Wood Stove Cooking

Every once in a while I get a wild hair and have to try something new.  Cooking on a wood stove is something I have thought about plenty and even watched a bunch of YouTube videos about.  This morning we got our first real cold temperatures.  When I woke up it was 30 degrees.  OK, that may not be "real" cold to folks in Minot or Anchorage, but here in the Old Dominion that qualifies as cold.  Cold enough to spend the time to get the wood stove going so I could cut the chill in the house.  Our wood stove is a simple little Vogelsang Boxwood stove, nothing spectacular.  The only real modern innovation is the electric heat reclaimer that blows hot air captured from the stovepipe back into the room.  Its a pretty nifty gadget and it works like nobody's business.  I got the stove rocking this morning!  It is toasty in the living room, where the wood stove is located.  As long as I keep feeding it wood it keeps kickin' out the warmth.  So, I was thinking about the slow cooker and my thoughts turned to the wood stove.  I have never cooked on it before and I thought I would try something simple.  I pulled out a blue enameled camp style dutch oven, rinsed out some dried red beans and put that puppy on the stove.  I removed one of the little, round cooking-burner covers and set the beans over it.  It heated up to boiling MUCH faster than I expected, which was encouraging.  I cut up an onion and some dried Anaheim chili peppers from the garden, found that special, big, meaty ham bone I've been saving for some special pot of something, added some water and let her go.  It's been cooking since about 0900 and its about mid-day now.  The smell is tremendous. I took the lid off of the dutch oven to help cook down some of the water I added to cover the ham bone, and the smell of the boiling beans and ham is being circulated around the house by the heat reclaimer.  I'm ready to eat right now!  The good part is this is my proof of concept that if we lose power we can still cook and feed ourselves.  We've been blessed so far that every winter when the storms come we have not lost power long enough to cause a problem.  But now we know, if it happens we can boil some dried beans and veggies from the garden.  Maybe next I'll try that dutch oven bread recipe I saw on YouTube.  I'll let you know how the beans turn out.