Bulgar Blah

I've been looking for a way to solar cook bulgar for so long that when I found it used in recipe titled "Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie" in my book "The Healthy Slow Cooker" I completely ignored the fact that most of it's other ingredients were ones I am not particularly fond of. Namely sweet potatoes, parsnips, and mushroom. I'll eat all of them, but they each have to be prepared a certain way. I won't even go into the details of the recipe. All I'll say is I'll never make it again. It was boring and bland. Too bad I didn't follow my gut instinct and cut it in half. We now have a ton of it left over and I doubt even Martin will eat much more of it.

But as disappointing as the end result was, I did stumble upon a new solar cooking trick. The recipe was of course written for a slow cooker. I used the stoneware insert of mine. It was the only thing I had big enough to hold the whole mess. To absorb the excess moisture a tea towel, folded in half, was placed over the stoneware insert before covering it with the lid. This just may be the solution to a common problem with the Sun Oven - too much condensation. Most of the time the condensation is not really a problem, in fact when it starts to form on the glass it is often a sign of doneness, but occasionally it is excessive. In those cases I usually open the Sun Oven and quickly wipe the glass door, but that can lead to longer cooking times, especially if you don't live in a hot sunny climate like Arizona. Today, with the tea towel in place, there was no condensation on the glass door at all. It was all absorbed by the towel.