Solar Cooking- Rained Off.

 After a break from blogging about solar cooking,  I set the sunoven out today to cook some brown lentils for Meatless Monday.
 With record 100º+ temperatures for the last month,  and the sun shining brightly, no need to check the weather forecast right? Wrong! Thirty minutes after the lentils were started, dark clouds moved in, blocking the sun. The sun oven had to come in and the lentils finished on the stove. After another thirty minutes rain was coming down heavily! Combined with some really strong wind, it was enough to knock the power out in some parts of the city.

 It is always good to get some rain, but I really hope the sun will be shining on the 6th, when I will be solar cooking on Weds as part of earth lunch hour; an idea to cook healthy and earth friendly lunches around the world in a 24 hour period, starting in Japan. Sounds like fun and I am happy to participate. As long as everything goes right, lunch will be solar cooking from 12 noon to 1pm Arizona time. I might even check the weather forecast beforehand.

Solar Lentil Loaf and Solar Baked Asparagus

I'm not a huge fan of lentil loaf but I was feeling frugal today and had just enough lentils left over from Saturday to make one. After smashing them up a bit, I mixed in some bread crumbs, an egg, grated parmesan cheese, and garlic powder. The parchment paper lining made it easy to get out of the pan and served as a lid during baking. It actually came out a lot better than I expected. I served it with solar baked asparagus and non solar mashed potatoes. The vegetarian gravy was from a packet.

Solar Cooked Indian Stew

The morning did not start out well as far as solar cooking goes. There was some decent sunshine early on, but I fretted away the time worrying whether or not I'd be called in for jury duty. I had to call at eleven to learn my fate. I was dismissed, as usual. By then I'd pretty much decided to make Curried Red-Lentil Stew with Vegetables; a recipe from epicurious.com. The only problem was the sky was now covered with clouds. They were thin and the sun was still managing to shine through, but I wanted to leave for the afternoon and was afraid the cloud cover would thicken. People often ask me how much sun is needed to use the Sun Oven and I always answer, "As long as there enough sunlight to cast a shadow you can cook with it." There was a shadow so I went for it. I'm glad I did. The stew was delicious.

I made the following changes to the original recipe: I didn't have any fresh ginger so I used ground, increased the red lentils to 1 1/2 cups, used less water,  added a peeled, chopped sweet potato in addition to the carrots, used frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry, left out the cilantro - I don't like it - and added the carrots and sweet potato at the same time as the lentils. To compensate for the less then ideal solar cooking weather I brought it to a boil before placing it in the Sun Oven.

When I'm done with this blog I may not choose unattended solar cooking on a day like today but it is nice to know that it's possible in case of an emergency or if I ever do something crazy, like go camping.

Lentil Bolognese

A pretty uneventful solar cooking day. I made a lentil bolognese sauce for Meatless Monday. It's a very easy to make, satisfying topping for whole wheat pasta and comes out great in the Sun Oven.







Lentil Bolognese

1/2 lb dry lentils

1 Tbs olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 26 oz carton Pomi strained tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
fresh or frozen basil
freshly grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Rinse and pick over lentils. Place in a dark pot, cover with water, and cook in Sun Oven until tender.  Add wine and cook until it evaporates. Add Pomi (or other brand strained tomatoes), salt, and transfer to Sun Oven.

When lentils are tender drain and combine with tomato mixture. Continue cooking for another ten to twenty minutes. Remove from Sun Oven and add basil. Serve over pasta with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

It a separate pot heat olive oil and sautee diced vegetables until tender, about 10 minutes.

Solar Vegetarian Lasagna for Meatless Monday

I was still feeling pretty lazy today so this Easy Whole Wheat Vegetarian Lasagna recipe I found by doing a google search looked pretty good. I made it even easier by using no boil lasagna noodles. I've yet to find a vegetarian lasagna recipe that really excites me. Most of them, including this one, have way too much cheese. It turned out better than I expected, but next time I think I'll spruce it up with some veggies and fresh herbs. There is only one small, but extremely important, modification to adapt this recipe for the Sun Oven. After placing the tin foil covered glass baking dish in the Sun Oven, cover it with a dish towel so the heat will not be deflected. Don't worry, the towel will not catch on fire.

Meatless Monday Lentil Shepherd's Pie

 This morning we had what I like to call a 'Simpsons Sky', big white clouds with a  blue background. These types of clouds mean longer cooking times. If I wanted to make my lentil shepherd's pie entirely in the Sun Oven I would have to get busy. As long as the lentils and potatoes were done by 1:00 p.m. I could leave the assembled pie in the oven all afternoon while I was at work. I love it when I'm out working and my dinner is waiting for me in the back yard. The lentils were cooked just in time, but I had to cheat a little with the potatoes by boiling them on the stove for about five minutes. I should have put them in the Sun Oven at the same time as the lentils. If I had they would have been ready in time. This little cheat, however, did allow me to bake the pie in the Sun Oven and gave me the luxury of coming home to a fully cooked meal.
If you want the recipe you can find it here: http://www.meatlessmonday.com/lentil-shepherds-pie/

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.

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.