Solar Lamb Shanks with Beans

My standard answer to the question, "What kind of things can you cook in the Sun Oven?" is, "Anything you would make in your slow cooker will come out even better in it." But in reality I've never been very fond of slow cookers and hardly ever use mine. My go to appliance in my pre-solar cooking days was the pressure cooker. But whenever I say "pressure cooker" in public I see a flicker of fear in people's eyes as they remember being told of a friend of a friend's grandmother's pressure cooker exploding and almost killing her. I'd don't want anyone to associate the Sun Oven with anything that would harm a poor helpless grannie, so I just say slow cooker - most people seem to be able to relate to them more easily. However, if you happen to be looking for new ideas for things to make in your Sun Oven, pressure cooker recipes are usually very easy to adapt. Like Sun Oven recipes, they call for less liquid, all the ingredients go into the pot together, and there's no need to stir. My favorite pressure cooker books are by Lorna Sass and today's dish is adapted from one of her recipes. I use the reserved cooking liquid, and any leftover beans, to make the best pasta fagioli ever - but that's another blog post.

Lamb Shank with White Beans

1 TBLS oil
1 1/2 cups chopped leeks
1/2 cup diced carrot
6 cups water
2 bay leaves
3/4 lb cannellini beans, soaked overnight
2 large lamb shanks, excess fat trimmed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp fresh chopped rosemary

Heat oil in a heavy dutch oven. Add leeks and carrots and cook for a minute or two. Add beans, water, bay leaves, and lamb shanks. Cover and place in Sun Oven for approx. 3 hours. Remove lamb shanks. Drain beans (reserve liquid for future use). Return beans to pot, season with salt and pepper, vinegar and chopped rosemary.

Solar Lunch and Dinner

Most recipes for lamb shanks call for one shank per serving, but I think that's way too much. I take the meat off the bones before serving it. That way there's always some leftover for shepherd's pie. This is another solar hybrid. I boiled the potatoes, rutabaga, and parsnip for the topping and sauteed the leeks, mushrooms, and zucchini for the filling on the stove before assembling the pie and baking it in the Sun Oven. Other ingredients of the filling were the leftover lamb, a little bit of water, a packet of brown gravy mix and frozen peas. It makes four generous servings. It was ready early enough to have it for both lunch and dinner. Not bad, six meals from two lamb shanks.

Luscious Solar Braised Lamb Shanks

When I started experimenting with solar cooking a few years ago I found it a little annoying that I had to invest in new cookware. I'd spent years accumulating a rather impressive collection of high quality cast iron pots and pans. Like many, I thought that they were not suitable for solar cooking. You can imagine how delighted I was to discover that they can in fact be used with a Sun Oven.

Today's dish started indoors in the dutch oven. I sliced an onion and sauteed it in some olive oil until it began it was golden. Then I stirred in about a tablespoon of chopped, fresh rosemary and two cloves of chopped garlic.  In the meantime I browned the lamb shanks, which I'd seasoned with salt and pepper, and coated in flour, in a separate pan. When they were browned I transfered them to a plate and poured about half a cup of dry red wine in the pan, brought it to a boil, stirring to loosen any brown bits. I added that to the onions in the dutch oven. Then I added about a cup of beef broth, a bay leaf, and the lamb shanks. At this point I transfered the covered dutch oven to the Sun Oven.

For the rest of the day I went about my business while the lamb shanks slowly braised to perfection. By mid afternoon they were fall off the bone tender. Unfortunately I'll have to wait until tomorrow to taste them. It's Martin's night out and it was too nice of a meal to eat alone.

Solar Cooking from Ten to Two

It took a few days to get used to, but solar cooking from ten to two is definitely the way to go. After a trip to the grocery store yesterday I was ready. Today's dish is another variation on braised lamb shanks using a recipe from epicurous.com. I got it in the Sun Oven, which had reached 300º, at 10:30 a.m. After refocusing it a few times we went out for a few hours. When we got home, at 3:00 p.m., the temperature had gone down to 250º, but the lamb was fall off the bone tender and the beans were soft. 

It's going to take a little more planning to continue solar cooking throughout the colder months, but I think I'm going to make it.

A Solar Cooking Favorite

This lamb cassoulet was the first dish to appear on my blog. It's still one of my favorites. I adapted the recipe from Pressure Perfect by Lorna Sass.

Sun Oven Lamb Shanks with White Beans

1/2 lb. white beans (cannellini, great northern or mayocoba)
1 tbs. olive oil
2 leeks, chopped
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 bay leaves
3 1/2 cups water
2 lamb shanks
1 tbs fresh chopped rosemary
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Soak beans overnight. Heat oil in a large dutch oven, add leeks and carrots, saute for about five minutes. Add beans, water, bay leaves and lamb shanks. Cover and place in Sun Oven and cook for at least four hours. To serve remove meat from bones. Drain beans reserving broth for future use. Return beans to pot and season with rosemary, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

Be sure to save the broth. It's the best part of the recipe and can be used to make outstanding soups.

Solar Braised Lamb Shanks with Root Vegetables

Braising has to be the easiest way to cook meat and braising in a solar oven is even easier. I didn't follow a recipe, I simply took two lamb shanks, trimmed the excess fat, washed and patted them dry and browned them in olive oil in a cast iron dutch oven. I took them out of the dutch oven and sauteed some chopped onion, leek and garlic in it. When the onions were soft I put the lamb shanks back in the dutch oven with some salt and pepper and about 1/2 cup of red wine. I let the wine reduce a little, added about 1/2 cup of chicken broth, placed the lid on it and transfered it to the solar oven. After it had been cooking for about an hour I added the root vegetables, a rutabaga, a turnip and a carrot, peeled and cut into one inch pieces. I wanted them to retain their colors so I made a sort of pocket with tin foil and put it in the dutch oven on top of the lamb shanks. The total cooking time was approximately two hours, no longer than in a conventional oven and all without using a single watt of electricity.

Most lamb shank recipes allot one shank per person. I usually take the meat off the bones and get up to two servings per shank. I use the left over meat to make a shepherd's pie later in the week. I also usually serve this dish with mashed potatoes instead of the root vegetables but I wanted to cut back on the calories. I mashed the vegetables with some olive oil and of course I spooned the cooking liquid over everything before serving.

If you happen to be in Arizona be sure to tune into Good Morning Arizona on channel 3 Tuesday morning. They are doing a segment on solar cooking with me and the president of Global Sun Ovens International. It should air at 8:45 a.m. I've never been on T.V. before and I'm a little nervous.