Accidental Homestead Skills

I assume that most beginner homesteaders are like us and have a list a mile long of skills they need and want to learn. One of mine was cooking meals over a wood fire. Not just when camping. Almost a year ago to the day I was forced to develop a homesteading skill that I always intended to learn. We had some friends over for dinner and I broke our stove top. I went to remove a pot and it wouldn’t budge. It had fused to the glass top!

Look at that beautiful fire roasted chili! I have to say this was the best chili I ever made, before or since.

Our best guess is that there was a small crack from the dutch oven that usually lived there and that enabled the pot to attach to a section of the stove. We looked into getting it fixed and decided it wasn’t worth it since we had planned on replacing it anyway at some point. So I was down to my grill and the oven itself.

Is that not one of the craziest things you've ever seen?

A few months later the oven went out. No idea what’s wrong with it, Chris did some trouble shooting and it’s not an easy fix so we decided to leave it. Really no point in paying a professional to fix a stove that’s half broken anyway. Now I cook all of our meals with an electric burner and our grill. The grill is a charcoal grill that we bought at Walmart and substitute charcoal for wood from trees on our property. I have to say it really isn’t that bad, besides when I wish I could bake something or need more than 2 burners going at once there is very little inconvenience and on the plus side I have learned an invaluable skill. When I started I had to use lighter fluid to get the fire going. Now I can use all nature found materials and a lighter. Next on the agenda is learning to start a fire with flint!

Food just looks better when it's cooked over a fire!

What accidental homestead skills have you picked up?

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