Raw Ribs

Once again I had to leave home early. Too early to know if the clouds would clear or not. I should have gone with my gut feeling that they would not, but I didn't. There were a few spots of sun in the west, but to the east dark grey clouds covered the entire sky. Against my better judgement I put some ribs in the Sun Oven and left to attend an all day seminar.

 The ribs never really stood a chance. As I sat in the conference hall, unable to rescue them from the elements, I watched the sun come out, only to vanish after a few minutes, over and over, until it finally retreated for good. If you added it all up I'd estimate we got a total of one hour of good sunlight. It was not enough. There would be no solar cooked meal to greet me at the end of the long day. The only thing I could do to salvage our dinner was make reservations.

 When I got home the Sun Oven was cold and the ribs were pink inside. Definitely not safe to eat. This is the first food I've had to throw away due to undercooking since I started my blog. Luckily I wasn't having company tonight.

Turkey, Ribs, Chicken, Bread and More...

Today was an amazing day of solar cooking. I was invited to an emergency preparedness fair by a local Sun Oven dealer. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Without a cloud in the sky and record high temperatures the multiple Sun Ovens were cranking out food like crazy. I made my signature Chicken with Two Lemons over Rice and baked two loaves of bread. Terry, who invited me to the fair, made cinnamon rolls, bread sticks, baby back ribs and roasted a thirteen pound turkey. Everything was devoured so fast I didn't even get a chance to take pictures, especially since I was doing my part to sample the fruits of our labor. The turkey, of course, drew the most attention. It was fully cooked in four hours, but we left it in for five, and it was moist and delicious. Unlike with a conventional oven where overcooking would dry the meat out, the additional roasting time made it juicier. I will definitely be solar roasting my Thanksgiving day bird, but what impressed me most were the ribs. I always thought ribs were hard to cook but all Terry did was season them with salt and pepper. After two hours in the Sun Oven they were fall off the bone tender. These will probably be on the menu of my next get together with friends. I really hope we achieved our goal of encouraging more people to cook with the sun. I'd love to have a few more solar chefs to exchange recipes with.