A wood stove friendly recipe!

We have an extra special Timeless Treasure this week at the bottom of Bella’s blog post–a leather wallet belonging to her 4th great-grandfather, a soldier in the Mexican War.

Be sure to scroll down and see it!

Nothing says winter comfort food like a piping hot stew! Especially one cooked on a wood stove!

There’s just something calming and comforting about cooking on a wood fired stove. When it is cold outside, the wind is whipping around the corner, and there is snow and ice on the ground (rare here in Mississippi–but we do occasionally get it) a pot of stew simmering on a wood stove makes you feel so contented.

At least it makes me feel that way. Cooking on a wood stove gives me a totally different feeling than cooking on electric or gas. I am actually enjoying cooking again!

I know there are a lot of recipes out there for beef/hamburger stews, but this one developed at Cozy Kitchen Wood Stove is super easy and oh so savory! With lots of spices and just the right amount of heat!

It is the perfect recipe for cooking on a wood stove. You can do the entire stew in a black skillet and one pot. And hey, that makes clean-up a breeze.

Don’t have a wood cook stove? No worries! It works just as well on a conventional range. The method is exactly the same!

Ingredients

• one large onion
• 8 cloves of garlic
• 2 pounds of hamburger/ I like a lot of meat! OR (other stew meat)
• 1 quart of crushed tomatoes (I used ones canned from last summer)
• 1 large can original Rotel (You can substitute a second quart of tomatoes if you don’t like the heat).
• 2 c. water
• 3 large bay leaves
• 2 t. oregano
• 2 t. basil
• 1 t. thyme
• Kosher salt and black pepper to taste (I started with 1 t. each)
• 4 medium potatoes diced
• sack of green peas/ carrots
• other vegetables of your choice

Tip:

When I substitute venison stew meat for the hamburger, I precook it in a slow cooker or an Instant Pot to assure that it is fall-apart tender!

Method

Build Up: fire in firebox until you have a big bed of red hot coals. Keep adding wood to assure fire does not die down. Open your air flow–(damper) and get the stove really, really hot. A lot of people are having trouble cooking on their wood stove. The most common problem is not building up the fire with a red hot bed of coals and not opening the damper to get the stove really really HOT!

According to Obadiah’s Wood Stoves where we purchased our J A Roby, this will not hurt your stove!

lA quote from Obadiah’s Wood Stoves–“Yes, it is true that the primary air function does need to be wide open (horizontal) to be able to get the baking oven up to temperature. This will not damage your stove and there is no harm in doing so. Please keep in mind that these are sold as “cook stoves” not heating stoves, and therefore in the literature the manufacturer has to list verbiage like that to ensure they are covering themselves properly so that it can’t be twisted into being sold as a heating unit, where its meant to be ran full blast all the time. I’ve had many customers using the stove on high for many years with no problems.”

Once you have your stove good and HOT, follow the method below:

• Chop: one large onion / add to oil in black skillet or directly into soup pot if you prefer.

• Crush: 8 cloves garlic with side of a knife. Remove skin and chop.
• Add: to onion in pan

• Simmer: over hottest part of your stove top–directly over the firebox. Cook until translucent–(looks clear). And then transfer to your soup pot.

• Brown: 1-2 pounds meat / hamburger or stew meat/ drain off grease. Venison works well in this stew!

• Add: meat to your soup pot with the onions/ garlic.
• Add: 1 quart crushed tomatoes and 1 large can original Rotel.
• Add: Your 3 large bay leaves and spices (2 t. oregano, 2 t. basil, 1 t. thyme, 1 t. kosher salt, 1 t. black pepper)
• Add: 2 c. water

• Bring to a boil: over hottest part of stove above firebox. Once it begins to boil, simmer for 25-30 minutes. It will come to a boil much faster if you cover it with a lid.
• Add: potatoes, carrots, peas, and any other vegetables. I usually add corn, but sadly, I was out today.

• Simmer: until vegetables are tender. Taste to see if you need more salt. If you think you do, add just 1/2 t. at a time.

This makes a HUGE pot of stew! I think this might even be the best part–you have enough for another meal and some left over to freeze!

If you are from Mississippi and think you recognize this bowl, YES, it is McCartys. I never keep something just for display. If I can’t use it, I don’t want it!

And serving it in this bowl actually made the stew taste even better! We did have a brown, crusty pone of cornbread to crumble on top. Yummylicious!

Weekly Timeless Treasure

Our Timeless Treasure this week is a leather wallet that belonged to Bella’s great-great-great-great-granddaddy! Yes! That’s 4 greats!

His name was William C. Mayes, and he was an Indian from the west side of the Cahaba River in Bibb County, Alabama. He was brought to northeast Alabama as an Indian slave by the Mayes family from Virginia, and I assume he took the name from them. He was born in the early 1800s and fought in the Mexican War.

The inside of the wallet has the impression of a $20 gold piece. Sadly, we do not have the coin. The story was handed down that Mayes was an overseer on a plantation along the Cahaba River, and the coin impression was made in the leather from the pressure of him sitting on the wallet as he rode his horse, overseeing the plantation.

William C. Mayes married Mary Elizabeth Yates, Bella’s great-great-great-great-gradmother on May 17, 1873, and they had one child, Callie. He was quite a bit oder than Mary Elizabeth, and died before Callie, one of a set of triplets, was born. The other two babies did not survive. Mary Elizabeth never remarried.

Mary Elizabeth’s father was Joshaway Yates, a Cherokee from Kentucky, and her mother was Nancy Farrar, possibly an Indian slave from Farrar Island, Virginia. My grandfather did not know the entire story, but he always told me that his grandmother was a little Indian girl–and that she grew up on the banks of the Cahaba River in Alabama.

My grandfather said Mary Elizabeth, his grandmother, lived with them when he was a child. He said they lived in shacks so poorly built that he would wake up on winter mornings to find a dusting of snow covering the quilts on his bed. The wind had blown the fine flakes in through the cracks between the planks of the wall.

He told me that his family would have starved to death had it not been for the Mexican War pension check that his grandmother, Mary Elizabeth, drew from William Mayes.

My grandfather said he would wake up in the middle of the night to the whirr of an old spinning wheel. His grandmother, Mary Elizabeth, would stay up most of the night spinning yarn to knit socks for the large family. He said once a week they would find a pair of clean socks at the foot of each bed in the morning.

My grandfather said his father helped clear the flatwoods of Pontotoc County, Mississippi. In those days, they cut the huge virgin hardwood trees with crosscut saws. After felling the trees, they would plow around the stumps with mule drawn plows and farm the land until the stumps rotted away enough to be removed.

As soon as the land could be farmed efficiently, his dad would sell the farmland and start clearing another section. My grandfather once told me his life had been so hard, that if the Good Lord offered to let him go ’round again, he’d just have to tell Him, “No thank you!”

Bella had just gotten off the school bus, and I had this wallet out to show her for the first time. I tried to get her to brush her hair, but she did NOT think this was a good idea!

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