(Sorry for being so late, Laura!)
This week hasn’t been our best for eating locally since I’ve been working on getting the fridge emptied out in preparation for Local Thanksgiving 2007 on Thursday! To make up for that, I decided to do some “carbon offsetting” instead. No, I didn’t go and buy any credits, I made use of an alternate heat source – the wood stove. 🙂
We normally use the wood stove during power outages and last year I had thought that we should use it more often. It’s good practice and, since it’s hot anyway, an easy low impact way to heat food. It’s best for slow cooking, but it’s possible to sauté and even bake!
This meal was wholly cooked on the woodstove, well, some was reheated. Hemlock Highlands burger on a Costco bagel bun with sides of sautéed parsnips and ranch beans from the freezer. The beef and the parsnips were local to the valley. The relish, leftover from a camping trip purchase, claims to be from the Portland area so it wasn’t even that far away. The bagels were baked in the Burlington store. The drink was our own explosive ginger ale. The ketchup?
I made it myself with tomatoes grown by Jones Creek Farm! The label will be familiar to NPR listeners. 😉
Since I’ve been in the process of refreshing all my sourdough starters, I made some sourdough English muffins too. These (and naan) are the perfect breads to cook on the woodstove. We had the remaining two burgers on these the next day.
Besides cast iron pans, crock pot innards, and Dutch ovens, an inexpensive Chinese claypot is a great tool for woodstove cookery. This one cost $6 at 99 Ranch in Lynnwood. This one happens to contain a beef dhansak that I fetched out of the freezer. The beef was our fuzzy cow, of course. Try the search feature at Mahanandi for some recipe suggestions for dhansak and other curries.
This week’s confession: I ate a pomegranate last night. At least it was from CA and not further afield.
Back to cleaning the house!
Feasting in the Skagit foodshed 
I am not sure that cooking with a wood stove is a carbon offset project. When you carbon offset you reduce the amount of carbon you produce as much as possible. After you reduce you fund projects that reduce others energy uses or produce energy without producing carbon.
Burning wood produces a lot of carbon. The California wild fires produced millions of tons of carbon. If you wanted to cook carbonless, you could use an electric stove or microwave powered by nuclear power.
Hi Matt! You are correct that burning wood to cook wouldn’t generate less carbon than, say, microwaving, but perhaps you missed the “since it’s hot anyway” portion. We heat our home with wood and so therefore I am just utilizing a heat source that is already in use. In my case, using the electric stove would be creating more carbon since I’d be using that in addition to the wood stove.
Here in Washington state, 45% of our electricity comes from hydroelectric, 34% coal, 17% natural gas and only 1% is nuclear, “other” (biomass, landfill gas, petroleum, and waste) and 2% wind.
Either way, it’s winter and I’ll continue to heat and continue to use the wood stove for my dinners whenever it’s feasible. It falls into the “reduce” portion of the equation. Thanks for your comments! 🙂
[…] (Skagit Foodshed) thought she was holding up my recap, and while I would definitely wait for her if asked, really I […]
I love the alternative heat source! My husband grew up in semi-rural towns in New England and he tells me stories of his parents cooking on their woodstove. It sounds so darned picturesque 😀
[…] and baking are my main winter hobbies and I’ve made good use of our wood heating stove to cook some of our meals. It’s a little tricky and somewhat limited, but it’s possible and […]