Cooking with wood

We are always looking for ways to be more sustainable, I have built a small temporary rock grill out back and have been cooking and grilling out there. My plans are to make it bigger and set it up for smoking too. My long term plans are to build a cob oven for baking.

We heat with a wood stove in the basement and would like to add or replace it with a wood cook stove.

I'm curious if any others are cooking with wood and if so what methods are you using?

Cob oven is good. 

And I would really, really, really like to take a two or three day workshop making those aprovecho style cook stoves.

I have had an interest in masonry stoves, aka Russian heaters, they are primarly designed for heating, however, I have seen designs that incorporate not only ovens, but also cook tops. The biggest drawback is expense, and since they are built in the home they can really only be used in cooler times of the year.

I was not familiar with aprovecho style cook stoves. After a little google time I just might have to readjust my thinking a little. These look very simple to use, and probably to build and look like they might be efficient too.

I would really like to take a workshop on the russian style heaters too!  I've read about them so much, and I've looked at so many pictures, but I still have not seen one in real life, let alone participated in building one.

we cook with wood. just use it on the grill instead of charcoal and we also smoke meat with it occasional with a traditional smoker. I'm curious about baking. if you bake bread in a wood fired oven does it taste "grilled"?

As I understand it, with a cob oven the fire is built inside the oven, once the fire dies you remove the ashes and any remaining coals. The heat retained by the cob and stone or brick base actually does the baking. There's a thread about it here, https://permies.com/bb/index.php?topic=616.0

With other wood fired ovens I'm vaguely familiar with, the heat and smoke passes around the sealed oven chamber. So my guess is it would not have a grilled taste. But I am guessing as I have no first hand knowledge. Hope this time next year I will though. 

I've eaten stuff made in a cob oven on many occasions.

Sometimes there is still something burning in the oven with the food.  The smoke goes up and doesn't touch the food.

I hadn't thought much of it before but I have eaten pizza cooked in a wood fired oven. It was yummy.