This time of year things cool down and sitting around the fire at night becomes a popular pastime. Friends and family are drawn to our backyard for cookouts or just to sit and visit while a fire roars in the fire ring. It's also a time of year when I get outdoors to cook far more often than in the heat of summer. Our outdoor cooking season begins in earnest when most people's end.
When we moved here, one of the first projects was to find a spot with no overhanging trees where we could build a fire ring. The previous residents left dozens of concrete cylinders behind and some of the young men in our family set about creating what has become our outdoor kitchen and entertainment center.
We started with just the basic eight foot diameter circle surrounding a pit that quickly fills up with ashes. The cold ashes get used to reduce acidity in the garden soil and to encourage the growth of morel mushrooms out in the shadowy parts of the woods.
It wasn't long before we were inspired to add smaller cooking rings to the circle. We can either build individual fires in the small rings or rake coals from a bonfire in the big ring into the smaller circles. We put grills on top to hold pots, pans and long-handled cooking baskets. We also have a tripod to hang cast iron pots over the fire in the big ring.
When the power goes out--a common occurrence out in the country--we can still make coffee. We've also used our cast iron skillets to fry eggs and bacon and we've made toast on the grill. We have all the fun of camping with our own beds in the house to sleep in.
Fuel for the fire is everywhere.
I also have a nice heavy-duty smoker-grill our kids bought for me years ago when we lived in town.
We don't use charcoal because it has a chemical taste and besides, why would we with all the free firewood around. Cooking and smoking with wood requires different techniques from charcoal or gas, but both of those are extremely recent developments while humans have been cooking with wood fires practically forever.
In future installments, I will talk about open-flame grilling, using smokers, cast iron cooking and the various utensils that make outdoor cooking easier.
Stephen
When we moved here, one of the first projects was to find a spot with no overhanging trees where we could build a fire ring. The previous residents left dozens of concrete cylinders behind and some of the young men in our family set about creating what has become our outdoor kitchen and entertainment center.
We started with just the basic eight foot diameter circle surrounding a pit that quickly fills up with ashes. The cold ashes get used to reduce acidity in the garden soil and to encourage the growth of morel mushrooms out in the shadowy parts of the woods.
It wasn't long before we were inspired to add smaller cooking rings to the circle. We can either build individual fires in the small rings or rake coals from a bonfire in the big ring into the smaller circles. We put grills on top to hold pots, pans and long-handled cooking baskets. We also have a tripod to hang cast iron pots over the fire in the big ring.
When the power goes out--a common occurrence out in the country--we can still make coffee. We've also used our cast iron skillets to fry eggs and bacon and we've made toast on the grill. We have all the fun of camping with our own beds in the house to sleep in.
Fuel for the fire is everywhere.
There are a good number of dead trees, but we leave them standing for the woodpeckers and squirrels--at least until they fall on their own.
The trees drop dead limbs and ice storms break off live limbs that block paths and clutter the forest floor where we pick dew berries in the spring. We drag the branches into brush piles which we later cut up for kindling and cooking wood. We also use a fireplace for heat in the house, but we still always have more wood than we can keep up with.
We have to replenish our kindling and wood piles several times a year. Since we don't cut live trees and split logs into firewood, our stacks of firewood aren't neat and orderly like at the wood lots.
We don't use charcoal because it has a chemical taste and besides, why would we with all the free firewood around. Cooking and smoking with wood requires different techniques from charcoal or gas, but both of those are extremely recent developments while humans have been cooking with wood fires practically forever.
In future installments, I will talk about open-flame grilling, using smokers, cast iron cooking and the various utensils that make outdoor cooking easier.
Stephen
Comments
Post a Comment