It doesn’t get particularly cold here, frosts are rare, but it’s nice to have a fire going in the shorter, darker days, and sometimes we need one just to drive out the damp when it’s been raining for days and we would like to get some laundry dry.
Cooking stovetop meals
There’s something primally satisfying about having a fire at night. We have a slow combustion stove in the living room. It’s a good size and very efficiently heats the house. A plus with it is that it’s good for cooking a pot meal. It has a grate on top, which is better for cooking as the pots aren’t in direct contact with the fire box. We can just put a casserole on, and have it ready for that evening or the next day.
Today we are making the standard beef one; a kilo of diced stewing steak, some onions, carrots and celery, in the pot and left to cook for a few hours. Add some thyme and seasoning, put in potatoes for the last hour, finish off with some parsley, done. The possibilities are endless, and it would be great for soups and cooking pulses.
This sort of cooking couldn’t be easier and makes a fine meal or two. By Summer (when we definitely don’t want to heat the house) we will hopefully have our outdoor wood oven built and fired up, so we can leave the casserole in overnight to cook.
Convenience in this country lifestyle is what really makes stovetop cooking work. We have so much fallen timber on the property that there is no end of free seasoned wood to burn, it’s just a matter of taking the chain saw out and collecting it. The trees and branches just keep falling. As we are on battery solar power, using the slow cooker after dark is also not a good idea, but this is a better option anyway.
It’s also handy for economically boiling up chicken feed like lablab beans (which need boiling to leach out toxic compounds). I can just put a big pot on as I light the fire and collect and drain it the next morning.