Cooking on Top of the Woodstove

One thing I do a lot of when the woodstove is running, is to cook our meals as  much as possible on top. 

We don't have a cookstove (yet...in the wishing for phase).  However, it is amazing how much can be done if you have a flat top woodstove.

Over time you will learn if you need to put a pan up on a grate or not, depending on how hot your stove is running at the time.   We use both a cookie rack as well as a metal clothes hanger that has been coiled up in a circle.

I cooked all of our Saturday night meal as shown in the picture above.  We had a pan for pasta, one to heat up sauce, a cast iron pan for the beans, and a cast iron pan with a cover for the meatballs.

We are looking to replace our woodstove as it is quite old, not efficient,  and not sufficient to heat our home well.  

Does anyone have a combination woodstove/cookstove?  If so, I would love to hear your experiences and thoughts.

Warm wishes on this beautiful day we have been given,
Tonya

Food Budgets

As I was making lunch yesterday, Nolan walked through the kitchen and asked what was for lunch.  I replied, "Soup and just made bread."

Nolan (age 14) responded with, "That's it?"

Sarah (age 6), listening in the other room,  chimes in, "Nolan, we are on a budget you know."

The truth is, we really don't have a food budget.  I do my best to balance our financial capabilities with buying healthy and as much organic food and also as local food as possible.  Of course during the growing season, we eat all our own veggies and I preserve some food.  With our garden expansions each year this should increase, possibly even enough to sell a bit again.    Our goal is to add two goats to milk.  I moved the chickens from the barn to the smaller coops yesterday to bring us one more step closer to this reality.

But the truth is, we generally eat simple, healthy foods and still spend much more than I would like.  I make soups and cook  from our store of potatoes at least twice per week now.  We also eat pasta with vegetables, rice with vegetables and very occasionally organic, local meat.  For lunches we often have grilled cheese on homemade bread with pickles (that I have canned from our gardens).  Breakfast is either pancakes (usually without syrup as it is just so expensive), organic oatmeal with raisins, or Cheerios(started this habit almost 17 years ago with #1) with bananas (the last nonlocal fruit I buy on a regular basis to help with the children's nutritional needs).  For a family of eight, we nearly go through one pound of butter each day, nearly one gallon of milk, 1/2 gallon of juice (we do each have one cup of juice with breakfast), and about 1/2 - 1 pound of cheese each day. I generally buy monterey jack, non organic as the organic is still so much more.  (The goats should help with this too.)

Including dog and cat food, the few non food items we do buy (toilet paper, toothpaste, dish detergent), and then the food items, I  have estimated that we spend about $200.00 per week (a family of eight).  As we work toward making more of these food and nonfood items ourselves, I hope this will slowly go down, not just for financial reasons, but also to meet our goal of being more self-sufficient and living lightly on the earth.  Each packaged item purchased at market or the natural food store contributes in some way to pollution or the depletion of natural resources, even if I recycle every bit as recycling uses energy too.

What is your food budget, how much do you have to buy outside of what you grow and how many in your family?

Baking with Pumpkin

Each morning I bake two loaves of bread along with either quick bread, cookie, or pastry.

This morning I had the pleasure of using a fresh pumpkin.

I start by washing the outside and then cutting it in half and then in quarters and I scoop out the goopy insides which go into a container to be fed to the chickens.

Then I cut each quarter again and steam the pumpkin until soft.  It is then nice and easy to scoop out the good stuff to use in baking.

Sarah and I scooped through the slime to save the seeds to roast.

The counter in the morning with the yeast in the background poofing and one pumpkin bread in the pan with raisins added to the rest of the batter for another.

This recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks I was blessed to find at a yard sale years ago - Uprising, The Whole Grain Bakers' Book - the recipes are a compilation of handwritten recipes and illustrations from small independent bakeries across the United States, Copyright is 1983.

Baking with seasonal food is so very satisfying.

(Words cannot express my appreciation for the kind and supportive comments from the last post.  As we have chosen this path rather deliberately, the guilt of not providing enough can sometimes creep in despite my heart knowing we are doing ok.)

Warm wishes, Tonya

Potatoes

Our homesteading neighbors offered us their still to be harvested, three rows of surplus potatoes for just 

$30.00.

Michael (dear husband) went over with the little ones and dug them all up, brought them home, and lay them out on our porch to dry out for two days.  I am now picking through them, sorting them out - keepers to be stored in our basement in boxes and feedbags, a basket for us to keep in our pantry, and a box of small ones to save for seed potatoes for next spring. 

We harvested about 30 pounds of potatoes ourselves this year from our own small garden area.  We have been busy increasing our garden over the past two months and we hope to harvest close to 100 pounds next year from our own land.

However, we are so grateful for the well over 100 pounds from our neighbors and I am hopeful that they will keep well in our basement which should stay about 40 degrees all winter.

So far I have been making mashed potatoes and oven baked potatoes.  The children all love the oven baked.  I peel, cut into chunks and then mix in a large bowl with olive oil and spices and then bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.

What are your favorite potato recipes?

Warm wishes, Tonya

More on Food

"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls of those who live under tyranny."

~Thomas Jefferson

Morning Joys

As I went about my morning work yesterday, I snapped some photos.

As the bread was rising, I stepped outside to gather some lettuce.

While picking the lettuce in the quiet of the morning, I could hear the buzzing above my head of the busy paper wasps flying around their beautiful nest just above my head.

Upon heading back inside, I spotted a couple of chickens just inside the front door that I had to shoo back outside.  I headed in to finish the morning baking, wash the lettuce that would go with our supper, and help the little ones with breakfast.           I reflected on the fact that so much of my energy each day is devoted to growing and preparing food for my family.   What an honorable job, though, as food is truly so very important.  Eating healthy and respecting our earth by growing as much as we can and then buying local and then finally to make as much as possible from scratch - those are our goals.      A blog that is particularly inspiring is Farmama.  She preserves so much food for her family from her farm so that her family can eat much of their own food the year round.  That is our goal. To accomplish this though, we take steps and make new goals each year. The old goals truly do become habit.  For example, baking two loaves of bread each morning is just part of my morning.

Warm wishes for a joy filled day,

Tonya

(Thank you so much for all that are joining in on the Handmade Holiday - this is lots of fun and so wonderful to be creating for those we love.)