2nd meal on the wood stove

[cwatson]

I wasn't sure where to post this since it had to do with cooking and heating and wood. But I figured since this post in particular was about cooking on the wood stove I would put it here. I was so excited I had to share.

I posted in another thread that for Christmas we took the leap and got a wood burning stove to heat the house. It doesn't have the eye holes so I wasn't sure how well it would work for cooking so I started experimenting.

I took a kettle and put it on top to see how hot the water would get. I filled it up so I wasn't worried about it drying up. It wasn't too long before I heard a noise coming from the living room. It was the tea kettle boiling.

So for dinner I took my dutch oven and put some water in it and two jars of frozen soup I had made a few weeks ago. Again success. The soup was boiling in the jars by the time it was supper time.

today I decided to yet a step further and see if it would back with the dutch oven even though there would only be heat on the bottom. I made black forest ham and cheese rolls and placed them in the dutch oven that I had oiled and was already heating on the wood stove. I checked it about 45 minutes later and found that the dough was browning beautifully. I then put on my skillet and sauteed onions and garlic to start the soup. Dinner was ready by 5:30 - the ham and cheese rolls with pumpkin/carrot spice soup.

Now I really feel like we are one step closer to self-sufficiency. We turned of the Electric central heat on December 31st and do not plan to turn it on again and now we have not had to use the electric stove for two days. I plan to play with corn bread tomorrow and a pot of beans :)

[NCLee]

Big CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

You're doing exactly what's needed to master cooking on that stove. Simply going ahead and doing it. Don't get discouraged if something doesn't turn out the way you want it. That's going to happen sometimes, as cooking on one of these can be tempermental at times.

But, you now have the satisifcation of knowing you can put a hot meal on the table, if the grid goes down for some reason.

If it'll fit on top of your stove, you may want to get one of these for baking. Found mine at WalMart in the camping section. http://www.coleman.com/coleman/ColemanCom/detail.asp?CategoryID=5140&product_id=5010D700T

Oh, ....... Don't forget to get a stove top coffee pot! Gotta have a hot cup of coffee, regardless. :):)

Lee

[cwatson]

That's brilliant NCLee. I have a coffee pot in our camping stuff I am going to get out but the oven is a brilliant idea. I will have to get one. I am pretty sure our Wal-Mart has one.

[neparose]

I dont think the top of our coal stove got as hot as your wood fired one seems to, but I could bake bread and cakes and reheat leftover plates by putting a aluminum foil dome [shaped over a cake dome] over top. I remember my father letting it burn down to a bed of coals on particularly nice days and getting out the hot dog cooker. [a hinged racked on a long handle] Ahh the memories! Good luck!

[MichaelK]

Hi C
Congratulations. It gives you a warm feeling to know you can make a hot meal on a fire you made yourself!

Does your stove have a removeable ash tray in the base of the stove? Ours does and it makes a great place to put foil-wrapped potatoes, and other things you want slow roasted. Ash does not start falling into the tray for several hours after a burn is started, but we've still wrapped anything we put there in foil.

You have a nice Dutch oven. I wonder if you can speed baking up if you first place the lid along side the stove so it can pre-heat against the hot metal. You might flip the body of the oven upside down to evenly heat the entire body of the stove by convention. Just flip it right side up and pop on the hot lid when you stick in your rolls.

Again, congratulations and please keep on posting your great pics!

[cuppajoe]

Wow,,,,that is awesome!!!!

:yes2:

[fancy1]

Congrads on your success!

We've been heating with wood, by choice, for about 11 years now. And the dutch oven gets used on it from time to time. When our power goes out, which is frequently, the cast iron gets a work out. Well, the old percolator is the first on in the mornings, but the old skillet starts breakfast.

Keep trying different meals on your stove, you'll get better as you go.

[backlash]

Looks good.
Wish I was at your house for Supper.:)

[NCLee]

Thought about something else that "might" work. Just depends on how much heat you have on top.

That's a cast iron griddle - the kind that sits on two burners of a regular stove or on a campstove. If you temps are on the low side, an aluminum version may work better.

Think about using it for much more than pancakes.
Grilled cheese sandwiches. "Toasted" pimento cheese sandwiches.
"Fried eggs", slices of Spam, and even heated deli ham slices for sandwiches
Cornbread or flour hoe cakes
Toasted garlic bread to go with pasta dishes

FWIW, we keep a old CI version on our gas stove all the time. We "griddle" thin center cut pork chops, veggie burgers, baloney, etc. Anything that's thin enough and can be broiled in the oven. For your wood stove, I wouldn't recommend leaving one on it all the time. Just have it handy so it's convenient to use, EACH time a need arises.

Something else to keep in mind, if the grid goes down. Large stock pots, water bath canners, turkey fryer pots -- what ever will fit, are good to keep water hot for dish washing, bathing, cooking, etc. When we prep for storms, we put a water bath canner on the gas stove. Fill it with water, so it's ready to heat, as needed. While, you probably wouldn't want to put the pot of water on your stove, till it's actually needed, set up your preps, so you can have everything ready to go. An old fashioned water dipper is used with ours. A small sauce pan or a big coffee mug will also work to transfer the water to the dishpan, or other container.

Lee

[cwatson]

Hi C
Congratulations. It gives you a warm feeling to know you can make a hot meal on a fire you made yourself!

Does your stove have a removeable ash tray in the base of the stove? Ours does and it makes a great place to put foil-wrapped potatoes, and other things you want slow roasted. Ash does not start falling into the tray for several hours after a burn is started, but we've still wrapped anything we put there in foil.

You have a nice Dutch oven. I wonder if you can speed baking up if you first place the lid along side the stove so it can pre-heat against the hot metal. You might flip the body of the oven upside down to evenly heat the entire body of the stove by convention. Just flip it right side up and pop on the hot lid when you stick in your rolls.

Again, congratulations and please keep on posting your great pics!


Thank you for those suggestions. Yes we do have an ash pan. I will have to try that for dinner tomorrow.

For tonight I have beans, rice and cornbread going. Well the corn bread isn't on yet but it will be shortly and I will try the idea of pre-warming the lid.

[cwatson]

I was wanting to get one of those surface themometer so I could see what the actual surface temp is. I know it brings water to a rolling boil and fully baked the ham and cheese rolls last night (and nicely brown too). I figure I will do the cornbread in the cast iron skillet with a cast iron lid on it.

So many good suggestions so many things to try..........

[BWHLover]

I wasn't sure where to post this since it had to do with cooking and heating and wood. But I figured since this post in particular was about cooking on the wood stove I would put it here. I was so excited I had to share.

I posted in another thread that for Christmas we took the leap and got a wood burning stove to heat the house. It doesn't have the eye holes so I wasn't sure how well it would work for cooking so I started experimenting.

I took a kettle and put it on top to see how hot the water would get. I filled it up so I wasn't worried about it drying up. It wasn't too long before I heard a noise coming from the living room. It was the tea kettle boiling.

So for dinner I took my dutch oven and put some water in it and two jars of frozen soup I had made a few weeks ago. Again success. The soup was boiling in the jars by the time it was supper time.

today I decided to yet a step further and see if it would back with the dutch oven even though there would only be heat on the bottom. I made black forest ham and cheese rolls and placed them in the dutch oven that I had oiled and was already heating on the wood stove. I checked it about 45 minutes later and found that the dough was browning beautifully. I then put on my skillet and sauteed onions and garlic to start the soup. Dinner was ready by 5:30 - the ham and cheese rolls with pumpkin/carrot spice soup.

Now I really feel like we are one step closer to self-sufficiency. We turned of the Electric central heat on December 31st and do not plan to turn it on again and now we have not had to use the electric stove for two days. I plan to play with corn bread tomorrow and a pot of beans :)

cwatson,

You have inspired me I have now a pot of chili on the Wood Stove for dinner.;)

[grumble]

Y'all have my admiration. I'm more of a Harry Truman kinda guy I guess, can't stand the heat, so I don't make the house into a kitchen. Having my wood stove hot enough to cook on would boil me out of the house.

[cwatson]

cwatson,

You have inspired me I have now a pot of chili on the Wood Stove for dinner.;)

The beans and ham turned out good and surprisingly the cornbread worked great too. I wasn't too sure but I did as suggested and heated the lid and skillet first. Worked great. DH still saying he can't believe I did it on the top of the wood stove LOL. An 86 year old lady today told me to make a dutch oven apple cake on it and gave me the steps so tomorrow that's another one to try.

[Rickhead]

Isnt it great? Food just seems to taste better when there's wood involved.
I love cooking on the woodstove. If I ever have a real house instead of a camp, I have a cookstove out in the shed that will be the centerpiece of my kitchen.

[cwatson]

So the cake turned out yummy tasting. Not the prettiest cake by far but very tasty. I made it with spelt flour and added apples and brown sugar in layers. Warmed the dutch oven and lid (I guess kinda like a preheated oven)

1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1/3 cup butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cinnamon
3 apples cored and sliced
brown sugar to spinkle

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time then milk. in a small bowl mix the dry ingredients. Slowly add the the dry ingredients to the creamed ingredients.

in bottom of warmed dutch oven add a layer of sliced apples, then layer the batter, then apples and brown sugar, then layer of batter again and so on until you run out of batter.

I just put it on the wood stove and put the hot lid on it. After about 35 minutes I checked it and found the top still wet and bubbly so I took a few red cinders from the stove and put them on the top of the lid. It wasn't long after that I started to smell the cake so I knew it was "cookin".

I didn't really time it so I am guessing that it took right at about an hour or so for it to fully bake. I added a couple more hot cinders in between the first time and the cake being finished.

It was worth the experiment.

[Axehandle]

I've used a hinged camp fire rack , along with welding gloves , waited till the stove was down to a good bed of coals on a 0 degree evening , opened the door and cooked up a couple of T-bones.
The DW had to fetch my welding helmet as my whiskers got a might warm.
Nothing like hardwood broiled T-bone steak on a cold night.

[oldtimer]

Nothin cooks like wood heat. With a wood stove you can fry bacon like none you've ever had B-4.

[bookwormom]

and you can make stove top toast, I never use a toaster. Can you set something on that back shelf to k eep warm? Congrats and more power to you.

[cwatson]

I have been keeping my coffee pot on the back shelf but that gets pretty hot too sometimes and it starts to boil again :)

I cooked chicken stock on it all night last night. Canned it this morning after taking it outside in the freezing cold to cool down so I could scrape the fat and then canned it.

I am trying to figure out how I ever lived without this stove. Every day is an adventure. A friend of mine came from the next town over and stayed 3 day and nights with us because the house was so comfortable and we played with baking and cooking.