One of the favourite meals for a weekend morning in my family is pancakes, with bacon of course. Everything is better with bacon.
To start I built up a big fire. I wanted to make sure the stove top was nice and hot because I like crispy bacon and a hot cast iron pan will give you the best crispy bacon. I placed the pan on the front left of the stove because I found that is the hottest spot. Then I started cooking the bacon. As the cooking went along the bacon was crisping up too fast, edging towards burnt so I moved the pan more towards the back of the stove. If I had had another pan I could have started the pancakes next to the bacon as they don't need as much heat. Once the bacon was done, the pan was moved to the middle of the stove and the pancakes were made. While I was making the pancakes I had to add more wood as the oven top started to cool down a bit. The pancakes turned out beautifully. The bacon was nice and crispy, just the way I like it. Unfortunately the bacon was all eaten by my little bacon monsters before the pancakes were ready. Next time, we will use either a griddle or another cast iron frypan. Maybe we will go all out and do potatoes and eggs as well.
I got a little bacon grease, ok a lot of bacon grease, on the stove top. One of my next posts, therefore, will be a post on how to clean the top of the stove.
Thursday 14 November 2013
Thursday 7 November 2013
Wood Cookstove Cooking I - The Pioneer Princess
My husband and I (and a couple of buddies) re-did an early 1800's log farm house. The house has been in my husband's family for generations. Throughout the summer we have been cooking on our bbq when up at the farm. My husband always wanted a wood cook stove and after rebuilding the summer kitchen this summer we decided to get one.
We did a lot of research on which stove to buy. For a variety of reasons we ended up with a Pioneer Princess. It is made by the Amish in southwestern Ontario. We bought ours from a dealer called Mealtime Stoves. Our experience with the dealer was extremely positive. I must say that the instructions that came with the stove were less than satisfactory. The stove arrived with an ash trap door that simply didn't fit the stove. At first we thought it was us but once we realized that it was the door we called Mealtime Stoves and the owner sent out a replacement door almost immediately. It was very clear to me that this stove was not assembled prior to shipping so no (or little) quality control processes seem to be in place.
Before even getting the stove we had to set up a nice new shiny chimney. I always take on these types of projects in our family - my husband helped but given his fear of heights I was on my own for a lot of it. I must say that the chimney installation was far from pleasant. I strongly suggest that if somebody tackles such a job try to have somebody experienced helping. Once the chimney was installed I had to set up the fire retardant and insulation materials, that was simple and reasonably fast to do. Setting up the actual stove was far from straight forward. The instructions were more or less useless but after a couple of hours we were ready to make a small fire.
After going from a few small fires, to bigger fires, to really big fires, we were ready to try cooking on the stove. Up until this point I had been second-guessing our decision to go with this stove. I must say that I soon changed once I started cooking. The first thing we made was fried chicken. We started it on the BBQ and finished it in a cast iron frying pan on the stove top. It came out perfect!
The real test of the stove came the next day. We set the stove so the smoke was re-routed around the oven to provide maximum heat. The first thing I noticed was how the oven temperature wanted to stay close to 300. A small fire gets it close to 300, and a big hot fire gets it slightly above 300. Maybe this will change as I use the stove more, or maybe the built in thermometer is not entirely accurate, nevertheless this is what I observed. My husband wanted me to make a big turkey dinner with all the fixings including fresh bread. The experts suggested cooking a few batches of cookies first to get to know the stove, then graduate to more elaborate things over time. I compromised by making one batch of cookies and then made the big turkey meal. I must point out that the local store was out of turkeys because it was Canadian thanksgiving weekend so we had to buy our in parts (6 legs and 2 thighs). Having read a lot about the various challenges of cooking on a wood cookstove I was worried about how things would turn out. Luckily for us everything was perfect, the homemade bread, the turkey, the stuffing, the gravy, the mashed potatoes, everything was amazing. I am a woodworker by trade, not a cook, but I was proud of how it all turned out. As much as I would like to take credit for it all, I have to credit the stove. It was no more complicated than cooking at home in my gas stove.
I will be making a few more blog entries about cooking with my Pioneer Princess. Given the lack of useful instructions that came with the stove I hope to help others.
We did a lot of research on which stove to buy. For a variety of reasons we ended up with a Pioneer Princess. It is made by the Amish in southwestern Ontario. We bought ours from a dealer called Mealtime Stoves. Our experience with the dealer was extremely positive. I must say that the instructions that came with the stove were less than satisfactory. The stove arrived with an ash trap door that simply didn't fit the stove. At first we thought it was us but once we realized that it was the door we called Mealtime Stoves and the owner sent out a replacement door almost immediately. It was very clear to me that this stove was not assembled prior to shipping so no (or little) quality control processes seem to be in place.
Before even getting the stove we had to set up a nice new shiny chimney. I always take on these types of projects in our family - my husband helped but given his fear of heights I was on my own for a lot of it. I must say that the chimney installation was far from pleasant. I strongly suggest that if somebody tackles such a job try to have somebody experienced helping. Once the chimney was installed I had to set up the fire retardant and insulation materials, that was simple and reasonably fast to do. Setting up the actual stove was far from straight forward. The instructions were more or less useless but after a couple of hours we were ready to make a small fire.
After going from a few small fires, to bigger fires, to really big fires, we were ready to try cooking on the stove. Up until this point I had been second-guessing our decision to go with this stove. I must say that I soon changed once I started cooking. The first thing we made was fried chicken. We started it on the BBQ and finished it in a cast iron frying pan on the stove top. It came out perfect!
The real test of the stove came the next day. We set the stove so the smoke was re-routed around the oven to provide maximum heat. The first thing I noticed was how the oven temperature wanted to stay close to 300. A small fire gets it close to 300, and a big hot fire gets it slightly above 300. Maybe this will change as I use the stove more, or maybe the built in thermometer is not entirely accurate, nevertheless this is what I observed. My husband wanted me to make a big turkey dinner with all the fixings including fresh bread. The experts suggested cooking a few batches of cookies first to get to know the stove, then graduate to more elaborate things over time. I compromised by making one batch of cookies and then made the big turkey meal. I must point out that the local store was out of turkeys because it was Canadian thanksgiving weekend so we had to buy our in parts (6 legs and 2 thighs). Having read a lot about the various challenges of cooking on a wood cookstove I was worried about how things would turn out. Luckily for us everything was perfect, the homemade bread, the turkey, the stuffing, the gravy, the mashed potatoes, everything was amazing. I am a woodworker by trade, not a cook, but I was proud of how it all turned out. As much as I would like to take credit for it all, I have to credit the stove. It was no more complicated than cooking at home in my gas stove.
I will be making a few more blog entries about cooking with my Pioneer Princess. Given the lack of useful instructions that came with the stove I hope to help others.
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