You can make a stove-top oven.
From the Peace Corps Cookbook (2004)
If you don’t have an oven that does not mean you can bake. With these directions you can make a little stove top oven. Sometimes they are called a Marmite oven. There are many different options, so find the one that best suits you. Anything that needs baking can be done in a Dutch oven. It will take some experimentation but is certainly fun. Be Creative!
GUINEA DUTCH OVEN
What you will need:
1. A large pot with lid to serve as the oven (even a large tin can will work if you have one – like those big NIDO dry milk cans, or popcorn tins)
2. A smaller pot or bowl to fit inside and serve as the baking pan (this must fit inside the bigger pot with the cover closed. Metal graniteware bowls or mini glass bowls work well; no plastic handles though as they will melt.)
3. Sand, small rocks, or empty tomato paste cans (3) to raise the inner pot or bowl off the bottom of the big one. This allows the heat to flow around the inner area.
4. A stove or fire with consistent heat
Place the sand, rocks, or cans inside the larger pot. Place on the fire to 'preheat' the oven. After about 5 minutes, place what you are baking (in the smaller pot of course) into the makeshift oven, and close the lid. Voila! You are baking. Check the goodies often, as the temperature is hard to regulate, and things bake much faster than in a 'regular' oven. Rule of thumb for cakes and quiches is to stick a fork in the middle. If it comes out clean, and the edges pull away from the edge of the inner pan, it's done.
You can also make a 'wet marmite' oven by putting enough water in to come up the tomato paste cans about 3/4 of the way up. Put your bake pan on top of the cans, but cover tightly with foil. Put the lid on the big can and bake away. The water helps keep the bottom of the large pan from getting hotter than the sides and burning out or breaking. Use this over a high flame to cook faster. Good for lasagna, banana bread and roasts that tend to get dry. The steam keeps them moist.
Clean sand on the bottom of the oven is best for things that require dry heat to bake, like bread or pizza.
If you use aluminum cans as mini-pans, you need to bake them once in the oven to burn off any paint, plastic linings, etc. Bake over high heat about 40 min. If it stinks, it is working.
Tin cans as pots:
1. used small tomato paste cans make good muffin and cupcake tins
2. sardine and tuna cans make good small cake, bread, and pie pans
3. small pots that fit in the large oven (lids are helpful) are good for larger loaves of bread and small roasts
4. For pizza, purchase a pizza pan that will fit inside a sand filled version, or cut down a coffee-can to make a cake type pan. Be sure to work the cut edges with some concrete to file off the finger-cutting edges a bit. I find a used, round aluminum cake pan (from the thrift shop for 50 cents) works to hold a one-person size deep dish pizza. For store bought thin crusts versions, turn the cake pan over to act as a cookie sheet and lay it on top.
Do not SCOUR your aluminum bake ware, it will turn your food gray. Just soak and scrub off any tough deposits. To protect your pans from rust, wipe down with a little cooking oil after washing and drying them.
Use NIDO dry milk cans (Wal mart) or popcorn, or metal cookie tins to store dry goods. It will keep ants out. Use dry goods within 5 months (this advice is from Ghana, where the weather is notoriously hard on stored foods).
A makeshift cooler: Put items to be kept cool in a clay flower pot with a sealed bottom hole (I used duct tape, but a cork will work, too). Locate another clay pot that is 1 inch larger all around than the first pot. Seal the bottom hole shut on that one, too. Now put 1 inch clean sand in the bottom of the larger pot, place the smaller one inside, and fill around the small pot with more clean sand. Wet down the sand well. Cover both pots with a wet cloth. Place in a breezy spot (preferable) in the shade. The temperature will go down quite a bit from the water evaporation. I made one to keep my butter from melting, and when it was 98 degrees in the sun, the cooler (in a breezy shade spot) was only 75 degrees. It worked. It did not get 'refrigerator cold' but it kept mil kand butter from spoiling. The amount it will hold is limited by the pot sizes, but it will keep the butter from melting, and veggies will store longer inside one. Just keep the sand watered down. This can be quickly made in a camp and town down if you need to move it. The only down side I found is if you drop the pot it will break. (Huge ones are made to keep vegetables in some parts of Africa where they are sometimes called Zeer Pots.)