Cooking With Wood: Winter Recipes for the Woodstove

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Three different and delicious woodstove recipes. PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Over the past several winters, I've come up with quite a number of homegrown recipes designed especially for cooking with wood. Three of them have become family favorites, and I'd like to share this trio of woodburner meal maps—one for each of the day's three repasts—with you. (Mind you, I prepare these dishes on my trusty old wood cookstove, but they can also be done up on the top of any well-fired box-type wood-heating stove . . . if you're willing to experiment until you hit upon the correct time-and-temperature combinations.)

These through-the-day meals are sure to delight the hungry mouths around your house, too. So slide that simmering teapot to the back of the stove, grab your ingredients, and let's get cooking!

Frosty-Morning Pancakes

1 1/2 cups of whole wheat or unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 1/2 cups of milk or fruit juice
3 tablespoons of honey
2 eggs
1/4 cup of cooking oil
1 apple, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons of sunflower seeds

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Blend the milk or juice, honey, eggs, and oil in a separate container. Stir the wet and dry mixtures together, and add the chopped apple and the sunflower seeds.

Now, set a heavy skillet or griddle on a medium-hot stove top. When a drop of water will dance on the heated surface and then evaporate quickly, you're ready to start cooking. Coat the bottom of the pan or griddle with cooking oil, and pour in a large spoonful of your mix. Fry each cake until its edges are slightly dry and its top bubbles, then flip it over to cook the other side. (For best results, use a large spatula and turn the cakes only once.)

Serve your pancakes topped with butter and maple syrup . . . or make your own sweet sauce by adding hot water to a jar of homemade preserves until the concoction reaches a syrup-like consistency.

Lunchtime Hot Rice Salad

2 cups of water
3 tablespoons of tamari
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of brown rice
1 onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup of chopped tomato
Parmesan cheese

Bring the water to a boil. Add the tamari, bay leaf, 2 tablespoons of butter, and the rice. Let the seasoned mix boil vigorously for 5 minutes before moving it to a cooler place on the stove—or placing it on a trivet—to cook slowly for approximately 40 minutes. Just before the rice is done, sauté the chopped onion and pepper in a tablespoon of butter over medium heat until they become limp. Add the cooked vegetables and the chopped raw tomato to the rice . . . sprinkle individual portions with Parmesan cheese to suit your taste . . . and serve the dish with a bread of your choice.