All Day Solar Cooking

Take a frozen chicken. Put it in a pot with your choice of seasonings. Focus the Sun Oven to where the sun will be at noon. Go to work. Come home to a perfectly cooked chicken. I've heard Paul Munsen of Sun Ovens International say this so many times at his presentations that I repeated it when I taught a solar cooking class a few weeks ago. Problem is I've never actually done it.

Today I came close, but I used two cornish hens instead of a chicken. That's because I couldn't find a frozen chicken anywhere. Turkey, duck, even goose, and of course cornish hens - but no chicken. I guess most people buy fresh chickens and freeze them at home. My freezer is way too full of mystery items placed there many moons ago for safe keeping.

The two hens were seasoned with rosemary, garlic, and lemon. They went into the Sun Oven this morning at 8:00 and were indeed perfectly cooked when I got home for dinner as were the potatoes I cooked along with them. All I had to do was steam some broccoli and dinner was served.

From Frozen to Sun Roasted in Four Hours

I had a lot of work to do this afternoon so I chose what I thought would be a slow cooked dinner. I took two cornish hens (one fell apart before I could take the picture) straight from the freezer and put them in the pot atop a bed of rice, turnips and rutabaga. I popped everything in the Sun Oven at eight a.m. and went about my morning business. Shortly after noon I noticed that the glass door of the oven was covered in condensation, a telltale sign of doneness. I couldn't believe they could have gone from frozen solid to roasted so quickly, but they did. Since it was lunchtime we went ahead and ate. We'll be going out for dinner.