Using a Pressure Cooker on a Wood Cookstove

When I worked as a local banker, my boss was a lady from Carson, Iowa, who is a lot of fun to visit with.  We enjoyed talking about food and cooking, and I'll never forget her telling me that she resisted getting a microwave oven for a long, long time when they became popular in the late 70s and early 80s.  As I remember, she finally caved under a great deal of pressure from her mother-in-law, but only used the microwave to reheat leftovers.

"I didn't need a microwave," she insisted, "because I have a pressure cooker.  I can cook things fast in it, which is why I call pressure cookers 'the poor man's microwave.'"

Microwaves are now standard equipment in the modern kitchen, but Instant Pots seem to be the current rage in countertop kitchen appliances, and one of their features is the ability to cook things quickly by using pressure. However, this is certainly not new technology; what is new about an Instant Pot are its safety features, automation, and some of its versatility.

Those of us who are cooking on a woodburning cookstove aren't exactly known for being the cooks who are taking advantage of the latest technological advances, though, are we?  That said, a carefully used pressure cooker can help us speed things up a little when we feel like it and add some variety to our cooking.  This was the case on Monday of this week when I had been out with a friend on a photography romp all afternoon and had nothing planned for supper when I returned home after 4:30.

I dug around in the freezer and found a package of country pork ribs.  I put them in the microwave to defrost a little (only because they had been packaged with waxed paper between them and I couldn't get it free) and brought my smallest pressure cooker up from its basement abode.  This pressure cooker was given to me by my aunt who had received it from one of my great-great aunts who had bought it sometime in the 1940s.  It came to me with its original instruction booklet which includes several recipes--what a blessing!

When cooking with one of these pans, the first step is usually to establish the pressure.  For the wood cookstove cook, this means that you are going to start the cooking process with the pan directly over the firebox.  You can see in the picture below that for what I was going to do I also put the rack in the bottom and added about a 1/2 inch of water.

Next, I inserted a small old Pyrex pan (I think it was the precursor to the Visions Cookware line) that I got from Nancy's grandmother.  Into that I put my three small pork ribs, which were still pretty frozen in the middle.

Over the ribs I poured barbecue sauce, which I made out of homemade ketchup and some barbecue sauce concentrate from Watkins.  In hindsight, I should have seasoned the meat more before putting the barbecue sauce on it because it was plenty bland.

I then put the lid on the pan, set the weight on the petcock to ten pounds of pressure, and moved the pan to the hottest lid over the firebox and began waiting for the weight to jiggle.

The jiggling began in a surprisingly short time, and then "the dance" commenced.  "The dance" is my tongue-in-cheek term for the movement of cooking vessels across the wood cookstove cooktop to adjust their cooking temperature.  High heat is right over the firebox, and lower heats are further away.  Instead of adjusting a dial, pushing a button, or tracing your finger over a fancy touch response induction range, you slide the pots and pans to the area of the cooktop which has the desired heat.

In a weighted-gauge pressure cooker, once the appropriate pressure has been reached (as announced by the jiggling weight), the heat needs to be reduced so that the weight jiggles a minimum of three to four times per minute but does not jiggle constantly.  You can see in the picture above that I wasn't stoking a raging fire, so I didn't have to move the pressure cooker too far away from the firebox in order to maintain the correct number of jiggles per minute.

A quick word about safety: I wouldn't recommend leaving a pressure cooker unattended for long periods of time on any cooking device, not just a wood cookstove.  The occasional short absence from the kitchen should be fine, however.

I'm sure the meat was cooked much earlier, but because I was busy with other things and because I knew that this cheap cut of meat would be made more tender by a longer cooking time, I let these cook for an hour, and then stuck a thermometer in them to be absolutely positive.

I don't know why I felt the need for the thermometer on Monday.  I think it was due to the fact that it was resting above the warming oven from a different project.  Usually, I would just have cut one open to make sure there was no longer any pink in the center.

The ribs were done, were fork tender, and we enjoyed them.

I should try using the pressure pan for more foods; usually I just use it for meats.  One of my favorite things to cook in it is tongue.  Let me know if you're interested in seeing that process!  Also let me know whether you use a pressure pan, and if so, what you cook in it.

Cooking Acorn Squash in the Wood Cookstove

We've been cooking with wood almost exclusively since turning off the electric water heater on September 21st.  The only exceptions have been a frozen pizza which I baked in the electric oven in the basement, and cakes and rolls were baked in the propane oven for our baked-goods-for-sale day last Thursday.  The wood cookstove oven was in use simultaneously that day, though, as there was such a large amount of baking to be done.  Now, I just need to get caught up with blogging!

One of the common themes among my posts about cooking on a wood cookstove is that I like to use it for foods that have long cooking times. Acorn squash is one of those foods that is particularly well suited to long cooking in a wood cookstove, and we had a large crop of them this year--all of which were volunteer!

A fraction of the acorn squash that grew in our garden this year.

Of course, there are as many ways to prepare acorn squash as there are cooks who do so, but I'm going to just show you what I do.

In the pictures below, I'm going to prepare two different sets of squash to be cooked at the same time: one set for eating, and one set for use in making other dishes.

Starting at least a couple hours before I want to have the squash ready to eat, I build my fire so that I will have a moderate oven--between 325º and 350ºF.

The next step is to wash the outside of the squashes thoroughly and cut them in half from side to side.

Then, using a strong metal spoon with a fairly sharp edge, I scoop out the seeds and pulp.

Next, I arrange the halves cut side up in glass or ceramic baking dishes.

Into those I am planning on eating right away, I place maybe a tablespoon of brown sugar in the cavity where the pulp was.  Then, I put around a teaspoon of salted butter on top of the brown sugar.  For the squash that I'm going to use for other things, I omitted the butter and brown sugar.

Without covering, put them in the oven to bake.  Baking time will depend on the size and ripeness of the squash, but I've never had a time when they took less than an hour and a half, and I've never seen them get too done.

I put the pan of squash that would be for our supper
in the oven first so that they would be ready in time.

Later, I moved the first pan of squash to the top rack and put the pan of squash
to be cooked for later applications on the bottom one.

When you can insert a fork in the fleshy part and it feels soft, remove them from the oven.

Now, I don't care for the stringy texture of acorn squash, so this is what I do to prevent having to deal with it.  Pour the brown sugar/butter syrup into the blender, cut them in halves again and use the same spoon that you took the seeds out with to scrape the flesh away from the peel.

Put the flesh into the blender and blend it with the brown sugar/butter syrup until it is all smooth.  If it is too dry, you can add any number of things; maple syrup, cream, and butter come to mind, but I just added some boiling water from the teakettle.

The squash pulp in the blender.  You don't have to have a
blender as cool as a vintage Osterizer Imperial handed
down to me from my grandmother, but it helps make it
more fun!

Once it is completely blended, you could put it into a slightly greased casserole dish and pop it in the oven if it has cooled off too much, but it was more than sufficient to slide this small bit into the warming oven while I finished the preparations for the rest of the meal.

Below is a picture of what the final product looks like on the plate.  You don't have to tell me how ugly it is; Nancy has already taken care of that job.  She said it looked like baby food.  She's right; however, when I look at it, the first thing that comes to mind is the 1970s gold insulated drapes that my mom and both of my grandmothers had hanging in our living rooms when I was little.

Acorn squash tastes much better than drapes, though.  When prepared this way, I serve it instead of a potato.  Except for the fish, each of the foods here was raised on our farm.  I love meals like that!

Use the comments section below to tell me how you like acorn squash cooked.  Bon appetit!

Cookstove Inspiration and a Vintage Recipe: Raisin Rice Dainty

Today marks a week since we have been cooking exclusively on the wood cookstove again, and it has been extremely satisfying.  The other night as I was cooking supper, I was thinking about how comfortable cooking on the wood cookstove feels and about what a smooth and welcome transition it was to return to cooking on wood.  The best way I can illustrate it is to say that, for me anyway, quitting the gas stove in favor of the woodstove was like leaving a straight-backed kitchen chair for an overstuffed recliner.

Believe me, the comfort of the wood cookstove is not because we need the heat in the house.  In fact, the windows have been open most of the time, and we have been letting the fire go out between meals if we have no need of hot water.  What's comfortable is the pace and rhythm of the wood cookstove, the feeling that the stove and I are working in tandem (weird, I know), and the feeling that experimental cooking and long cooking times are neither expensive nor inefficient.

Furthermore, I said to Nancy the other night that having the cookstove going again just plain inspires me to want to cook.

And have I been cooking!  I can't remember everything that was cooked this week, but one of the highlights was Beautiful Burger Buns for our barbecued beef sandwiches.  This recipe is from the King Arthur Flour website, and it was a definite hit.

The three remaining hamburger buns.  They are a little dry for
sandwiches now, but they make excellent toast!

Because I've been so inspired, I dug out my 1926 West Pottawattamie County Farm Bureau Women's Cookbook and began looking for more things to try from it.  For Saturday's breakfast, I whipped up some cake doughnuts using a recipe out of this unique collection.  They were good, but Nancy and I decided that we are not really cake doughnut lovers, so the chickens enjoyed the vast majority of them.

Tonight I used some leftover rice and made Raisin Rice Dainty, a recipe which was contributed to the cookbook by Mrs. Dudley Stupfell.  I'm posting this recipe here to document how our taste in food has changed over the last ninety years.  Initially, it caught my eye because I love rice and raisins together, and after reading the recipe, I was interested because it doesn't have much sugar in it and I'm trying to reduce my sugar intake a bit.

Then, when I read the directions, the idea of a cold rice dish reminded me of a very pleasant memory from my childhood.  When I was about six or seven, my paternal grandparents went out to supper with us at a local restaurant called The Pink Poodle.  I remember having a small dish of a pink desserty salad there that I thought was really good, so Granny and Dad also tried it in order to figure out what was in it.  I remember how surprised we all were when Granny announced that one of the ingredients was rice.  This recipe is a little like that.

Here is what you need:

2 cups cold cooked rice, packed loosely
(You cooked this rice on the wood cookstove, of course.  You could also use prepared instant rice using this method.)

1 cup raisins

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 cup whipped cream (measured after it is whipped--approximately 1/2 cup before whipping)

1 tsp. vanilla

The directions are pretty simple:

1. Combine the rice, raisins, and powdered sugar.

2. Blend the vanilla into the whipped cream.

3. Fold the rice and raisin mixture into the whipped cream.

4. Put into small glasses and serve extremely cold.

I garnished this with a small dollop of unsweetened whipped cream on the top.

We only have one little footed sherbet glass like this.
I would estimate that this is about a quarter of the total
recipe yield.

By today's standards, this recipe is extremely bland and not very sweet at all.  I think a little more sugar, a dash of cinnamon, and maybe a few apples (stewed a bit) could perhaps update this recipe.

But maybe it's not worth updating.  I don't know.  Maybe this post's recipe is best left as a history lesson.

So what about the title?  Have you heard of any other kind of "dainty"?

The Beginning of the Full-Time Cookstove Firing Season 2018-2019

Well, today was the day.  Yesterday (and for several days before that), our high temperature was in the nineties.  After a terrific rain storm last night, a cold front went through, and today our high was in the sixties.  With lows in the forties tonight, tomorrow is not supposed to reach seventy degrees.  The long-range forecast has a few seventies in it, but nothing too terribly warm.  Thus, after Nancy's shower this morning, I turned off the electric hot water heater and our season of firing the wood cookstove every day has officially begun.  I do believe that September 21st is the earliest we have ever done this.

Supper tonight was just chips and fresh salsa, raisins, and apples, but while the fire was going to heat some dish and laundry water, I cooked some more red raspberries for jelly. 

Another cooking job that I had been saving was the sugar pot from our Monday Market baking.  When I turn out a pan of sticky rolls, we catch the caramel syrup that runs off them in jelly roll pans beneath the cooling racks.  That is then scraped into a stockpot, and at the end of the season I make pancake syrup out of it.  It is quite delicious, and this way the sugar is not wasted.

The first step in that process is to add water to the pot and bring the whole thing to a rapid boil.  Tomorrow I will skim the butter and cinnamon layer from the top, make sure it is the right consistency, bring it to a boil again, put it in canning jars, and seal them in a hot water bath.

The kettle of red raspberries on the back of the
firebox and the sugar pot at the front.

This was not the first fire we've had in the stove this season, but with the electric hot water heater turned off, we are now committed to daily fires.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Cheating with Your Wood Cookstove: Gooey Butter Cake

A quick internet search reveals that Gooey Butter Cake is a pretty common recipe, but I didn't know that several years ago when I found this recipe in the back of my mother-in-law's mini-van.  It had been written on a fancy recipe card and then photocopied onto an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper.  It was attributed to someone named Hilda and neither Leona nor anyone else in the family knew where the recipe had come from.  No one knew Hilda, and no one even recognized the handwriting on the recipe card!

I made this according to the recipe the first time, but I wasn't that impressed.  I tweaked it just a bit this time, and the reviews are better, but I still wouldn't call this a stellar dessert.  However, if you need something a little exciting but don't have much time, this could do in a pinch, and because it is so rich, a little goes a long way.

For the bottom layer, here is what you will need:

1 chocolate cake mix (this is why I call this recipe cheating)
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla

The original recipe called for a yellow cake mix, but my first change was to use a chocolate one.  I would say that yellow cake is probably my favorite, and if given a choice, chocolate cake is the last thing I would take. However, the bottom layer of this cake has kind of a brownie texture, so I opted for a chocolate cake mix, and that suits my eaters much better.   Lately, I've taken to putting about a tsp. of burnt sugar flavoring into brownies, so I also added that.  If you are unable to find burnt sugar flavoring, you can fairly easily make your own burnt sugar syrup.

As always when baking in a wood cookstove, the first step is to build your fire and begin heating your oven to the desired temperature.  You need a moderate oven for this cake, and I think it is best to shoot for around 325ºF.

While your oven is heating, begin melting your butter over the coolest part of the cooktop.

Combine the melted butter, cake mix, eggs, vanilla, and burnt sugar flavoring.  This could be done by hand, but I used an electric mixer because the mixture is so stiff.

Once everything is thoroughly combined, transfer to a greased 9"x13" baking pan.

Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan, spreading evenly all the way to the edges.  Buttered fingertips make this process a bit easier.

For the second layer you will need these ingredients:

1 pound of powdered sugar

8 oz. softened cream cheese

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine all of these ingredients until smooth.  Again, I used an electric mixer.

Spread the cream cheese mixture on top of the cake mixture.  I am careful to not let it touch the edges of the pan.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes.  "Hilda" forbid me from peeking during this time, but I did take a gander in the oven at about thirty-eight minutes.  I think it is generally bad wood cookstove practice to never peek.  Mind you, I'm not advocating opening the oven door every few seconds, but we have to be reasonable.  When Meme taught me to bake, she never used a timer for anything.  In fact, she didn't even own a timer. Instead, we would take casual looks at the kitchen clock and rely on the sense of touch and sight.

I used to have a blind friend who could tell whether something was done baking by the smell of it.  However, wood cookstove ovens are not vented into the kitchen, and the Margin Gem even has a gasket around the oven door, so you can rarely smell baked goods until you open the oven door at least a crack.  

What Gooey Butter Cake looks like when it is done baking.
If you look closely at the oven thermometer, you can see that
the oven was running at about 325ºF.  I wouldn't go much
hotter than that.

Remove from the oven and cool completely.  You could eat this cake at this point, but I have to say that I think this one benefits quite a bit from being covered very tightly and refrigerated for at least a day.

These are extremely rich, and I find that a 1"x1" square is plenty to satisfy my sweet tooth for quite a while.

I hope you enjoy them!

Summer Uses for a Cold Cookstove

My last post was about Marjorie the Margin Gem cookstove coming out of her summer retirement.  I got to thinking about that.  In reality, even though she had not been fired since May, it wasn't as if she had just been taking up space.  In the summer, she becomes a rather versatile kitchen cabinet--versatile because she doesn't mind if I set hot things on her.

I also mentioned that we don't use her for baking for Monday Markets anymore.  During the first season of Monday Markets, she did all of the baking because she had the only functional oven we had at that time.  You can read about that in this post.

Now, during Monday Market baking, Marjorie serves as a proofing center while her oven stores some large pieces of cast iron cookware.

Marjorie holding a small fraction of the sweet rolls baked yesterday
while they were rising.

During the approximately eight months of the year that the wood cookstove is being fired, the roles of our two kitchen stoves are reversed, and the modern gas stove becomes an elaborate cooling rack and storage area.  I also have a large, homemade cutting board that fits almost perfectly over the gas stove top and makes a nice addition to our counter space.

Using a cold wood cookstove for storage is not a new idea at all.  I used to know of an elderly couple in Macedonia, Iowa, who had an old wood cookstove in their kitchen.  When the lady of the house wanted to remove it, her husband opposed the idea because he didn't know where he would keep all of his medications if not in the cookstove.  I've also heard of people using cookstoves to store groceries and pet food. 

When I first moved back into our house from the little house up the hill, the chimney was not yet ready to hook a cookstove back into it.  Thus, my old Qualified range (which was only a little over a year old at that time) sat patiently waiting to be used again.  I used it as a microwave stand because the idea of the wood cookstove "supporting" the modern technology of the microwave oven appealed to my warped sense of irony . . . Yup, I'm that much of a nerd.

For those of you who have wood cookstoves in your kitchen which are not used year round, please fill up the comments below and tell us what you do with your stove in the off-season.

Marjorie Comes Out of Her Summer Retirement

Our weather has finally turned a little cooler; in fact, we are supposed to have lows in the upper 40s tonight.  The air is much drier than it has been too, so I couldn't resist starting a fire in Marjorie the Margin Gem cookstove.  I have not had a single fire in the stove since May 27th.  This is the longest stretch of time I've been away from cooking over wood since 2002!

First I swept the chimney, cleaned out the stovepipe, and cleaned out the oven flues.  I always kind of enjoy the first chimney cleaning at the end of the summer.  Since the stove has been unused for such a long time, much of the hard creosote has loosened, so I'm able to do the best job possible.

I've been really hungry for Popovers Fontaine for quite a while, so these were my supper.

The popovers coming out of the oven.  Doesn't
Marjorie look nice in this photo?  Her lovely
appearance is due to my uncle Glen and my
mother-in-law having given her a good shine
for our family reunion back in the first part of July.

I also used the fire to cook some wild plums for making jelly later.

Wild plums from the road ditch cooking on the Margin Gem.

The small, short fire created enough hot water to wash a load of tablecloths and do up a few dishes, too.  Gotta love the efficiency of a wood cookstove!

Nancy was worried that it would get too hot in the house, but the thermometer in the living room only topped out at 70ºF, so we were more than comfortable.

I'm excited because our forecast has very reasonable temperatures for the next several days.  I told Nancy tonight that my goal is to switch off the electric water heater on Sept. 18 this year.  That is the day after the last Monday Market (Monday Market days are really crazy baking days here, but the baking is now all done in electric and gas ovens in order to keep my help--our mothers--from revolting due to the temperature of the kitchen.).  The two things that will have the biggest effect on my goal are temperatures and fuel status.  I'll keep you all posted.