Focaccia in the Sun

Sunday was the first time we'd ever invited so many people to our house. I am not used to planning a menu for such a large crowd and wound up with a lot of extra food. Who knew that when you are offering a wide variety of choices you don't need a full dinner sized portion of each dish for every person? For appetizers I made four pizzas and still had enough dough left over to make these three focaccia today.

I kept things very simple, seasoning them with just kosher salt and olive oil. The sun was out in full force and they browned nicely. Focaccia gets stale pretty quickly so I froze most of it. Now I have to figure out what to do with all the other leftovers - and tomorrow we are going to my cousin's place for St. Patrick's day where there will be even more food.

Eggplant Focaccia and BBQ Pork Ribs

The days are getting longer which means more solar cooking possibilities. Today I had enough time to bake focaccia in the morning before getting some BBQ pork ribs going for dinner. You can't tell by the picture, but this time the focaccia did brown. I remembered to mist the Sun Oven with water. I think that helped.

BBQ ribs are easy. Just toss them in a spice rub and sprinkle a little liquid smoke over them. After a few hours in the Sun Oven they will be fall off the bone tender.

I didn't post yesterday but I did get some solar cooking done despite waking up to an overcast sky. Just before I had to leave for the day the clouds started to break. I figured I could throw some rice and lentils in the Sun Oven to get a head start on dinner. It turned out to be a mostly cloudy day, but there was enough sun to do the job. Only problem was by the time I got home I was tired and not in the mood for boring old rice and lentils. I put everything in the fridge and made myself a nice bowl of pasta.

Solar Baked Focaccia

My first attempt at solar baked focaccia was on Sunday, but by the time the dough had finished rising the sun had vanished only to reappear after I'd baked it inside.

Today's sun was pretty much the same as yesterday's. Not full blast; just enough to get the Sun Oven up to about 250ºF. It took about an hour to fully solar bake the focaccia. I was hoping it would brown. No such luck. It was still good, despite the undercooked appearance.

A Day of Solar Baking

The Sun Oven was very busy today. I made two pizzas, a focaccia and a pumpkin cake. To make my part of the job easy I used purchased pizza dough and a cake mix from Canterbury Naturals.  I couldn't decide if I wanted tomatoes or eggplant on the focaccia so I did both. A drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, pop it in the pre-heated Sun Oven and you're done. It was a beautiful sunny day and keeping the temperature at 350º was a cinch.
Tomorrow we're taking the Sun Oven on a camping trip. I won't be able to update my blog until we get back but I promise to take pictures.