Chickens In The Pen And Stew On The Wood Stove

   It is raining and sometimes raining hard, but the snow is still hanging on although there are some bare patches here and there. The snow mostly melted away in the chicken pen and I think that has something to do with all the pine I laid down in there. Maybe air can circulate under the pine and that's why the snow melted? The hens were happy this morning to get some cooked egg and some lettuce for treats.  We are supposed to get a few hours of a break in the rain and some sun tomorrow, so I hope I can let the chickens and Morgan out to run around and have some fun in the woods.

     I love my wood stove and thought I would take a few more photos of some wood stove stew. I am always learning every time I cook something on it and tonight I learned that if I cook my stew in the chicken fryer it turns out better than in the dutch oven. It must have something to do with how tight the lid fits. These are the steps I took to make the stew tonight:

1st- I cooked (not browned) chopped up onions in the chicken fryer with the lid on, 2nd- then I added cut up beef to the onions and cooked them together until the meat was not red, 3rd- I added cut up celery and carrots, mixed it all up and added water just to cover. Put the lid back on and let it cook slowly on the wood stove on a trivet. I kept checking and added more water when needed, season to taste. This time the stew cooked with very little liquid left. I would have added potatoes to the stew, but I didn't have any, so I made rice on the cook top and put it on the upper shelf of the wood stove to keep warm. I steamed veggies on the wood stove then moved them up to keep warm too.

   My camera didn't capture the rice at all, but it was really in the green pot. There is something so neat about being able to cook on the wood stove. I cooked hamburgers on it last night in my iron skillet and they really do taste better. They even look better. Next time I'm going to try cooking the hamburger patties in the chicken fryer with the lid on and see how they turn out. When I cook chicken in the chicken fryer with the lid on the chicken turns out beautifully golden and delicious. I promised Kristine fried chicken this week.

   I did a bad thing tonight. I smelled a burned smell and found out that I had melted the lid on my tea kettle. First the whistle melted a while back because the kettle was put on the wood stove. Too hot. And now because there was no whistle and I didn't hear the timer I set... I killed my tea kettle. I want a new kettle that I can put on the wood stove and that has a loud whistle. I want to go shopping.

[3 eggs today]

Nice present from the chickens on a cold day.

Peek at the Past
(January 26, 2009)

~:>

Smiles