Tag Archives: potatoes

Storing Potatoes

Storing potatoes for long term use is very important. When potatoes go on sale, I like to buy a big bag and use it as needed but many times the potatoes spoil. So I set out to try a new method to successfully store potatoes in my basement.

The method for storing potatoes that I tried was very similar to the one I use for storing my tomatoes over the winter. It involves using newspaper to wrap and cover the produce for long term storage. For the potatoes, I used a plastic laundry basket that I had on hand and newspaper. The step I used are as follows:

First, cover the bottom of the laundry basket with a double sheet of newspaper as shown.

Next, put the potatoes on the newspaper and leave room between them for air flow and so they are not touching each other.

Next cover them with another double layer of newspaper. Continue Reading →

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Baking Potatoes in a Woodstove

I want to share my experience of using a woodstove to bake potatoes. We use a woodstove to heat our home and I wondered about using the woodstove for baking potatoes. It’s already hot and has room inside for baking so why start up the oven for baking potatoes when I could use the woodstove. So I set out to try out my idea, first you want a hot woodstove that has burned down a bit and has hot ashes that you can use as a bed for baking the potatoes.

Next double wrap the potatoes in foil. Move the fire over to one side of the stove as you want to place the potatoes in hot coals and ash but not directly against any burning wood.

Here is a photo showing my two potatoes wrapped in foil and placed inside the woodstove. As you can see, the potatoes are on the ash bed with the burning wood moved over to the side.

After placing the potatoes inside the woodstove, cover up the potatoes with some hot ashes on the side of the firebox as shown in the picture below. I use my small stove shovel to scoop some ashes cover the potatoes to help them bake evenly.

In about 20 minutes, turn potatoes over and cover again with ashes. My large bakers were done after about 45 minutes in the woodstove. Using a potholder, squeeze the taters to make sure they are done and then remove them carefully using a thick potholder or heavy leather gloves as the potatoes are very hot.

The results are some wonderful baked potatoes that are very tasty. This useful idea produces great tasting baked potatoes but also is very useful should you have a power outage. Plus it saves energy by reducing the use of a traditional oven for baking.

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