Not a cookstove, a regular woodstove you heat the house or shop with. The first part is a review of stove top cookery. The other part is new and more interesting and has pictures.
I have one made out of a water heater tank. I had the guy put a full flat top on it. Most of the ones he made (he's retired from the woodstove biz) had a half flat top and half rounded. I wanted room for like 2 pans or a little pan and a tea kettle.
It works.
I had someone recently, a charming young man with apparently very little real world experience, say "oh, you can cook on a woodstove!?!?!" Uh....ya.
Here's the thing. Food + Heat = Cooking.
Seriously that is it. You just need a heat source and some food. There is all that raw crap and salad, but I'm talking about cooking with a woodstove so that isn't relevant.
Any heat source can cook. A candle can cook tiny things...just check out that channel on youtube with the guy cooking for his hamster.
I cook on top of the stove. This is easy. Anything in a pot:
Tea, coffee, soup, rice, noodles. When I have the woodstove going daily (really nightly because I don't heat during the day if I'm not home), I put on a tea kettle of water and save it in vacuum bottles. Then I have pretty hot water for coffee, tea, soup, noodles, whatever. Yes, smartass, in science class in 5th grade they told you that cold water heats faster than hot water. If you are trying to raise a quantity of water 1 degree, then yes. The cold water will heat that 1 degree faster. If you are trying to boil water, hot water boils faster than cold water because there are fewer degrees to heat. And yes, I have had idiots tell me that when they asked how I cook. Why ask me and then tell me I am doing it wrong? You don't even live off grid douchebag and you clearly do not cook or even make damn tea...
Sorry...rant break there.
By saving the hot water, if the stove goes out or I don't want to rebuild a fire or I have the stove set to burn pretty low, it's easy to boil water on the woodstove or on the little butane stove much more quickly. Speeds up soups too.
Too cook wet food (soup, rice, noodles, boiled eggs, etc) on top of your woodstove:
Put food in a pan with water or whatever liquid. Put it on the stove. When it's done or you are sick of waiting, take it off the stove and eat it.
You can also fry stuff on the woodstove. I only do the occasional egg on there. Meat, fish, onions etc will stink up my wee shed. When I have a bigger house I will do more frying on the woodstove. Which will in fact be a cookstove. An egg is pretty quick and doesn't smell like much.
To fry on the woodstove, put the pan, preferable a cast iron or other heavy pan, on the hot stove. Add some oil. When the grease is as hot as you want (you can spit in it if you want to check it old school style or put a drop of water in it if you are rocking it new style) (if it's medium hot the spit/water will dance and evaporate, if it's high heat you will get a face full of hot grease spatters), put in the food.
Yes, you can dry fry a steak or burger or whatever. If you are going to fry fish, I assume you want the whole house to stink of fish for months. Knock yourself out. Personally, I'm not doing that right now. Same with onions, garlic etc. Too much stank.
Now for the exciting and innovative bit that many people have already done around the world but "modern" "mainstream" americans don't seem to think of: Cook inside the fire box.
I've posted the pumpkin and onions in the past.
Today, I took it up a notch.
I did an elk roast inside the firebox. It was astoundingly good. A) it's elk. B) it was slightly smoky and cooked to medium. I did an onion in there as well. The onion was HUGE and actually needed longer but the elk was ready and it's been years since I had elk and maybe forever that I have had an elk roast so, when it was ready it came out and I ate half of it. The rest is for soup tomorrow.
Here is the detailed and specific recipe and costs (because it is still no-spend-groceries-February)
Remember to bring the roast home from the work fridge freezer (have forgotten it multiple weekends but remembered this weekend).
Cut up the tiny garlic cloves and one giant single mutant clove (it was its own head) and put it in the tiny cast iron pan you got a thrift store for like 50cents that you like to cook a single egg in because it is square and fits on a piece of bread unless you get the good artisanal bread in which case, still a fun square egg. The pan is sitting on my grubby butane stove . The garlic is from my garden so cost is zero.
Rik: Thanks for the elk!!! It was a gift so...the cost is zero.
Here is the roast unwrapped. Note the lack of fat. I still didn't add any oil or fat because I like my meat like my men....lean. It is sitting on the garlic cloves. The center was a tiny bit frozen but what the hell.
Stick it in the firebox. Note that I let the fire burn down to coals and pushed those to the back BEFORE I put the food in. There is a bit of firebrick the pan is sitting on which helped keep it level. The brick is in there to hold up the end of the logs/sticks that go in the woodstove so there is a bit of air circulation under them while I get the fire going. If they sit flat on the bottom layer of firebricks they don't burn as well. Next to the roast is the giant onion. The onion is from 2nd harvest so the cost is zero.
On top of the stove I am making a side dish in a little pan I got at a thrift store for 50cents...set of three but the "big" one was dinged up and is now the auxiliary chicken water pan (let them drink the pot metal particulate, not me...also their main water pan is frozen solid to the ground and full up with ice).
The side dish is dried mushrooms and dried carrots from Sherry (thanks Sherry) which were a gift so the cost is zero. Recipe: crunch up the big bits of mushroom and put in pan. Add some dried carrot slices. Add a bit of water (the hot stuff from the insulated bottle) and set it on the stove over the hottest part which will be at the back by the stove pipe because that is where you pushed the coals). When it starts to boil, move it to a cooler part or on the fire brick you keep on top of the stove for just that purposed and also a tiny bit of heat storage. I did cover it with a scrap of foil so I was minimizing the steamy vapor in the wee shed and because I wanted to. It does not matter. If the water gets low, add more. Give them 10min or more.
About 20 or so minutes later I looked in and the top of the meat was nice and cooked, looked browned but not seared. So I turned it over. Some of the garlic stuck to it. I let it. I mean, really, who cares? It's my damn roast. I spun the onion so the other side was facing the coals. It wasn't very soft but was very hot.
Another 10min or so, maybe less, and this is how it looked. We're back on the tiny butane stove (with some baking soda stains...oops...I'm not a food stylist). The side that finished toward the coals, started toward the door, was less done. Both the done-er and less done bits are delicious. The garlics caramelized and the tiny bit of juice in the pan got used as a sauce sort of.
Here is the full meal on my thrift store steel camping plate, enamel mug, and the thrift store pan all sitting on my wood stove...with a drying dish towel in the background. Jesus H. Christ I am NOT a food stylist am I!? The onion, a free yellow onion not a fancy sweet anything, was vaguely sweet and smokey. The roast was delicious and vaguely smoky but not overly so, with the caramelized garlic and garlicy elk juice it is fantastic! As you can see, the roast was still juicy inside. I have heard you need to sear it to keep the juices in. Apparently not. The carrots and mushrooms were simple and delicious. I added minimal water so they didn't get soft. Good texture and the carrots get oranger when you cook them up. In soup with lots of water the mushrooms stay mushroom texture and the carrots get softer and softer.
I didn't bother with any spices, not even salt and pepper. It was all delicious as is.
I did not check the temperature inside the firebox. Sometimes I do that with an over thermometer but I didn't feel like it. I could stick my hand in there long enough to get things settled and not be bothered. I have super tough hands temperature-wise so ...350 or 400? Don't know. Didn't matter. If you are worried about exact temperatures, don't do this sort of cooking. You can't build the fire back up once you start unless you want the food to be in flames.
I have half the onion and about half the roast, it was a tiny roast which I super appreciate! and the dregs of the mushrooms and carrots in a tin on the porch (35 degs out so it will keep) along with the bits from the elk pan that I deglazed with a bit of water. That all goes in soup or stew tomorrow. Might add more veg, might not. That will get cooked on top of the stove as described above.
Total cost for an astoundingly delicious meal: ZERO.
For the record I also made breakfast on the woodstove. I fried 2 eggs in the cast iron skillet you can see on the floor in on of the pictures (not really the floor...it's the bit of cement board I use as a hearth and a giant cake I set cooking pots in...they don't burn the floor that way). I don't have counter space to set the frying pan on when the butane stove is being used as a prep area. I'm used to this sort of curly-shuffle but those thinking of living tiny might take it as a warning. When you cook, you spend fully 50% of the time shuffling your crap to questionable locations so you can find a place to assemble the meal.
Anyway, breakfast was 2 eggs from my chickens...cost of feed maybe 50cents because of low egg production in winter. I used some coconut oil for the pan which was looking dry so I used more than usual...maybe 5cents. Coffee (used the grounds twice in a tiny thrift store percolator...I should show that in a picture some time). Old cheap coffee because the free grounds are finally used up. 10cents. Water...free.
I've also had a few cups of peppermint tea, 2 cents (loose leaf peppermint bought in bulk ages ago).
Total cost for lunch: ZERO
Total cost for breakfast: 67cents.
For a snack today I had a can of diced pears in pear juice from 2nd harvest: Zero.
Total for the day so far (and likely the whole day because I'm still stuffed from lunch): 67cents.
Cooking on and in the woodstove is not difficult and since I had no actual time spent preheating the oven...I was out doing chores and had a fire going just because it is winter, my total prep time was under 10 min and cook time under 30 (which I spent watching random youtubes).
To the young doofus who was surprised you can cook on a woodstove...yes, and also, there is no santa claus and your mom is the toothfairy.
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