Last week we had a pretty strong winter storm which knocked out our power. We have an electric stove which of course puts a cramp in cooking. However i do have a fire place and cast iron, so i tried cooking with the fire. Haveing never done this before I decided a stew would be easiest. So i chucked a bunch of stuff in the dutch oven, put it close to the fire and let it sit for hours. In the end it needed a long time to be done (5 hoursish) but it turned out ok.
Anyway, does anyone have some suggestions as to the type of food that might led itself well to cooking on actual fire? we get a lot of storms and we loose power for days at a time.
Thanks
Best Answer
As long as you have a dutch oven and are planning on using it, look for camping recipes for dutch ovens. Usually when camping the suggestion is to put a certain number of coals under the dutch oven and a certain number on top to basically simulate oven-like conditions. You can make warm breakfasts and warm dinners this way. You can even bake bread and other baked goods in a dutch oven (Irish soda bread works very well in one).
Other options for cooking in the fire include wrapping food in foil packets. For example you can wrap up salmon with seasonings or a packet of beef and vegetables. Foil packet dinners will be quicker and easier than most dutch oven dinners but the heat control is not as precise.
Another option if you want to invest in some gear is to get a pie iron. A pie iron is basically two sandwich bread shaped pans that clamp together. You can get one in cast iron, which will hold up longest. Using a pie iron you can make cake, cornbread, and all sorts of warm things sandwiched between toast.
Finally if you have some sort of grate that goes over your fire you can also attempt foods similar to grilling.
With your existing tools you can make some fine meals. With a few more purchases you can make enough food variety to keep you happy for an entire winter of power outages - on the dinner front at least.