Cooking on the wood stove

I don't cook on the wood stove very often but I love to do it when the opportunity arises.

This winter I had my chance when I woke up one morning, on a weekend, and found that we had no power in the house. The heat must have been off for quite awhile because it was already quite chilly when I got out of bed.

As usual, I was awake at least an hour before the rest of the family so I had plenty of time to gather up some fire wood and get the wood stove fired up. By the time the rest of the family woke up I had the fireplace room at a comfortable temperature.

For breakfast we warmed up the cast iron pan and fried up some fresh eggs. Mmmm, delicious.

At this point we were all hoping that the power would be off for the entire day. The kids were having a great time setting up their favourite board games and were settling in to play all day long in front of the fire.

We put two kettles on the stove to warm up some water for coffee and some warm drinks for the kids.

I had to use my trusty camping stove to get the kettle hot enough to boil and percolate the coffee. I confess that I did have a coffee that morning but can you blame me? I was swept up in the moment and at that point I really felt that I had earned a treat. Plus I was looking for a little extra warmth.

The Dutch oven made an appearance to make our next treat ... cinnamon rolls! They took well over an hour to bake on the wood stove but before they were finished the power suddenly came back on.

Since the power was back on I threw the Dutch oven in our kitchen stove to brown the top slightly.

After a few minutes on broil they were done and everyone dug right in before I had a chance to take a picture.

In total the power was out for about 6 waking hours. More than enough time for some family survival fun but we were all left wanting more as we returned to our 'power consumption' routine like moths to a light bulb. Well, it was a fun while it lasted.