For years we camped with essentially a backpacking stove in our teardrop trailer. It was one burner and packed up tiny and did a relatively good job of keeping us in tasty warm meals. We looked at other stoves and it seemed that there were few options between tiny and a decent sized two-burner job. We wanted to make sure that the stove packed well and didn’t take too much space in the camper galley. 

This year I broke my wrist again and had to have surgery. It started to become clear after the surgery that the recovery was going to be a long haul and that one of the deterrents to getting back to regular camping was going to be that I would have a cast or a brace the first few trips out and not the ability to cook with both hands. I usually cooked with one holding the pot to keep it balanced on the tiny stove and one to stir or turn the food. 

We turned again to researching online and came across the JetBoil HalfGen. It’s a pretty flat one-burner stove that is stable even with large pans on it. It uses regular small camping propane tanks, which are both easier to get and cheaper than the propane/butane mix fuels we used before. And though cooking camping gear may not be the thing you want for your birthday, I was pretty happy to see this among the gifts when we celebrated my birthday and my arm was still cast above my elbow. My camping life was about to get a bit easier. 

The JetBoil HalfGen has a nice carrying case which keeps it padded and safe amongst your gear. It also has it’s own skillet that packs in as a top for the cookstove. This is a pretty good size and awesome little non-stick skillet. It takes a few tries to get used to putting on the fuel arm and the tank of fuel, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly. A few turns of the knob to hear the fuel coming through and a quick click of the igniter and the stove lights itself (so long piezo igniter!). You can even get an extension and have other JetBoil items run off the same fuel tank. The burner top can be removed to clean the base and it cools down pretty fast once you are done. 

We’ve been really happy with how this has make our cooking easier to manage on trips this year.