One big toaster

One of the advantages of using a wood stove for heat is, it makes a great toaster. You can toast a whole loaf at one time. They toast nice and even, and it is fast. Sometime to fast and then it burns, win some loose some. 

The wood stove also works like a crock pot for soup and other foods that you want to keep hot for a while. We place our coffee pot on the stove so that we have hot coffee all day. 

Fresh garden veggies

I picked the garden at least once per week. This was one of the pickings. Sometimes the garden produced better than others.

I have started using more and more baskets in the garden. I like the look and feel of them. Also they are cheap at garage sales and second hand stores.

Turkey on the Grill

Since we don't have an oven, and Thanksgiving requires a turkey. I again turned to the Weber. We have cooked whole chickens in the grill before but never a turkey.

We got a 16 lb. turkey with my coupon from work.

I use this method (indirect) when cooking chickens and it works great, so I wanted to try a turkey the same way.

Indirect simply means that the coals are placed to the sides of the grill (in the trays that you see hear). The heat then rises up and rolls over the top of the bird to cook it evenly on all sides. Since the coals are not simply below the bird, it does not burn on the bottom, even though the bird is never turned.

About 30 min. into the cooking. I expected it to take about 3 hours to cook to 180 deg.

I used Mesquite chunks to add flavor.

Well, its not pretty but it was good.

The outside looks burnt, but it's not. It is smoked, that is why it is black.

I had read online to cook the turkey to 180 deg.. However, I made two mistakes. I cook all other poltry to 165 deg. and it has always been fine. I think looking back that 180 was to high. I also forgot that a bird of this size cooks after it is removed from the heat.

I should have cooked it to about 160 - 165 and then removed it.

It was delicious and juicy.

Pizza on the grill?

We bought a new Weber grill this summer due to some recommendations from friends and have had a lot of fun trying new things. Since we do not have an oven here yet, we decided to try cooking some pizza on the grill. The ones we cooked in these photos are homemade (not frozen) and they turned out great. Frozen pizza we tried at a later date did not go so well. They curled up like a taco.

Noticed we used an indirect method of cooking (coals are piled to the sides) the pizza to prevent burning.

The crust got done perfect. We did not use the baking stone that is shown here.

The cheese didn't brown like i like it, but it was still really good.