Tag Archives: woodstove-cooking

Simmering Meat on the Woodstove

I love using the woodstove for cooking. It is just a wonderful feeling knowing it doesn’t use any electricity and is an old trait going back to times gone by. I know that sounds corny. But this is such an useful idea and a great skill to know how to do. Maybe I should say, this is an idea that you should know that you can do. It is very easy and just something that you can do if the power is out and you need to cook on other than a range top.

This is just some leftover roast beef that I cut up and added to a large saucepan. Add some broth and let it simmer. I place my pot on the top corner of the stove and watch that it isn’t too hot. You want it to just simmer. I usually let it simmer for several hours and the broth cooks down. Eventually you end up with pieces of beef that are just fall-apart super tender. I have done this several times and it just makes the most tender pieces of beef to add to a stew, soup, shepherd’s pie, or other recipes.

Why not test out this useful idea and hone your skills for cooking on a woodstove? It is a practical, handy way to cook without a traditional range.

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Defrosting Food on the Woodstove

Here is one more tip for woodstove users. I needed to defrost some frozen food and recently used my woodstove. Here is a photo of my frozen container which I placed into a pan with water on the woodstove.

Defrosting Food on a Woodstove

My fire in the woodstove was burning low so I used the front lower level on the woodstove. If your fire is burning hot, use the back shelf and watch your pan closely. As my frozen container was plastic, you do need to pay close attention that the plastic doesn’t get too hot. Watch your water too so it doesn’t boil down which could cause the plastic to get too hot also.

I hope you find this useful idea of defrosting on a woodstove a good alternative to defrosting in a microwave or on a conventional stovetop. It sames energy and is a handy way to defrost food.

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Grilled Sandwich on the Woodstove

Power out and want a grilled sandwich? No problem, just grab your cast iron skillet and put it on the woodstove.
Grilled Sandwich on the Woodstove

Here is a closeup of the ham and cheese sandwich grilling nicely on the woodstove top.
Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You might of noticed the handmade skillet handle cover. This handle cover is crocheted from an old tee-shirt. Full pattern directions found here for the cast iron handle cover. These handcrafted handle covers work great on cast iron pots and skillets. I love that you can just leave the handle cover on as you cook in the pan.

So should you find yourself out of power as we did today, you can always grill up a nice and hot sandwich on your woodstove top. Even if the power isn’t out, this is an useful idea for anyone wanting to try their hand at woodstove cooking.

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Cooking on the Woodstove

I love cooking on the woodstove. It is a wonderful stove top and saves on running the conventional range-top burner. I have a step-top woodstove and after some testing, I have found the heat levels for cooking on it. If I have a gentle fire going as shown in the photo, the lower level is medium to high heat temperature. This is a good location for starting a pot of soup or stew to get it boiling. Check your pot often as the heat can be very hot and you don’t want to burn your food or boil over the pot.

Once I have my pot of soup hot, I move it up on top for low heat cooking. I can leave my pot of soup simming here for hours. Do check the heat if you build up your fire as it can still get pretty hot on this top shelf of a woodstove.

I find if my soup pot gets too cold, I can always move the pot to the lower level to get the pot hot again and I do this also before serving the soup.

All woodstoves vary and cooking on them takes some time and testing to perfect your skills. My main advice is to 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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