For the next six weeks, while I’m in my kitchen in the country, I’m embracing a new rhythm – cooking exclusively on the fire. The new wood stove. No gas, just flames. Cooking with fire is slower, more contemplative.
This is cooking as it once was – rooted in patience, presence, planning and flames. How’s that for an alliteration!
Yesterday I baked bread with fire. Then wrote a new bread recipe for my Little Book.
Hauled straw for Jude and FreeBee.
Tomorrow I will shut the PopPops in the field and see what happens. Will they escape now they are bigger? Then clean out their bed. These are the grubbiest pigs I have ever known.
The cows got two bales of hay and today I will walk the fences.
I will clean out the chickens water bowl. Fix the light. And add more leaf bedding.
Soon I will begin a deep clean in the cow shed.
Mother in Laws lunch will be last nights stew cooked on fire.
This year is either going to go very, very fast or very, very slow. I am not sure yet. But I know for sure I am not going to be bored.
To bake the bread yesterday morning, I stoked the fire until it roared, opening the lever to let the flames whip through the oven. As the coals deepened, heat intensified and the oven heated up. I put the Dutch oven in to heat.
There is no accurate way to judge the temperature so I opened the door and felt the heat with my hand. I had roasted potatoes in it the day before to work out the hot spots so when I popped the dough into the cast iron I placed it in the oven right to the back and on the left of the oven closer to the fire.
I was pleasantly surprised at the wonderful spring of the bread when I took off the lid and returned it to the oven to brown for a further 30 minutes.
I made a little video for you.
This is the finished loaf. It is crunchier than in the gas oven. Lighter almost. And I had no clue how hot the oven was. So I am not even bothering to worry about those numbers.
Then I long-cooked a stew and it came out dark brown and delicious. Heaving with vegetables.
I cannot bear to waste the cooking heat the fire is making. That oven calls to me. Everything is cooked either on the stove top or in the oven. So I will make the most of it before I go to Melbourne to be her doula and Nanny Granny. And cook on nothing but fire until I leave.
Later I will write Thursdays post for SubStack. In case you missed it here is ALL of Alice read by Cecilia. The Bedtime Stories. We have finished Alice in Wonderland and I will begin reading Wind in The Willows in a week.
Time for me to get busy now. Get that fire stoked up and bake another loaf of bread! I wish I had more people to feed!
Take care and talk soon.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
39 responses to “cooking with fire: a six week challenge”
Have fun with that stove!
Yes! I certainly am!
You will get to be one with the new stove as you feel, listen, and see the way it behaves. I have a feeling there will be lots of bread loaves in the weeks to come. 🙂
And all those dishes I have not been able to make since our gas oven died! It will get me through the coldest weeks. 7F here this morning but bright and sunny.
I would eat your bread no matter how or where it was baked! I am an avowed bread-aholic 🙂 The animals look wonderful. Jude and FreeBee seem to be quite dapper and wanting to show off for their picture. I suppose, even though it was heartbreaking to lose some of the dear animals or that some (the turkeys) did not work out, having small numbers will make things easier for the farm staff when you are gone.
it is true. We need to skinny down the stock for the next few years.
It certainly makes cooking a full senses project! The crackling of the fire. The smell of the coals and the meals simmering on the stove top. The beautiful art of the cook stove itself. And … the taste of the fresh bread and stew!! My mouth is watering!
What a perfect addition to your practice!
yes! There is so much going on and still lots to learn. And as I am only home for under two months it will be a steep learning curve!
I wish I was there for you to feed me. That bread looks amazing. And what a fun challenge. I know you are up to it!
I need lots of challenging!
I’m in LOVE with this post. Can you marry a post? Have an affair with it? That oven is gorgeous. And the thought of baking and stewing and doing everything on that fire grabs me to the core. Think I was born in the wrong century. Sigh.
You could put one in the little French house? Yes? You don’t need any electricity – nothing but the wood from our own trees. It is truly wonderful
I’m curious to hear how your cooking experiment goes. I was talking to my Mum the other day and she said they cooked everything over an open fire when she was a girl. Definitely a slower, simpler way of life!
an open fire in her house? With a big hearth and a structure to swing the pot onto? That sounds absolutely next level! I would love that! Really hard work.
I don’t know how they did it. They lived in a tiny 2-room cottage so the hearth couldn’t have been that big. I will have to ask her.
wowza, and the bread looks great! if I know you, you will. master it by the time you leave for the warm climes
Very interesting! I’ve always wanted to cook with fire. I will enjoy your adventure
I am lucky to have a fire heated range now. It is a game changer!
I had a dream of one for years. Now I’m too old. So I will enjoy your endeavors
Dear Jude and Freebie with their pink noses. The Pop Pops look bigger and have beautiful thick black winter coats.
Your bead looks delicious – I suppose a wood fired oven is drier than gas. A pizza would be a good test, to see how crispy the base gets and how fat it cooks.
Cooking over an open fire is still quite popular in Spain – people often have a fire with chimney in an outhouse for paella and larg stew pots suspended from a chain.
huh. I think I want to save up so you and I can go visit those people cooking on an open fire in Spain!!
That sounds very good to me!
My maternal grandmother told me she used to stick her hand into the wood stove’s oven to test for temperature. I’d be game to try cooking on a wood stove. It’d help heat the house too.
If you want to see how cooking in an open hearth is check out A Taste of History with Chef Walter Staib (https://www.pbs.org/show/taste-history/) He cooks in some historic houses and it’s fascinating. He also cooks over an open fire outdoors. 14 seasons of historic recipies, food history and some more general history.
I saw myself doing exactly that today! Waving my hand inside the oven to test for temperature! I will follow this link. Thank you! Cooking in historic houses sounds great to me.
The Chef is an interesting fellow. I’m just starting season 14.
My mother did something similar, she’d wave her hand just outside the open front door to “test” the weather. It made my father laugh.
That is pretty funny!
The bread looks amazing and stew sounds wonderful… we are having some cooler rainy summer days. We have a hearth space in the kitchen where there was once a wood stove. How fabulous it would be.
indeed! Though expensive. I sold a whole cow to buy this one. But it was a great investment for the future. – if I ever get back here that is.
That looks wonderful, I’d like a warm slice slathered with good butter. If I was younger nd had unlimited means I would love to have one of those masonry stoves.
Never say “if I were younger” again. Nope! Sherry! Push like you are a teenager! ( I know you do anyway). What is a masonry stove?
They’re pretty big and the fire box is surrounded by some kind of masonry, brick, ceramic, adobe, maybe soapstone. The idea is the fire warms the masonry and it radiates the heat into the house. Some even have a bench type area for seating, warm & cozy. I think they’re endemic to the Nordic countries. As far as pushing, I surely do. If I undertook a project like this my family would probably have me certified! As it is they often look askance at a lot of stuff I do. ie – You still ride your horse out alone? You’re digging a pond? You’re pouring cement into stepping stone molds? HAHA.
That’s my girl!! Keep flummoxing them!
I’m very impressed! I imagine that there are some foods/dishes that are more amenable to this type of cooking. A souffle might not do so well-LOL!