This is our very good friend 'George', our Deville (poor man's Aga) wood fired cooker.
It was cold yesterday, so we fired him up for the first time this winter, and here he is showing about 220 degrees C.
There's no point lighting George without cooking something, so I made this loaf-shaped Soda Bread. Just in time for tea!
Later on I roasted a Chicken for supper.
Everyone needs a 'George' in their lives. Warming, practical, and delivers a damned good roast; what more could one ask of a stove!
Love the stove, and the bread looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteIt's very 'homespun'. I made it with 200gms ordinary flour, and 50gms oat meal. It's delicious.
DeleteSo "tea" and "supper" are different meals? Afternoon "tea"? Here "tea" and "dinner" are the same thing - the evening meal and "supper" is a late night snack taken when you go out to the theatre or in my younger days was served at the end of the evening when you had guests or a party.
ReplyDeleteThe bread looks great. I've never been game to try making it.
'Tea' in Europe, normally denotes a cup of tea and a slice of Battenburg, and supper/dinner is the last meal of the day, eaten in the early evening. Of course in the UK, you also have 'dinner ladies' who serve lunch, and most northerners go home in the evening to their 'tea'. You can't win!
DeleteAnd "Battenburg " is ? cake or a fruit loaf ?
DeleteIs Lady M home yet ~ or are you still bach'ing?
ReplyDeleteYes, she's just returned.
DeleteI could do with George here this morning - it is perishing as we say in the North.
ReplyDeleteWe have a Stanley Mourne solid fuel range. It cooks our meals, heats three radiators and we also have our tea around four in the afternoon. Mithering is another great northern English word.
ReplyDeleteAbout 100 Cranes have just flown over on their way south. Bon voyage guys!
ReplyDeleteIt looks a nice sturdy piece of equipment and multi functional....you have to like that.
ReplyDeleteWarm and toasty on a cold almost-winter day plus a side of soda bread - everybody could use a George around the house.
ReplyDeleteWe are spoiled here with a forced air furnace and a gas stove that lights immediately. Our plan on The Poor Farm is one stove, wood, for cooking and heating. All because my friend Cro who I have never met tells me it can be done.
ReplyDeleteI can assure you, Donna, that in wood/heat/efficiency terms, the wood fired cooker beats our wood fired heater 'hands down'.
DeleteThe bread looks great. I bet the chicken must have tasted good too.
ReplyDeleteEveryone needs a George in their lives.
ReplyDeleteBlimey everyone needs a man who makes bread and roasts chickens.
I have never met a guy in real life who does all of this stuff.
One just reads about them on the internet.
Some of them make cheese, jams, pies weave intricate tapestries renovate and fix all of the vehicles.
Frankly I do not believe this creature exists:)
I think they are pretty rare here in Oz too !!
DeleteI'm probably just a closet chef. As for tapestries and vehicles.... No!
DeleteWell you would hardly admit to that now would you!...could lead to long queues of frauleins and incessant knocking on your front door...:)
DeleteI bought a house in Warwickshire back in the eighties. I had never seen an Aga before so when I discovered one in the garage I was cleaning out, I hasn't got a clue what it was. It was huge, it was pristine and all the bits were there neatly boxed up. It weighed a tonne and looked very old fashioned.
ReplyDelete'What do you want to do with this?' asked one of the blokes helping me.
'Oh, just chuck it in the skip with the rest of the rubbish,' I said,
Gasp! And did they? Chuck it away? (Not an easy job chucking away an Aga! They weigh a bit!)
DeleteI had a 'two bum' Aga in Shropshire, but it was buggered-up by Arthur Scargill. When he led the great miners strike I was forced to buy Polish imported Thermacite (sp?), which was full of tar and completely ruined it.
DeleteI am sure that my Aga, who is definitely a female, would fall instantly in love with George. Wish she was wood burning, she gobbles up domestic kerosene like there is no tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHello george
ReplyDeleteGorgeous, George.
ReplyDeleteI saw a new Aga here that's retro looking. The price is not retro. I admired the lines, but the oven was a bit too busy for me. Three separate, one like a bread warmer, one like a larger bread warmer, and the largest with a metal rack attached to the door on which one was to place the roast or what have you. I'd be hard pressed to get a turkey in there.
Well out of my price range, but it did give me an idea to see if i can find one that looks similar but has a different inside configuration that would suit my needs better.
George is a good man, and that soda bread looks divine!
ReplyDelete