Consumer Warning: Beware of Hot Fireplace Glass

“He who wants to warm himself in old age must build a fireplace in his youth”
-German Proverb

Here's an interesting warning from Consumer Reports:

More than 2,000 children ages 5 and younger suffered burn injuries from gas fireplaces from 1999 through March 2009, according to research conducted by Carol Pollack-Nelson, Ph.D., an independent safety consultant.

The problem: the glass front on gas fireplaces gets blistering hot. Hot enough, according to Dr. Pollack-Nelson, to cause severe burns. Curiosity about fire leaves children particularly vulnerable. Industry standards for gas fireplaces allow the temperature of the ceramic glass to reach as high as 1,328°F. Tempered and annealed glass is allowed to reach 500°F and 446°F, respectively.

Bottom Line

We have a fireplace with a glass front at home. It never occurred to me that the glass could be 500°F. Ouch!
If you have young children keep them away from the fireplace, even if the glass door is closed.

New Ideas for the Grill

“Kids are wonderful, but I like mine barbecued.”
- Bob Hope

I love BBQ. There's something primitive and satisfying about food grilled or roasted over a flame. And I thought I knew a thing or two about grilling technique. But MensHealth.com has some ideas that never occurred to me. Supposedly the article is about how healthy grilled foods can be but I'm enjoying the pictures and recipes.

1. Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Breast
What a simple idea for the grill. Add some cheese and you have an inside-out chicken-cordon-bleu. My fear would be burning the prosciutto while waiting for the chicken to cook completely through.

2. There are several ideas for grilled fruit. Cubed Watermelon served with feta cheese. Grilled apricots halves served with yogurt, grilled pineapple slices with ice cream. There was also strawberry shortcake where the shortcake was grilled.

3. Grilled cheese. I've never heard of Haloumi cheese but this I want to try.

4. Grilled pizza!

Bottom Line

What's your favorite recipe for the grill?

My Bread

“The first time I tried organic wheat bread, I thought I was chewing on roofing material”- actor Robin Williams

Unless your food storage is a mountain of tin cans or a closet full of freeze-dried meals, odds are that you will have a few buckets of wheat for emergency use. Now what will you do with that wheat? Back during the Y2K scare we got a good price on a wheat grinder so we were able to make decent flour but had little luck making bread from scratch. Most of our baking efforts came out like bricks with very little yeast rising. We checked our yeast - it was alive but not working for us.

A few months back my wife found a bread recipe that has worked perfectly every time. We now have a new loaf every few days. The recipe was first published in the New York Times back in 2006 by baker Jim Lahey. It was an immediate success with the public and Lahey used his moment of fame to publish a baking book called, My Bread. We've tried a few recipes - we really enjoyed the no-knead olive bread with green olives, no so much a loaf containing peanuts.

The full bread recipe is a bit big for just two; the loaf sometimes goes bad before we can finish it. This won't be a problem if you have kids.

Some things about the recipe that work for us.

1. The long rise time lets the yeast do its job.

2. Use a dutch oven or cast iron pot with lid. The bread rises very little in the oven so it takes the shape of the pot. We had a lot of round low loafs before my wife switched to 2/3 recipe and a cast iron tea pot to give the loaf some height.

3. Definitely preheat the pot (without the lid). We tired once with a cold pot and the bread stuck to the pot and did not want to come out. But with a hot pot and a little corn meal tossed in before the bread, we have no sticking.

4. My wife now mostly skips mini-knead and second rise step. She lets it rise for as long as 24 hours in winter when our house is cold. Then while the pot is preheating in the oven she'll punch the bread or move it around a little inside the rising bowl if it looks too gassy.

5. As some versions of the recipe state, the hardest part is waiting for the bread to cool for one hour after de-potting. The author says this is essential and we haven't broken the rule yet.

Bottom Line

Try it - you'll like it! We liked it so much we bought the book after first borrowing it from the library.

Baking Powder & Food Science

“In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.”-Julia Child

For several days after a local disaster, odds are you won’t be able to drive to the local grocery store to pick up some missing ingredients. For this reason all preparedness sites will recommend food storage and stocking up on supplies. But sometimes even the best plans have a gap and you discover you forgot something basic like baking powder. When that happens it’s nice to have a list of emergency ingredient substitutions in a good cookbook (like Joy of Cooking) or printed (in advance) off a website like http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodcookingchemistry/a/substitutions.htm?nl=1

What is baking powder and how would you make it? According to Wikipedia, “Baking powder is a dry chemical leavening agent used to increase the volume and lighten the texture of baked goods such as muffins, cakes, and biscuits. … It is used instead of yeast for end products where fermentation flavors would be undesirable or where the batter lacks the elastic structure to hold gas bubbles for more than a few minutes. … Breads made by chemical leavening are called quick breads.”

Baking powder consists of an alkaline/base component (typically baking soda), one or more acid salts and an inert filler (like cornstarch). When the powder (single acting) gets wet the base and acid react producing gassy bubbles. The role of the filler is to extend the shelf life of the powder by absorbing moisture and preventing a reaction in the baking powder container. Over time the filler will be used up and the baking soda goes flat if not tightly sealed.

I used the phrase “single acting” which needs explaining. Baking powder that reacts when wet is single acting. In contrast “double acting” powder requires liquid AND heat to react. Double acting is useful when you want something to rise in the oven while cooking.

If you’re out of baking powder or find that it’s gone flat, you can make it as follows:

1 teaspoon of Single Acting Baking Powder =
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (an acidic salt)
1/4 teaspoon cornstarch or potato starch

You can leave out the cornstarch if you’re making just enough for one recipe and using it immediately.

Bottom Line

My mother majored in Home Economics at the University of Idaho. One of her textbooks, which I found fascinating as a teen, was called the Chemistry of Cooking. It explained why things happen when you cook. Today a great source for food science facts is the TV show “Good Eats” by Alton Brown on the Food Network. Knowing the science can make one a better cook.

For example, do you know that deep fried food need NOT be greasy! Greasiness is a sign that the oil was not hot enough (perhaps from too much food put in the oil too quickly) or that the food was left in the fryer longer than necessary. Under the right conditions, the food being fried emits steam from the heat of the oil and the steam prevents oil from going into the food.

Wood Fire Cooking

“What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.”-Nora Ephron

For years my wife & I have been looking for the right equipment for wood fire cooking. After a long search, just last weekend we finally found an affordable ($18) Dutch oven with legs and a lid at a flea market. (Legs easily allow one to put coals under the pot.) We have also been looking for the ideal outdoor fire pit (www.firepit-and-grilling-guru.com/outdoor-fire-pit.html). We had a great time cooking hotdogs and S’Mores over a portable fire pit at a friend’s house. And recently visited another friend with a built in fire pit. But what we really want is an advance system with grills, shelves, arms, etc.

And yet, good equipment is only the beginning. In an excellent blog post, Learning to Cook on a Wood-Fired Stove, Deborah describes that no book held the secret to successful food fire cooking. She had to learn by trial and error:

The biggest challenge is keeping the oven heat even. Unlike a gas or electric stove, when you put something in the oven to cook and the temperature drops as the food absorbs the heat, nothing kicks in to compensate. What to do? Feed the fire wood that will burn quickly and offer more heat. As the food begins to cook and its internal temperature rises, a longer, slower-burning piece of wood will maintain the heat. Open the oven door if it gets too hot - but not for long. Your oven may even have "hot spots" like mine.

In addition to equipment and practical experience, a cook needs supplies and recipes. In Baking and Simple Cooking After a Disaster the author considers a time when “cooking as you once knew it, from cabinets bulging with a variety of packaged items, store bread and cookies, or a quick trips to the store for box cereal and meat in a neat packages, with an armful of deli tubs and rotisserie chicken – just ended.” Would you know how to cook using flour, salt, lard and other basics?

Bottom Line

If you want to learn survival-cooking skills, purchase or download some old-fashioned cookbooks. The Cooking After a Disaster post recommends …

We have several 1940 era cookbooks, Mennonite/Amish cookbooks and a thin book of ingredient substitutions as well as good, basic ones at least 30 years old. They’re priceless for simplicity, economy and few ingredients. This will mean going to the used bookstore or surfing Amazon. Avoid modern cookbooks that assume access to lots of ingredients and avoid cookbooks from the 1800s because they do not have standard measurements and assume things you might not know about like how to assemble ingredients, cooking times, pans and temperatures.

One of my favorite books is The Joy of Cooking (1965 edition). The Joy of Cooking has been in print continuously since 1936 and with more than 18 million copies sold. The older editions cover everything from butchering meat, ingredient substitution, simple sauces to complex dishes. It includes a lot of practical advice on techniques.

Another source that can be useful is modern versions of pioneer recipes. Check out Amazon’s Best Pioneer Cookbooks.

BBQ Tips

"Some people say BBQ is in the blood, if that's true my blood must be BBQ sauce."

Following-up on yesterday's post, here is some BBQ cooking advice:

• There are three officially-recognized kinds of sauce -- Mustard-based, ketchup-based, and vinegar-based.
• BBQ sauces should usually be added at the final 5 or 10 minutes of the grilling process, especially sugar- or tomato-based sauces. Otherwise these sauces are likely to burn or cause flare-ups.
• Always clean your grill ASAP after cooking. However if you forget and your grate has burnt-on food from the last go-round, warm up the grill for 20 minutes and then scrub it with a stiff wire brush. Grates are easiest to clean when still hot.
• Spray the (clean) grate while it’s cold with a vegetable oil spray (such as PAM) to keep foods from sticking. NEVER spray toward the fire.
• Use two plates when grilling meat. One for the raw meat, and one for the cooked meat. Raw meat may have bacteria that can make you sick. Don't let anything from the raw side touch the cooked meat - forks, plates, etc.
• Use tongs or a spatula to turn meat. A fork will pierce the meat and you’ll lose those tasty juices.
• Let your steaks and chops reach room temperature before putting them on the grill.
• When roasting or grilling with the lid closed, try placing a can of beer over the hot coals. The beer will boil and saturate the air inside with water vapor and a light beer flavor, and will help keep the meat moist.
• Keep your grill away from anything flammable like lighter fluid, fences, your house, etc..

Bottom Line

For More information...

Food Channel www.foodchannel.com/stories/335-grilling-101-from-bbq-basics-to-the-latest-techniques

Flavor tips and equipment www.allthingsfrugal.com/g_barbecue.htm

Wood smoke flavors www.bbqu.net/smoking.html

BBQ Guru www.hub-uk.com/cooking/tipsBBQbasics.htm

BBQ Myths www.bbqmyths.com/barbeque.html

Choosing the right wood for your fire

"I have a microwave fireplace in my house. The other night I laid down in front of the fire for the evening in two minutes.” - Stephen Wright

Hearth Cooking and backyard fire pits require that you use the right kind of wood. The following is reprinted from http://www.wommackhardwoods.com/ and http://www.spitjack.com/.

Wood Quality
High quality, well seasoned firewood greatly influences fireplace efficiency and enjoyment. Well seasoned firewood starts easier, burns cleaner, and generates more heat. Green, wet wood can cause problems with smoke, odor, creosote build-up and flu fires.

Choosing Firewood
Freshly cut wood can contain up to 45% water. Well-seasoned wood ranges from 20-25% moisture content. Well-seasoned wood is easier to start, produces more heat, and burns cleaner. The important thing to remember is that the water must be gone before the wood will burn. In general, it takes about six months for wood to dry if stored uncovered, outside. Three to four months may be sufficient if under roof, cut in short lengths, and split for more air exposure.

NOTE: Wood exposed to constant rain or snow absorbs large amounts of moisture, and may rot. Store wood off the ground, protected from excess moisture, such as under a roof or in a loose-sided shed which allows for air circulation. But be aware: firewood attracts termites. Limit the amount stored next to the house or garage to just a one-week supply.
In olden times, on rainy days, when the wood supply got wet, it was brought into the house and stacked near fireplace. The heat of the fire would dry the wood out. While clever this is also a fire hazard. Be sure to place screens between the stacked wood and any fire sparks.

How can you tell if wood is seasoned?
Well-seasoned firewood generally has darkened ends with visible cracks or splits. It is relatively light weight, and makes a sharp, distinctive "clink" when two pieces strike each other. Green wood feels heavier, the ends look brighter and fresher, and they make more of a dull "thud" when bumped together. But, these visual signs can be tricky to detect. To be sure, buy your wood in the spring and store it until the following fall and winter. Test: If you're not sure if your wood is dry enough, lay one piece in the fireplace and try to light it with a piece of paper. If it doesn't ignite, it's too wet. If it does light, but sizzles and requires constant stoking, it is still too wet. A good dry piece of wood will fire easily and burn nicely without much attention in a normal draft.

What type of wood is best?
Pound for pound, all wood has about the same BTU, but hardwoods weigh more, and therefore have higher heat potentials. Hardwoods also burn slower, which means less trips to the wood pile! Hardwoods include oak, hickory, ash, apple, and cherry. Some softer woods, such as elm or maple, are also suitable for burning, but you should expect to pay considerably less for them. Don’t burn evergreens even if they are free for the taking. Pine creates little heat and throws off creosote when burned, the number one cause of chimney fires.

Bottom Line
Additional information on firewood: http://muextension.missouri.edu/explorepdf/agguides/forestry/G05450.pdf http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/malheur/product/firewood.htm

Open Hearth Cooking

"While rewarding in so many other ways, authentic fireplace cooking ... is a tedious, time consuming, physically demanding, dirty, and somewhat dangerous endeavor" - SpitJack.com

At this time of year we sing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. It's fun, it's beautiful, it's nostalgic, and it's inherently dangerous. Let's start with the Safety Rules before discussing Open Hearth Cooking.

1. Never leave a fire unattended. If you must step away, place a fireproof screen to cover the fire place.
2. Keep your chimney clean. Chimney fires, while rather infrequent, can be frightening and even result in burning down your home.
3. Do not burn pine or evergreen logs. Pine emits creosote when burned, and creosote buildup is the main cause of chimney fires.
4. Keep the area near the fire clear of any thing flammable. Sparks can jump many feet out of the fire place.
5. Keep the hearth clean of grease to avoid grease fires. Use drip pans when roasting or boiling to prevent the grease from dripping directly on the hearth.
6. Keep a bucket full of water and a fire extinguisher near the fire place.

The first secret to enjoying Hearth Cooking is building a proper fire. You must skillfully build and maintain a very hot fire using heavy hardwood.Don’t skimp with the wood when starting the fire because you want lots of embers and coals to develop. Don't skimp on time either. It can take a hour or more to get the right fire conditions with lots of ember, little to no flames.

Once built, you must maintain the fire by poking about it, shoveling hot embers to and fro, and feeding it from both the front and the back. Place the largest log against the back wall. When it burns down in size, pull it towards the front and replace it with another large log. The rest of the time you feed smaller replacement logs from the front.

Improvisation sits at the heart of hearth cooking. You can make stand for kebabs, a grill, a frying pan, a griddle, or a pot by placing embers between bricks. Many foods like Flat Bread and Roasted Onions can be cooked directly on the embers. Other foods can be baked buried in hot ash, either directly, such as potatoes or Ash Cakes, or wrapped in oiled paper, large leaves, or clay.

Don't use your expensive copper bottom stove set! It could melt. For Hearth Cooking you need cast iron skillets and pots. These are heavy and the handles are always very hot but they are nearly indestructible. The best pots are called "Dutch Ovens". You can buy them with feet so you can shovel embers beneath the pot and with flat lids with a raised lip so you can pile embers on top of the pot. Dutch Ovens are used to cook NEAR to the fire, not IN the fire. To cook over the fire itself you'll want a crane or fireplace hook from which you can suspend pots.

Bottom Line

Open-Hearth cooking was the way to cook for centuries before the wood burning stove was invented. But as the quote at top notes, Hearth Cooking can be dangerous both to you (scalds & burns) and to your house (fire). I don't recommend learning this by trial and error. Learn from past experience through books, The Magic of Fire, The open-hearth cookbook, and with classes at Historical sites like this one in Camden, NJ.