During the summer months I like cooking outdoors using a Rocket Stove. I bought an early model Stovetec Stove when they hit the Internet some years ago. The stove burns sticks and other bio-mass. I use sticks that we would otherwise throw in the garbage.
The stoves give a nice concentrated flame and lets you cook a meal with a nice concentrated flame. I find that two sticks give a nice simmer. Four sticks is usually enough to boil things. I am using three sticks for the image above.
The bottom of the pot gets covered with soot. I use two dedicated pots. The picture above shows my Wok. A wok is a round bottom cooking pot. The round bottom is critical when cooking on fire. See how nicely the flame curls on the round bottom of this carbon steel wok.
All of the woks at the mega-mart have flat bottoms. A pan with flat bottom is called a saucier. They are not real woks. I ended up going to a restaurant supply store for a real wok. I got this from KaTom. The wok cost $10 but shipping was $40. I also got some other stuff.
I prefer the rocket stove to charcoal and pellet stoves because I can use materials I gather from the yard.
I bought the stove because I wanted to support the company that was making them. A large number of people build their own rocket stoves. There are numerous sites with instructions on making a rocket stove.
The other pot I use is a dutch oven. I know, dutch ovens are really design for cooking on campfires where you can bury the oven in the ash. I use the dutch oven for cooking chili, gumbo and soups. I like the cure that is building on my pots. Quite frankly I think dutch ovens improve with age.
BTW: I filled the stove with twigs to get the dancing flames.
