cooking adventures on the Estufa Finca stove
Judy
or so. I cook off and on, and now have a small garbage can of char.
I did not grow up a pyromaniac, so am still having a little trouble
regulating the fire and starting the fire (pine cones work wonderfully
for this, especially if they have a little pitch on them).
Mostly, I cook veggies and beans in some fashion. One time, the dish
started with cooking bacon (I had expensive, thick-sliced organic
bacon). Imagine my horror when the whole thing caught fire (at least
what was inside the pot). I quickly put the top on the pot and took
it into the house, and scraped about one square inch of bacon from the
bottom. Went back out to finish cooking the rest of the meal,
and . . . it caught on fire again from the residual bacon grease. But
the dish tasted great!
On another occasion, I tried my had at cooking brats (the "national"
dish of Wisconsin). I have never cooked brats before. I think I was
using one of my cast iron pans for that, which involved boiling the
brats in beer. Well, the beer foamed over and put the fire out. Put
everything into a deeper pot and got the fire started again. Once
again, dinner tasted great anyway!
Last fall I cruised the neighborhood with my wagon, picking up the
branches that people put out for the city to pick up and put through
the chipper. I had no idea how much (or little, as it seems) I would
need. So, now there is a really big pile of branches and sticks under
a tarp in the back yard, awaiting its turn at being made into char. I
think that pile will last me a couple years.
Oh, yeah. I also learned the hard way that you put the char in with
the compost when it's mostly finished, not when it's still cooking.
Composting slowed to a screeching halt last winter. Now that it's
warm again, things are cooking in the compost bin.
It's all about trying something new and working until we get it right.
cheers
Judy
Larry James
Thanks Judy for sharing your experinces.
especially your cooking and when to add to compost ( I did not know that).
We cooked up a bunch of bacon (and eggs) after our workshop the other day. Both of which I had never done until then
We where using the airbase and cooktop and a large skillit my gf picked up from goodwill the other day (big enough to cover the whole cooktop).
I was able to regulate the heat output to keep from burning the bacon up, but it took quite some adjusting of the airflow to keep it between too hot and stalling out (opening up the air immidiatly started gasification again).
I didn't have the grease fire problem you had, but that is good to know cause it could have been possible if the fire got too high and/or out of control.
In the end the bacon amd bottom of thw pan turned out about the same as if I cooked it at home on our crappy electric skillet.
The eggs afterward turned out much better cause by then I had figured out the sweet spot on controlling the primary air. (I was pushing the cooking time on the bacon cause I was tired and didn't want to be there all afternoon cooking it up).
All in all it worked out well, but the bacon was a heck of lot more work than I thought it would be.
We where cooking on broken up pallets, which was probably a factor. I bet dry wood chips would have worked better cause of less airflow through the burn chamber so flare ups would be minimal when adding more primary air.
I wish would have took some pictures to share. Next time I'll try and remember and post them.
-L