Solar Cooking

5/13/12

Hard Cooked EGGS - 4 eggs in small pot with lid. No water. 1 - 1 1/2 hours  BREAD,   ASPARAGUS - wash, cut off ends, spray or drizzle with olive oil, put in covered dish and cook for about an hour or so - YUM!!,  A red letter day in the month of May. Ave. oven temp - 300

4/23/12

Some catching up to do. Today we cooked garbonzo beans for making humas. I was gone most of the day, so I just pointed the sun oven to 1 PM and left it to slow cook all day. It worked like a charm. Other stuff I've cooked since 3/12 are: granola, spaghetti sauce, barley, various soups & potatos. The oven temperature is consistantly between 300 & 350 degrees these days.

3/12/12  Jessica (with the help of our neighbor, Vena) figured out a way to cook garbonzo and black beans at the same time! It was a tight fit & the pot handle had to be pointed in exactly the right position, but it worked. There were 2 cups of black beans and 1 cup of garbanzos, so the black beans weren't quite done, but they can finish up tomorrow.

3/11/12  Warmed up Roasted Curried Winter Vegetable soup     As long as one is not in a big hurry. Soup gets steaming as long as the oven gets up to 200 - 250.

3/something/12 Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread (Cake) When I processed the Dills Atlantic Giant pumpkin, 'got LOTS of pumpkin & have been making this yummy bread all winter. It's very sweet and kinda healthy. Regular oven: 60-70 minutes at 325. Solar Oven: up to 2 hrs at 300 to 325. It's very hard to over bake or dry out in the S.O. 2 - 8"x4" pans.

2/7/12  Bread A banner solar cooking day! The oven maxed out at 350 degrees and the bread baked in about 1 hr 15 minutes. Yum!!

2/2/12  Pearled Barley About 2 water to 1 barley...maybe a little more water.  I usually preheat on kitchen stove before putting in solar oven. Not necessary when s.o. temps 300 - 350 degrees. Today s.o. temps were 250 tops. It cooked for about 2 hrs. Perfect!

1/17/12

Sweet Potatos.  3.5 large potatos into the black pot about 10:30 am. 'Pointed the oven to about 1 pm and by the time I got back home, they were done. Removed the pot & wrapped it in a towel until supper. By 5:30 the potatos were still a little warm, so they just needed 10 - 15 minutes in the electric oven to get nice and hot. Much better than an hour in the oven or having to run the microwave.

1/12/12

Black Beans. Can soak the beans overnight. I soaked them for 3 hrs. Rinse, put in pot with about 1" of water covering the beans. When solar oven gets to 300-350 degrees, stick the pot in solar oven for 3 or 4 hours. With lower oven temps, it helps to bring beans to a boil on the stove before putting them into s.o. If you want to leave beans, or anything else unattended for a big part of the day, just face the s.o. toward 1 pm when you put it out. This works better starting around April thru Sept. when the sun is higher in the sky. In the winter it's probably better to move the oven to track the sun during the day. We don't have a clear solar access to the south - lots of trees to our south and our house in on the south side of the street - so I have to move and adjust in the winter. 'A good reason to be friends with folks on the north side of the street, or neighbors who have solar access all day somewhere in their yard.

1/7/12

Vegetable stock today. We save vegetable scraps - onions, brocolli-carrot-parsnip-potato-beet peelings to name a few - in a zip lock bag in the fridge. Wrap veggie scraps in cheese cloth. Put in metal collandar basket. Place in pot on top of trivit or anything to raise the basket in the pot. Fill pot w/water. Cover and place in preheated solar oven for as long a you want. When done, pull out veggie bundle, squeeze liquid from bundle & compost veggies. You can freeze stock in containers or freezer zip lock bags. Solar oven temperature can be as low as 200 degrees for this to work.

1/5/12

A beautiful sunny day, but not enough to bake bread. 'Need at least 300 degrees and it topped out at 275 today.  The loaf caved in and am trying to salvage it in the electric oven. Oh well...

12/25/11

HO HO HO!! We had a precooked and then frozen ham (locally raised pig) today. 'Thawed it out in the fridge for a couple of days, started the heating up process in the S Oven for an hour or so and finished heating it in the oven for about 15 minutes. Delicious!

12/24/11

We're on a roll here with the bright sunny days. One thing that I have not mentioned is that solar cooking of course saves quite a bit of fossil fuel use. In the summer, it's great not heating up the house and in the winter I appreciate using our solar panel power for something else besides the stove & oven. What can you cook in a solar oven? Most anything you can cook or bake in a plug in oven or stove. Roasting is difficult 'cause the high temp is about 375 degrees. It's very difficult to burn anything & stuff just seems to taste better, especially potatoes. Today it's Winter Squash & White Bean Stew, from "Fix-It & Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow Cooker (solar oven) by Dauwn Rank & Phyllis Pellman Good.

12/23/11

Yea!! Bright, clear sky with good air. Great way to celebrate winter! Garbanzo beans today to make hummus. Soaked 1 cup of GBs for 3 hours this morning and brought to a boil on the stove with water 1" above the beans. ('have cooked the GBs before w/o boiling 1st. Usually when the sun was higher and oven temps were 350 degrees) Had already reheated solar oven to 250 degrees. Put pot in solar oven and let it cook as long as there was sun - about 4.5 hrs. The beans are perfect! The oven door has 2 latches. It's important to keep 1 latch open to let excess moisture excape. Sometimes a toothpick or small stick is needed - usually in the summer when the oven gets really hot. Drain the GBs and if making humas, save the liquid for using with the humas. Oven got up to 280 degrees today.

12/17/11

We made curried winter vegetable soup..had to roast the vegetables in the oven, but was able to keep the soup hot in the solar oven until 4 pm. I wrapped the pot in 2 towels so it stays warm until we take it to a party tonight. The oven got up to 250 degrees today, but I had to keep moving it to keep it in the sun. oh well, the solstice is coming!

12/10/11

O.K. December is NOT the ideal month to cook with the sun, but it's still possible on sunny days. In the winter, one must sometimes move the oven around to stay in the sun and REALLY tilt it.  'Have been using this Global Sun Oven for about 2.5 years. It's a great thing! There are lots of other kinds & tons of on-line make it yourself options. Let's share our experiences with cooking with the sun! Today hit a high temp of 250. Baked Delicata Squash - just cut it in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds, put squash halves skin side up in dish w/top with 1" of water. Bake for a couple of hrs in the winter, probably 30 min - 1 hr in summer when the oven hits 350 + degrees. Any winter squash can be baked like this. A black cooking pot is best, but white ceramic also works. I like the clear glass top to see what's happening.  jim