Thanksgiving is just 2 days away. Mike has been able to bag a turkey after all yesterday and he cleaned up and sitting in the refrigerator ready to cook. We talked about how I was going to cook all that I planned on fixing for dinner on Thanksgiving and I mentioned that I wish I had a bigger rocket stove with a oven on the back. He thought for a couple of minutes and then went and got my binder I have filled with information and pictures of making rocket stoves, cob ovens, solor cookers and more. After he found the pages he was looking for and studied them for a few minutes he came up with an idea on how he could make me a bigger rocket stove with a oven. He would extend the rocket stove out the back side by 3 brick lenghts and triple the size from side to side. Making a 3 burner rocket stove. To make sure it burned more evenly he would make three feeder tubes for the wood. On the back side where the oven would be he planned on making it 4 bricks high and use a sheet of metal to set over the top to hold the heat in the oven. He said that I might be use the top of the sheet of metal as a warmer when the rocket stove was in use. He had it all worked out as to how he would get heat from front to the back where the oven would be by leaving opening in the middle open between the actual fire area and the oven.
After he was done telling me how he thought he could build it I agreed that I thought it would work so Mike, Steve and JR put some gas in the truck and went on a scavanger hunt. First they went to the junkyard and they found a large wrought iron stand that Mike thought he could use to hold the new and improved rocket stove/oven. He also found a piece of sheet metal he thought might work. Then they went to the home improvement place and found where they had the patio stones and bricks stacked in open sheds behind the actual store. Since we live in a small town the owner of the home improvement store lives right next to the store. Steve knows the ower so he had went up to the door told the owner what he wanted and why he wanted it and asked the owner if he would take an IOU for any items they got. Instead of taking an IOU the owner said that if they would come back the next day and build him a rocket stove/oven they could have what they needed with no IOU. They agreed. Work and knowledge in exchange for supplies and we all benefitted. They got a total of 100 red bricks and several patio blocks.
As soon as they got back Mike and I went to work on the stove while Steve and JR took more wood in the house for the rocket heater and filled up the kerosene heater in case we needed it for extra heat that night. The rest of the women did the house work and couple of loads of laundry and took care of the kids. John and Dave had guard duty. It;s a good thing I had stored up on 5 gallon buckets and a couple of plungers since that is now how we wash clothes. We have launry lines strung up around the house that we use to hang clothes on.
Mike and I worked on the rocket stove/oven for about an hour before we finally had a design we thought would work. I decided to give it the ulitmate test by trying to make cookies it in. It had been a long time since the kids had any cookies, well a long time for any of us and I thought we all deserved a treat if the oven worked liked we hoped. I made up some chocolate chip cookie dough, grabbed a couple of cookie sheets and went back out to the garage. Mike had the stove fired up and heat was coming in pretty good to the oven part. I put the first pan in and checked it after 8 minutes. The cookies were cooking on the top but not to well on the bottom and they were burning on one side of the pan. We needed to raise the pan off the patio block so heat would get under the bottom of the pan like it does in a real oven. I thought for a minute than ran back into the house and grabbed some clean empty tin cans I kept for making bread in. I took them back out to the garage. I placed 4 cans in the oven, set a new pan of cookies on top of the cans and put the metal lid Mike had made for the oven. We waited 5 minutes, lifted the lid and turned the cookie sheet to get a more even browning. We waited another 5 minutes then checked again. The cookies looked great and were done. I pulled the pan out and we let them cool a bit before trying them. Besides having a slight wood smoke flavor the cookies were great. I knew the kids and adults would be happy with them. We finshed up baking the rest of the cookies and took them in the house for everyone to have some. They all raved about how good the cookies were so Mike and I knew we had a winner with the new design of the rocket stove.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Today my daughter and I are going to make the pies for tomorrow's dinner while the guys go build the rocket stove for the owner who gave them the supplies. We are going to make two pumpkins pies and two pecan pies. With as many people as we have here I hope 4 pies are enough.
I didn't want to set my pies on the tall cans for fear of them falling so I grabbed some of my clean empty tuna cans that I had saved up to make candles in. I had not used them yet for making candles so didn't have to worry about hot wax. We cooked the pumpkin first and they turned out pretty good. We had to experiment with how often to turn them to get a more even cooking but in the end it all worked out. Then we cooked the pecan pies. I was getting more comfortable in baking in the rocket oven.
The guys were gone for over 4 hours and we were starting to get a little worried. They had only went two miles from the house but still its getting dangerous to even go a block away so we were worried. They finally showed up after being gone for 5 hours and they had a load of new wood with them. Mike had decided we needed a big prep area in the garage when it came to cooking and canning so the guys had done a lot of work for the owner in order to get enough wood, screws and cermamic tiles to make a large prep table with a big shelf underneath it. I didn't know but Mike had taken my binder with how to's in it with him when they had went to build the rocket stove and offered to make the guy one project out of it as well as the rocket stove if he would let them have the supplies to build a prep table. The guy had agreed and had them build him a rocket heater for his house since his propane was just about out.
Today is Thanksgiving and Jen my daughter and I are cooking a big meal. Cooking the turkey whole would use a lot of propane so I decided to cut it up like I would a whole chicken and inject it with a mixture of melted butter, salt, black pepper and crushed thyme before roasting. It came out nice and juicy and cooked in half the time a whole turkey would. Jen had put together a sweet potato casserole under my instructions and my daughter made her green bean caseerole. They baked them in the rocket oven. I had some boxes of Stove Top turkey stuffing and instant mashed potatoes in my food storage so the girls made those to. I made what my mother in law had always called parched corn which is simply drain the water from a can of corn, put the corn in a fry pan with some butter and a little black pepper and cook till the corn starts to brown a little.
We opened a couple of cans of jelly cranberry sauce and made ice tea to drink. The last thing we had to cook was the dinner rolls that I made from scratch.
When the food was all done the guys helped us carry it in the house then we all set down and had a really good meal. I pulled every one off of guard duty that night and told them since we had not had any real bad trouble so far that I thought we would be okay with out guards that night so everyone could get a good nights sleep for once. We all needed a break especially Steve, Mike and JR since they bored the brunt of most of the hard work that needed to be done. We all played Yahtee and I made some popcorn and hot cocoa on the rocket heater later. Tomorrow the hard work will begin again.
After he was done telling me how he thought he could build it I agreed that I thought it would work so Mike, Steve and JR put some gas in the truck and went on a scavanger hunt. First they went to the junkyard and they found a large wrought iron stand that Mike thought he could use to hold the new and improved rocket stove/oven. He also found a piece of sheet metal he thought might work. Then they went to the home improvement place and found where they had the patio stones and bricks stacked in open sheds behind the actual store. Since we live in a small town the owner of the home improvement store lives right next to the store. Steve knows the ower so he had went up to the door told the owner what he wanted and why he wanted it and asked the owner if he would take an IOU for any items they got. Instead of taking an IOU the owner said that if they would come back the next day and build him a rocket stove/oven they could have what they needed with no IOU. They agreed. Work and knowledge in exchange for supplies and we all benefitted. They got a total of 100 red bricks and several patio blocks.
As soon as they got back Mike and I went to work on the stove while Steve and JR took more wood in the house for the rocket heater and filled up the kerosene heater in case we needed it for extra heat that night. The rest of the women did the house work and couple of loads of laundry and took care of the kids. John and Dave had guard duty. It;s a good thing I had stored up on 5 gallon buckets and a couple of plungers since that is now how we wash clothes. We have launry lines strung up around the house that we use to hang clothes on.
Mike and I worked on the rocket stove/oven for about an hour before we finally had a design we thought would work. I decided to give it the ulitmate test by trying to make cookies it in. It had been a long time since the kids had any cookies, well a long time for any of us and I thought we all deserved a treat if the oven worked liked we hoped. I made up some chocolate chip cookie dough, grabbed a couple of cookie sheets and went back out to the garage. Mike had the stove fired up and heat was coming in pretty good to the oven part. I put the first pan in and checked it after 8 minutes. The cookies were cooking on the top but not to well on the bottom and they were burning on one side of the pan. We needed to raise the pan off the patio block so heat would get under the bottom of the pan like it does in a real oven. I thought for a minute than ran back into the house and grabbed some clean empty tin cans I kept for making bread in. I took them back out to the garage. I placed 4 cans in the oven, set a new pan of cookies on top of the cans and put the metal lid Mike had made for the oven. We waited 5 minutes, lifted the lid and turned the cookie sheet to get a more even browning. We waited another 5 minutes then checked again. The cookies looked great and were done. I pulled the pan out and we let them cool a bit before trying them. Besides having a slight wood smoke flavor the cookies were great. I knew the kids and adults would be happy with them. We finshed up baking the rest of the cookies and took them in the house for everyone to have some. They all raved about how good the cookies were so Mike and I knew we had a winner with the new design of the rocket stove.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Today my daughter and I are going to make the pies for tomorrow's dinner while the guys go build the rocket stove for the owner who gave them the supplies. We are going to make two pumpkins pies and two pecan pies. With as many people as we have here I hope 4 pies are enough.
I didn't want to set my pies on the tall cans for fear of them falling so I grabbed some of my clean empty tuna cans that I had saved up to make candles in. I had not used them yet for making candles so didn't have to worry about hot wax. We cooked the pumpkin first and they turned out pretty good. We had to experiment with how often to turn them to get a more even cooking but in the end it all worked out. Then we cooked the pecan pies. I was getting more comfortable in baking in the rocket oven.
The guys were gone for over 4 hours and we were starting to get a little worried. They had only went two miles from the house but still its getting dangerous to even go a block away so we were worried. They finally showed up after being gone for 5 hours and they had a load of new wood with them. Mike had decided we needed a big prep area in the garage when it came to cooking and canning so the guys had done a lot of work for the owner in order to get enough wood, screws and cermamic tiles to make a large prep table with a big shelf underneath it. I didn't know but Mike had taken my binder with how to's in it with him when they had went to build the rocket stove and offered to make the guy one project out of it as well as the rocket stove if he would let them have the supplies to build a prep table. The guy had agreed and had them build him a rocket heater for his house since his propane was just about out.
Today is Thanksgiving and Jen my daughter and I are cooking a big meal. Cooking the turkey whole would use a lot of propane so I decided to cut it up like I would a whole chicken and inject it with a mixture of melted butter, salt, black pepper and crushed thyme before roasting. It came out nice and juicy and cooked in half the time a whole turkey would. Jen had put together a sweet potato casserole under my instructions and my daughter made her green bean caseerole. They baked them in the rocket oven. I had some boxes of Stove Top turkey stuffing and instant mashed potatoes in my food storage so the girls made those to. I made what my mother in law had always called parched corn which is simply drain the water from a can of corn, put the corn in a fry pan with some butter and a little black pepper and cook till the corn starts to brown a little.
We opened a couple of cans of jelly cranberry sauce and made ice tea to drink. The last thing we had to cook was the dinner rolls that I made from scratch.
When the food was all done the guys helped us carry it in the house then we all set down and had a really good meal. I pulled every one off of guard duty that night and told them since we had not had any real bad trouble so far that I thought we would be okay with out guards that night so everyone could get a good nights sleep for once. We all needed a break especially Steve, Mike and JR since they bored the brunt of most of the hard work that needed to be done. We all played Yahtee and I made some popcorn and hot cocoa on the rocket heater later. Tomorrow the hard work will begin again.