you keep in mind the limitations of the lower temperature there is still a lot that can be done. If you work a job where you don't have a set lunch break or that break is easily interrupted, this is an excellent tool to free you from that time constraint. As I mentioned before, about two hours seems to be about when frozen vegetables become al dente (except carrots unless sliced thin) so whether you're cooking or reheating seems like a good timeframe. If your meal is interupted, just close it up, leave it plugged in, and when you come back to it it'll still be hot. Remember to use good food safety practices. I have also had good luck with a variety of frozen microwavable meals, just leave them sealed up or transfer them to something with a tight lid.

Size-wise, as can be seen in the pictures, the Hot Logic Mini is about the size of a child's lunchbox, or a large bento. Even with the six cup pyrex there is just barely room for an icepack, two if you take out the heating plate. So you could use it for a cooler if necessary.

Wow, so I unintentionally walked away from this for three years.

Another attempt at a reboot? Why not? On with the update, line by line.

• I have successfully paid off all my debts. I have a perk at work where we can take loans out of our 401K, and this I did a bit more than a year ago.
• I have nearly moved once, and for real twice.
• Both ZAST and Blur are no longer in my possession. ZAST was turning into a moneypit, so I walked away from that one. Blur ate its second timing chain the day before my birthday. 
• Plans were made and broke to move across the country.
• I purchased an urban commuting bicycle and kitted it out for my transportation needs after the above mentioned move, it has one mile on it due to the heinous risk to bicycles in my current area.
• I have more Mora knives than I use, however one is my box opener, another is regularly used in the kitchen, and a third is used for a utility knife. I have two others that will be going into some sort of survival kits.
• I am still using WiFi exclusively, except for the cell phone. I have had to replace the laptop.
• My extended camp kit has been completely changed, the 18' tent was deemed excessive.
• Several of my firearms have been sold off, partially due to living circumstances and lack of security. I felt it was more important to keep them out of undesirable hands and replace them later with more appropriate tools.
• I made a vague attempt at attending Munches and found the few I attended cliquey and unwelcoming.
• I have attended several regional burns.
• My 9V scale which was so integral to my food preparation was replaced by a slim glass topped scale which uses a 2032 lithium cell, about once a year.
• I've moved from doing nearly everything in OpenOffice to cloud based Google Docs, Sheets, etc.
• I am using Google Keep for shopping lists, Journalling and all sorts of things and it syncs to everything I own.
• The paper shredder finally died while processing Polaroids.
• I got a gym membership again, and canceled it six months later.

And now for the new stuff and I'm going to forget a lot:

• Latest move placed me in a two bedroom apartment with a life partner and her daughter, and I just moved everything out of storage and am in the process of doing another heavy reduction in preparation for the next move.
• I have been (personally) car free for six months and the next move must take into consideration the need to remain car free.
• I have a lot of mobile technology and changed my calling plan to allow the mobile hotspot to work.
• I have started gaming again, and have chosen Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition and my primary game of choice. Which has required an explosion of rulebooks. All my prior editions I have discovered in electronic formats, not so with the 5e. Also I now have two foot lockers of D&D supplies, which now need to be sorted and reduced. Instead of going to 3D scenery again, I used a large magnetic whiteboard, magnets, and poster printed maps. That has already been reduced to using Roll20, and the laptop with a large TV as a second monitor for the players.
• I have given away most of my oil painting supplies, as I do not have the ability to leave an easel set up for long periods of time. Instead I switched to oil pastels so I still get to manipulate physical media. Recently I started dabbling in digital media and purchased a digitizer tablet to make it friendlier.
• I am back in therapy for anxiety, depression, existential and suicidal thoughts. I am fighting the day job for time to work on my own creative pursuits. I have a large backlog of projects I want to work on, but being hounded to work overtime and being threatened with no job for refusing. . .so I had to "doctor" up and I qualified for FMLA protections.
• I now have a 1080p capable camcorder (they don't call them that anymore) and have been recording audio only for the past several game sessions I have run, and posted them up on the Youtube.
• I am trying to consolidate my efforts to becoming a published creator, the only thing I need is uptime, but when it hits, the dayjob is usually in the way.

Seems like it or now, stay tuned as I attempt to produce content, one more time!