Solar Red Lentil Soup

As soon as we got back from our two day mini vacation, I went to the store for some red lentils.  I vary the recipe every time I make it, but the basic recipe is onion and garlic sauteed in olive oil, ground coriander, cumin, mustard, ginger, lemon peel and red lentils. We like it thick so I use less water than most recipes call for. I served it with sour cream and hot sauce. Red lentils cook quickly and are great for solar cooking. The soup was ready in about an hour.

Breakfast in the Sun Oven

We left this morning for a two day vacation. I took advantage of the fact that we would be getting up a bit earlier than usual to try using the Sun Oven to make breakfast. Normally the sun is too low to start solar cooking before 9 a.m. but if you turn the Sun Oven upside down you can catch the early morning rays. I made the same thing as I did last meatless Monday, baked eggs with zucchini. I put the Sun Oven out at 7 a.m and the eggs were ready by 9 a.m. I realize that's a bit late for breakfast but it gave us time to get everything ready to go and have a hot meal before hitting the road. I'll be out of town for the next two days so my next solar cooking update will be on Thursday.

A Last Minute Change of Plans

One of the reasons I don't make a weekly menu is that every time I have done so, the grocery store would inevitably be out of some of the essential ingredients on my list. Today I had one thing planned, red lentil soup, so you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that was the only empty bin in the bulk food section at the store. It was already mid morning and with little time to come up with an alternate meal plan I fell back on something I've already made - slow cooked chicken with salsa. This time I used boneless, skinless thighs instead of breast and in my opinion it's much better. The superior flavor and moistness of the thighs make it well worth the the additional calories. We used it to make soft tacos. I must admit, when in a pinch there is nothing easier for solar cooking than this dish. Chicken + a jar of salsa + tortillas = dinner.

Solar Oven Chef Gets a Day Off

It was overcast all day today with intermittent showers or as Martin put it; a beautiful summer day - in England. Needless to say no solar cooking going on.

Solar Baked Falafel

I got this recipe for baked falafel from the local newspaper. It sounded perfect for the Sun oven and it probably is, but I hit a few snags. Since the Sun Oven consistently reaches 350º I thought the cooking time would be about the same. I had things to do in the morning and figured I'd be home in plenty of time to make falafel sandwiches for  a quick lunch. It probably would have been do-able if I'd put the Sun Oven out to preheat before leaving to run my morning errands. This is one of the small changes that sometimes are the hardest to get used to when using a new cooking method. The concept of turning an oven on hours before it's needed is so foreign that sometimes I forget that with solar cooking there is no downside to doing just that. As it turned out the Sun Oven was not hot enough when I put the falafel in. After forty minutes the falafel was just beginning to brown. I would have preferred to bake it a few more minutes but I had more errands to run and I was hungry. The overall flavor was good. I will definitely make a second attempt at Solar Baked Falafel in the near future.

Solar Muffins In Time for Breakfast

Depending how you look at it I got either an early or late start today. I put a batch of muffins in the Sun Oven at 9 a.m. I showered while they were baking and had a warm muffin for breakfast. I used a mix from Trader Joe's. These muffins were much better than the last ones I made and at only 150 calories each a pretty good deal all around.

Sun Oven Pot Roast

In one of my first blog entries I talked about getting organized. I made a menu for the week and may have even stuck to it, for a week. I don't know why I still believe I'll become the kind of person who can plan out more than a day's worth of meals and gather all the necessary ingredients with one weekly trip to the grocery store. That's why I often find myself in situations like today. I spent the morning foraging in my pantry and browsing the internet looking for some inspiration. I didn't have much to work with, a few cans of salmon, less than a cup of red lentils, carrots, celery, potatoes, onions and a rutabaga. I could have baked some more bread or a batch of muffins but I wanted to make something new. I would have to make a morning run to the market. By now it was so late I needed something that could be thrown together quickly before I left for the afternoon. The pot roast was on sale. It would go well with all the root vegetables. Sounds like dinner to me.

 I really wouldn't call this a recipe. All I did was dot the meat with garlic, brown it in a dutch oven, add the chopped vegetables with a some broth and place it in the Sun Oven. It was noon by the time I got it in the Sun Oven. I didn't touch it again until dinnertime at 6 p.m.

Solar Cooking Tricks

The Sun Oven's cooking chamber may seem small at first sight, but don't be fooled. If you remove the leveling tray you will be able to use a 6 qt pot like I did today. I've been told that it is possible to cook a turkey as large as 18 lbs in the Sun Oven using a baking bag. I haven't done this yet but if it's sunny on Thanksgiving day I'll give it a shot. The only thing to remember is to never set anything directly on the bottom of the Sun Oven. That would create a hot spot and your food could burn. To avoid any problems simply place a small trivet on the bottom of the chamber and place the pot, or turkey - in it's bag- on top of it.
I used this large pot to make a batch of vegetable soup. This low calorie soup is a staple in our household. I'm a lifetime member of Weight Watchers and Martin recently joined. We often have it as a first course for dinner. The base recipe is as follows:

Pureed Vegetable Soup

1 small potato
1 medium carrot
2 celery stalks
2 cups cubed butternut squash
1 medium zucchini
1 clove garlic
1 can red kidney beans
1/2 lb swiss chard or cabbage
1 tbs tomato paste
2 qt chicken or vegetable broth

Roughly chop all vegetables. Simmer in broth until tender. Puree soup with a handheld blender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle each serving with 1 tsp olive oil (optional)

I vary the vegetables according to what I have on hand. If I'm in a hurry I buy pre-chopped squash and pre-washed swiss chard from Trader Joe's. You can also add fresh herbs like basil or parsley just before serving.

Meatless Monday Solar Egg Bake

I think the the sudden loss of my favorite cat this month is starting to catch up with me. The last time I felt like this was when I was working as an airline reservation agent and one of our planes crashed. For the first two weeks it was like being on autopilot then the shock wore off and it felt like I'd been beaten up. Exercising helped me deal with the stress of that situation and although I have to force myself to cook and update this blog it may be the one thing that's keeping me sane right now.
Not only was I not in the mood to cook anything today I also couldn't think of any appetizing vegetarian dishes for Meatless Monday. The only foods that sounded desirable were the few things that are not suitable for solar cooking. Like pasta or grilled and fried foods. This dish is loosely based on a recipe from epicurious.com but I think I made enough changes to call it my own.

Baked Eggs and Zucchini

4 slices whole wheat bread
1 tsp butter
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 small onion sliced thin
2 small zucchini sliced thin
6 eggs
2 tbs milk
salt
pepper
1/4 cup shredded white cheddar cheese

Heat oil and onions in small frying pan and cook until tender.
Spray 9x9 glass baking dish with cooking spray. Spread butter on bread slices and place them in baking dish. Top bread sliced with cooked onion. Cover with sliced zucchini. Wisk eggs, milk, salt and pepper together until frothy. Stir in cheese and pour mixture over bread and zucchini. Cover baking dish first tightly with tin foil then parchment paper. Place in Sun Oven and bake 45 minutes. Remove tin foil and parchment paper and continue baking until set, approx. 20 minutes more. Serves 4

This was surprisingly good but I would add some herbs and maybe different vegetables next time. The possible variations are almost limitless. It was ready in time for lunch and is definitely something I would make again.

Sunday Solar Favorites

After yesterday's big meal I wasn't feeling very creative today. I baked some bread in the morning and made a pot of split pea soup in the afternoon. Add to that the left over pulled pork and we had a nice relaxed Sunday dinner. Now that I've been using my Sun Oven almost every day for two months I hardly think of it as solar cooking, it's just plain old cooking.

Sun Oven Dinner Party

The baked beans are bubbling and the pork is roasting. Everything is on track to be ready in time to bake a pan of macaroni and cheese while there's still enough sunshine. We're having guests for dinner and all of the cooked food is being prepared in the Sun Oven. Pulled pork is a dish - like chicken - that will get you hooked on solar cooking at first bite.

Sun Oven Cobbler

While solar cooking will definitely reduce the amount of energy you consume that's not the only advantage. With today's record breaking temperatures - 113º - I can pretty much guarantee that very few people in Phoenix even considered turning on their conventional ovens. With a Sun Oven I can bake as much as I want. My house will stay cool and my baked goods will turn out just fine.
We're having friends over for dinner tomorrow and I wanted to get a head start with the food preparation. Hopefully, you will not be too disappointed to learn that this cobbler is made from a mix. I just followed the instructions on the package and for the fruit I used canned blackberries. I haven't tasted it yet but it smells delicious. The cooking time was pretty much the same as in a conventional oven - about 45 minutes.

A Complete Meal from the Sun Oven

I'm not really a casserole kind of person. I like my meal to have at least three separate components, a protein, a starch and at least one vegetable. I find one dish meals to be boring. Today I had a busy afternoon and would not be getting home until dinnertime. I didn't want to fuss with any last minute preparations so I came up with a meal that would be ready to serve straight from the Sun Oven.

I can't tell you how nice it is to be going about your business with the knowledge that a hot, tasty meal is simmering in your back yard. It's almost as good as being waited on, or having your own personal chef. I'll admit that the broccoli was overcooked but being able to sit down to a hot meal as soon as I got home from my busy day was worth it.

It's yet another take on chicken and rice and it was all made in one pot. I started by putting the rice in a dutch oven. I mixed in about half a cup of chopped onion and a medium diced turnip. I used half as much water as stated on the rice package. I used bone in, skin on chicken thighs. I like chicken thighs because they're juicy and it makes portion control easy. I trimmed the excess fat, seasoned them with salt and pepper and put them in the dutch oven on top of the rice. Then I made a pocket with some aluminum foil, put the broccoli in it and placed it on top of the chicken. I put the lid on the dutch oven, put it in the Sun Oven and left it there until dinnertime. Just before serving, I did stir some freshly grated parmesan cheese in with the rice. So I guess I did do one little bit of prep work after I got home. If you're really tired and hungry you could skip the cheese.

Sunshine Peach Butter

With the fridge once again full of leftovers and a relatively open schedule I thought it would be a good day to give this recipe a try. I made peach butter once in my crock-pot using a recipe I found at pickyourown.org and have been wanting to make it in the Sun Oven ever since. The hardest part was finding good peaches.

Here's how I made it in the Sun Oven:

10 large freestone peaches

1 cup sugar

4 cardamon pods

1 tsp cinnamon

To peel the peaches I dropped them in boiling water for 30 seconds then in cold water. The skin comes right off. I chopped the peaches and put them in the ceramic insert of my crock-pot with the sugar and spices. A dutch oven would work too. I put it in the Sun Oven with the crock-pot lid slightly ajar. When the peaches were soft, after approximately four hours, I brought it inside and pureed it with a handheld blender. At this point it was still too watery so I put it back in the Sun Oven without the lid for another two hours. At this point I took it out of the Sun Oven and put it in the crock-pot base to keep it warm while I proceeded with the canning process.

And here's what I would change if I make it again:

I would puree the peaches before putting them in the Sun Oven the first time. This would have saved me a step. I would tweak the spices a bit or maybe not use any at all. I would make a bigger batch. I got six eight ounce jars of peach butter. For this much work I'd like a better yield.

Sun Oven Shredded Chicken and Cowboy Beans

When people see a Sun Oven for the first time, especially in Arizona, the first thing they ask is, "Why doesn't everyone use one of these?" They usually come to the assumption that it's a question of price and don't give the matter a second thought. I must admit, I too was guilty of this. But if you think about it, many home cooks are perfectly willing to pay top dollar for a good chef's knife, a food processor, a stand mixer or a slow cooker. All of which, with the exception of the chef's knife, are less useful than a Sun Oven. Just like with any craft, home cooks know that high quality tools make the art of cooking much easier and more rewarding. The Sun Oven is designed to last much longer, again with the exception of the knife, than any of the above mentioned appliances. It's more versatile than a pressure cooker or a crock-pot. And while food processors and stand mixers are incredibly useful, they rarely come out of the cupboard in most home kitchens.

After giving it more thought I now believe the price has little to do with it. It's much more about habit. People don't cook with the power of the sun because they never have. Hopefully my blog will inspire at least some of my readers to change their habits and give solar cooking a try. If they do, they'll be rewarded with some of the best tasting meals they've ever prepared.

Today's dinner couldn't have been easier to make. Just take a couple of boneless skinless chicken breasts and throw them in a pot with a jar of salsa. Put it in the Sun Oven. When it's done shred the chicken with two forks. The beans and rice were made in the Sun Oven too. I didn't use a recipe for the beans. After soaking the beans overnight I seasoned them with chopped onion, minced garlic, some chili powder, chopped red pepper and a bay leaf. It took about an hour to cook them in the Sun Oven.

Solar Pinto Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

With a busy afternoon ahead of me I wanted to get my solar cooking going early today. Good thing I remembered to soak the beans overnight. I've been wanting to have beans for a few days now and kept forgetting to soak them.

This recipe is in two steps. The beans and sweet potatoes are cooked in separate pots and then combined in a dutch oven and left in the solar oven to slow cook, allowing the flavors to blend. By mid morning I was done with step one. I was now free to go about my business while the chili simmered in the sun oven. I wouldn't get home until early evening but it was nice to know there was a hot meal waiting for me in the back yard.

The recipe is from epicurious.com. I made a few minor modifications, some intentional. The original recipe called for canned pinto beans, I used dried and I pureed the sweet potato mixture before combining it with the cooked beans. The original recipe also called for orange peel and chopped fresh cilantro to be added before serving . I had them all prepped and ready to go, well I was going to use lime since I didn't have an orange, but they're still in the fridge and the chili is long gone. I think the lime and cilantro would have made the dish exceptional so next time I'll try not to forget. Here's my version:

1/2 lb dry pinto beans soaked overnight

1 tbs olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 tsp chili powder

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed

2/3 cup water

1 14 1/2 oz can Mexican-style stewed tomatoes

and don't forget

3 tbs chopped fresh cilantro

1 1/2 tsp grated lime peel

After soaking overnight, drain the beans and place in a dark pot with enough water to cover approx. two inches. Place in pre-heated solar oven and cook until tender. Appox. 1 1/2 hour.

Heat oil in a separate pot. If possible use pots that will fit in the solar oven together. Add chopped onion to heated oil and sauté until the onion is soft. Stir in chili powder. Add water, sweet potato and tomato. Cover pot, place in solar oven and simmer until sweet potato is tender. Approx. 45 minutes. Remove sweet potato mixture from oven, transfer to a large dutch oven and puree with a hand held blender until smooth.

Drain the cooked beans reserving cooking liquid. Combine beans with pureed sweet potato mixture in dutch oven. Add enough cooking liquid to achieve the desired consistency. Return dutch oven to the solar oven. Solar cook it for at least an hour for the flavors to blend or leave it in the oven until dinnertime. Mix in cilantro and lime peel and season to taste with salt an pepper.

The corn was also solar cooked. Just wash it, without husking it, and put it in the solar oven next to or on top of the dutch oven.

Sun Pizza

It's been a week of extreme ups and downs for me. On Tuesday I made my first ever t.v. appearance, on Wednesday my favorite cat died. On Thursday and Saturday I attended two Sun Oven demos held by Paul Munsen of Sun Ovens Int. Today all I wanted to do was kick back and eat something fun.

Many food critics, professional and non, will tell you that one of the best pizza places in the U.S. is Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. I've been there once and their pizza is divine, but it comes with more than one catch and I'm not talking about price. It's only open for dinner, closed Sundays and the wait is at least three and a half hours. People line up before it opens to get their name on the list. Not exactly my idea of a relaxing Sunday afternoon.

The last time I made pizza in the solar oven I was disappointed with the result. The crust was soggy and the cheese overcooked. I figured adding the toppings after letting the dough bake until almost done would yield better results. After all, the tomato sauce is already cooked, it only needs to heat up and the cheese only needs to melt. I used purchased dough from Fresh and Easy. The package says it makes one twelve inch pizza but I like a thinner crust. I get two pizzas from one package. I baked the base for about twenty minutes before putting the toppings on it. Then I let it bake about ten more minutes until the cheese had melted. The red pizza is topped tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, olives and basil. The white pizza has goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, olive oil and pepper on it.

Solar baked pizza is not something you can just put in the oven and forget about, but it is easy and fun to make. Pre-baking the crust made all the difference. It was much better this time. And it's a whole lot more relaxing than standing around in the 105º Phoenix heat waiting for a table at Pizzeria Bianco.

Solar Cooking, Almost Foolproof

Last night's chicken and rice was so good I wanted more. I had plenty of leftover chicken but no rice, so the question was, how to repeat the delicious rice without cooking another chicken on top of it? I figured a good part of the tastiness of last night's rice was from the chicken fat. It blended in giving the rice a silky, creamy consistency, and the touch of lemon hadn't hurt either. For tonight's rice I decided to try using butter. It's what all the restaurant chef's use to keep us coming back, so why not?

My plan was to cook the rice, then add the leftover chicken once the rice was cooked. It would still be early enough for the oven to heat back up and keep the food warm until 7p.m. I combined the rice, some chopped onion, chopped frozen asparagus and butter in a pot with some chicken broth. I forgot there would be no chicken to provide extra juices and only used 2/4 cup of broth for 1 cup of rice. When I opened the oven about half an hour later the rice had absorbed all the broth and was on the verge of-dare I say-burning. I thought for sure I had a disaster on my hands, but another thing I learned from Paul Munson of Sun Ovens Int. is that solar cooking is very forgiving. I threw in a little more broth, gave the rice a good stir, placed the leftover chicken on top, put the lid back on, closed the oven and hoped for the best.

Was it the best rice I've ever made? No, but it wasn't bad. I could have used more broth to begin with. I also could have used a little lemon juice or maybe some zest. But imagine what would have happened if I'd left a pot of rice unattended on the kitchen stove indoors with an insufficient amount of liquid. At best I'd have ruined a good pot and at worst burned down the house.

Hot Solar Cooked Meals After Sundown

With Paul of Sun Ovens Int. in town doing demonstrations I'm learning a lot of new solar cooking tricks. My favorite is one that will allow us to return to having a warm dinner from the sun oven after sundown. Sun Ovens Int. is strongly committed to promoting solar cooking in nations where the primary fuel sources are wood and coal. Due to the amount of smoke inhalation during cooking, respiratory diseases are all too common among the women and children in these areas, and deforestation for fire wood is an underlying cause of many violent conflicts. Solar cooking could play a vital role in improving the lives of millions of people throughout the world. So what has this got to do with eating later in the day? Well, the people at Sun Ovens Int. realized that to reap the benefits of solar cooking the ovens must actually be used. In most of the world people consume their evening meal much later than we do in the U.S. It does no good to have a perfectly prepared solar cooked meal ready at 5p.m. if it is cold by dinnertime. The people at Sun Ovens Int. knew there was nothing they could do to change the dinning habits of entire countries, they had to find a way to keep the food warm until people were ready to consume it. Enter the Global Sun Oven. Unlike any other solar cooker on the market, the airtight chamber of the Sun Oven will keep food at a safe and desirable temperature for hours after sundown, as long as the glass door is not opened. This was the best news I'd had all week. Since I started my blog we had been having dinner earlier and earlier, to the point that I would get hungry again before bedtime. Now, I am happy to report, we will go back to dining around 7p.m with a hot meal straight out of the Sun Oven and hopefully those late evening snacks will be a thing of the past.

Tonight's dinner is Chicken and Rice. It's my favorite Chicken with Two Lemons but I cooked some brown rice along with it in the same pot. The juices of the chicken flavor the rice. Since the chicken will release so many juices you will need a lot less water. I used 1 cup of rice and 2/3 cup of water.

Solar Cooking Therapy

Yesterday was a perfect solar cooking day, clear blue skies and plenty of sunshine, I think. I really didn't get a chance to pay any attention to the weather and a clear sunny sky is the norm in Arizona. We spent the day at the vet. When we got up we found one of our cats almost unconscious in a pool of vomit. I didn't think she was going to survive the trip to the vet. From the get go the prognosis was dim. Her body temperature was extremely low and she was unresponsive. They managed to stabilize her somewhat but by evening she lost her battle. A seemingly perfectly healthy cat was gone. I am still in shock.

I considered lying. Pretending it was just another day of solar cooking. But even coming up with a fake meal was more than I could muster. I was still thinking about lying today. All I really wanted to do was bury myself under the covers and stay in bed all day. But one thing about eating is it's something you have to do everyday which means someone somewhere has to cook. One thing about cooking is that its repetitive motions and predictable outcome make it an ideal activity for stress relief. Partly because I craved the predictability of a familiar recipe and partly because Martin has been requesting it, I made Pumpkin Chili Mexicana again today. I'm sure it will be good, it's one of those recipes that are enhanced by solar cooking. I don't know how much of it I will eat. I tend to lose my appetite when dealing with stress but the time I spent chopping the vegetables and browning the meat was the most soothing part of this very sad day. Thanks to this blog and a commitment I made to no-one but myself I found the energy to accomplish one small thing, a pot of chili, on this day of mourning.