Solar Vegetarian Delights

O.k., delights might be a little bit of an exaggeration but with very little work and a nice sunny day I was able to put together a pretty good vegetarian dinner. I was craving roasted vegetables, especially butternut squash and rutabagas. Luckily I had both in the fridge so I peeled them, sliced them up, seasoned them with olive oil and kosher salt, and spread them out on two baking trays that I could fit in the Sun Oven by stacking one on the other. On a whim I tossed a leek in too. After about an hour in the Sun Oven the veggies were looking pretty good. It was still early in the day, about two to be exact, and there was plenty of remaining hours of sunshine. I got to thinking that as tasty as the roasted vegetable looked, I'd probably be hungry for a little more than that come dinnertime. So I got out my two, trusty, red pots for some brown rice and lentils. After the lentils had softened I flavored them with some leftover tomato pasta sauce I had in the fridge. It was a simple meal, but satisfying nonetheless.

Rutabaga Recipe Disappoints

Nothing very exciting from the Sun Oven today. I had a bunch of rutabagas that needed to be cooked. Normally I would just toss them with some olive oil and roast them but I thought I'd give this recipe from epicurious.com a try. Rutabaga Purée with Cardamon and Thyme. They're much better roasted. I couldn't even taste the cardamon and créme fraîche is not an ingredient I normally have on hand, in fact I used crema mexicana instead - it's a lot less expensive. If you do feel the inclination to give the recipe a try, make sure you don't leave any of the cardamon pods in before you purée the rutabagas. I missed one and wound up with a bunch of nasty little seeds that I had to pick out. I doubt I'll be making it again, it's back to good old olive oil for me.

In case you were wondering, the other things on the plate are chick pea patties and sauteed greens. They're not from the Sun Oven.

Clouds Vs Sun

Today's Accuweather forecast said "clouds yielding to sun". I had no idea what that was supposed to mean so I put the Sun oven out just in case. I really didn't need to cook anything today, we had plenty of leftovers for lunch, two loaves of bread in the breadbox, we both need to lay off the cookies for a while, and we're going out to dinner. About the only thing I had in the fridge was a rutabaga so imagine my surprise when I did a search on epicurious.com and came up with this recipe: Rutabaga Purée with Cardamon and Thyme. I actually had all the ingredients on hand and it could be assembled today and reheated tomorrow. It would have been perfect if the sun had come out for more than ten minutes. Just like last Saturday's sweet potatoes, the rutabaga pretty much sat in the back yard, in a cold Sun Oven, until I called it a day at three o'clock.

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.

Solar Vegetable Stack

It could no longer be avoided. Today I had to clean the house. Even the "but I have to make something for my blog" excuse wasn't good enough. Still, I had to throw something in the Sun Oven, so I started by cleaning out the fridge. I found a sweet potato, a rutabaga, some small purple potatoes and a spaghetti squash. I cut up the first three items, tossed them with olive oil and spread them out on two baking trays. I cut the spaghetti squash in four pieces and put it in a roasting pan with  half a cup of water. With a little creative stacking I managed to fit everything into the Sun Oven. This stack method of solar cooking does increase the overall cooking time. I wish I could tell you by how much, but I was too busy with housework to pay attention to the exact timing. I think it went into the Sun Oven at 10 a.m. and was ready at 1 p.m., but that's just a guess.