This time of year, it seems the woodstove is the center of our home. It gives warmth, comfort, coziness, and so many daily activities are centered around it.
For those of you who have a woodstove and know how much work and energy it takes to gather, split and haul firewood, and to constantly keep the fire going…..
why not get the most out of your woodstove and let it work for you?
Above is our woodstove on a rainy March day.
Our woodstove dries all of our laundry (until the sunny season when we dry it outside again.)
Whenever our electricity goes out, we seem to appreciate our woodstove even more and all the things it can do. We’ve used our woodstove to brew batches of herbal tea, to slow cook meals and soups, to dry garden herbs and freshly washed wool, to relax sore muscles in its radiant waves of heat, for keeping chicks warm and trays of freshly planted seeds, to make batches of goat cheese, to dry firewood, to warm our bones when we came inside from the cold…..
and so much more!
When we don’t get as much sunshine in the winter, the fire becomes this source for me. My winter-time sun.
Here is our woodstove on a winter day- drying cloth diapers, cooking butternut squash for dinner, heating water to moisten the air and keeping beans warm that are soaking prior to cooking.
A butternut squash Jeff peeled, cut up, and put in a cast iron dutch oven to cook on the woodstove. (He put in some water also and we had to keep checking it throughout the day, adding more water.)
Here is a blog post: Blessings This Week , that I wrote December 2009, that shows a few happenings around the woodstove (and the super tiny drying rack we used to dry all our laundry on- it makes me laugh now.)
So, let your woodstove work for you!
Let it dry your laundry, cook your meals, heat your tea (for that much-deserved break), humidify the air, and keep you contented and cozy on a winter day!
My goal is to start making more meals on our woodstove.
Do any of you have favorite meals you like to make on your woodstove?
What sorts of things do you use your woodstove for besides heating your home?
I just stumbles upon this and loved reading all the great ideas! We moved across country into a log home with a wood stove. Not our first…have had and loved for years! Tonight we decided to give the new stove a try at cooking since its been going all day. I love cast iron, so put a pumpkin in the dutch oven, pumpkin seed in a cast iron pan and warmed home made, (fresh farm)apple sauce we made earlier. It all turned out great!
Thanks for more ideas!
Love this post! We just got a woodstove and I wanted to find this in your archives for ideas! Where’d you get the laundry drying rack?
mb- beans are a great thing to cook on the woodstove!
I agree about the better vibrational energy. It just feels better.
I’m glad to hear someone else avoiding microwaves.
Let me know when you post about it, I’d love to read it.
“Sustainability minds think alike” I LOVE it! π
late to comment on this, but i too try to take advantage of the wood stove whenever i have anything heat-related to do. i cook all of our beans from dry organic bulk, so i tend to do those on the woodstove- i can leave them to simmer for hours on end and just walk away. π i have heard that cooking with wood heat gives food a somehow better “vibrational energy” than cooking with electricity. i don’t know how much truth there is to that, but i know i already felt that way about microwaves and avoid them accordingly, and i do think the food prepared on or near the stove (bread rising, cheese culturing, also go on nearby ours) seem somehow more nourishing…. i’ve been thinking of posting on this same topic and will eventually get around to it, so it’s nice to see this. π sustainability minds think alike?
It’s so nice to be able to talk with others who are on a similar food journey. There is so much support and inspiration we can share with each other. π
yes, i love your food posts, and i’ve noticed you’re a fan of nourishing traditions – me too!
though we’re still learning and experimenting with the whole fermenting business
and i’m not so good at remembering to soak my grains ahead of time… (though i’m getting better at it)
but i love cooking from scratch, and i’ve found that more meat and veg and less grains and sugars really agrees with my overstressed thyroid and adrenals…
erinleee- Glad you found my blog. π
I love wood cook stoves- how awesome! Love hearing about all the foods you made. π
May you have your beloved woodstove once again!
hello, i too stumbled upon your blog somehow and love it.
we had a wood stove and a wood cook stove for about 10 yrs and now live in a “normal” house with plumbing and electricity.
but man do i ever miss the wood stove.
what a nice thing it is just to see/make fire everyday. To feel the heat from it, cook on it, hear the gentle boil of the pot of water on the top…
I also really enjoyed the work of getting firewood in.
we would fire up the wood cook stove in the morning, and use it all day. make bread, dinner and supper and while its going, why not some cookies!
i miss that way of life, but we will be back someday!
:0)
I love what you wrote about keeping soaking and fermenting foods warm! Sounds like we eat similarly! π
i’m late to this one, but OH YES we love our wood stove!
it heats our home, cooks our meals (not all, but many of them), dries our clothes, dries herbs and food, keeps soaking and fermenting foods warm, and oh so many things…
these days we’ve been cooking on it a lot more – breakfast of sausage or bacon with homegrown eggs and veggies, and mostly dinners of soup or stew
thanks for honoring one of our best and most treasured friends… our wood stove…
Thanks Molly! Jeff and I want to check those out!
Stove Top Portable Oven
$39.95
Fullsize Perfection Oven
$189.95
– Hi Taryn, these are the two models Lehman’s has right now. Mine is old and about the size of the less expensive one.
Aunt Isla- Jeff makes some really good elderberry wine! Maybe you inspired him π
Thinking about that smell filling the house makes me hungry. Well, I’m always hungry these days. π
I so love hearing from you!
Lindsay- Hello! Wonderful to hear from you and I hope you get your woodstove soon also! Are you dreaming of a particular one? There are a few out there that I drool over.. π
Molly- Wow! Pies and turkeys- that’s wonderful! I love lehman’s catalog. I never heard of the box to put on top before. I’m curious now! Also, I am so glad that you enjoyed the diaper free post.
Amber- What a big smile it brings me to visualize your kids having so much fun around that fire in the winter! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks all for your comments. I love them!
burritos and potatoe leek soup! when the rainy days feel like they have gone on and on, and my kids are anxious for a sunny day, camping, and bike riding. When I know it will be weeks or months before we do that. I let them make bannana boats on the fire and roast marshmellos! they love it and we pretend we are camping, snuggled around the fire. I love our fire and my whole life I have had a woodstove in the homes I have lived in. Many times I have had to cook on the stove due to power outage. I want to cook on it more too, just for the simple fun of it. Enjoy…i kinda miss drying diapers in the woodstove heat. We were done with diapers about three years ago. enjoy the labors of love they are so sweet.
cheers to a happy and warm hearth!
Amber
burritos! and when we really get an itch for sunny weather, camping and outdoor fun during this rainy weather I let the kids make bannana boats on the fire! yum…slowly heated bannana scraped out with chock chips fill in and bannana put back on top then melted on the stove. we have even done marshmellos! but as for good for you food…potatoe leek soup and burritos!I love our stove the heart of our home, enjoy.
Amber
Hi Taryn, I have sometimes baked pies and roasted turkeys on my flat-top stove, using a simple box oven that came from Lehman’s Non-Electric catalog. That was on really cold winter days and the stove had to stay fully stoked.
Also – your diaper free post is just beautiful, I wondered about this long ago when my son was a baby . . . just the whole idea of attentive communication and respect . . . it seems the way to go for most human interaction. What a great start for little Bracken.
Howdy, I came across your blog when Farmama did a giveaway and I just love it!
I am really looking forward to the day when I will have a wood stove to put to work. My fingers are crossed that it won’t be much longer π
Peace,
Lindsay from Trinity Acres
We used our woodstove to make our elderberry wine in a 10 gallon crock behind it.
Now that will make a good smell in your living room!