Bulgar Blah

I've been looking for a way to solar cook bulgar for so long that when I found it used in recipe titled "Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie" in my book "The Healthy Slow Cooker" I completely ignored the fact that most of it's other ingredients were ones I am not particularly fond of. Namely sweet potatoes, parsnips, and mushroom. I'll eat all of them, but they each have to be prepared a certain way. I won't even go into the details of the recipe. All I'll say is I'll never make it again. It was boring and bland. Too bad I didn't follow my gut instinct and cut it in half. We now have a ton of it left over and I doubt even Martin will eat much more of it.

But as disappointing as the end result was, I did stumble upon a new solar cooking trick. The recipe was of course written for a slow cooker. I used the stoneware insert of mine. It was the only thing I had big enough to hold the whole mess. To absorb the excess moisture a tea towel, folded in half, was placed over the stoneware insert before covering it with the lid. This just may be the solution to a common problem with the Sun Oven - too much condensation. Most of the time the condensation is not really a problem, in fact when it starts to form on the glass it is often a sign of doneness, but occasionally it is excessive. In those cases I usually open the Sun Oven and quickly wipe the glass door, but that can lead to longer cooking times, especially if you don't live in a hot sunny climate like Arizona. Today, with the tea towel in place, there was no condensation on the glass door at all. It was all absorbed by the towel.

Cloudy All Morning

It was cat training day today at the Arizona Humane Society. Once again we left the house early and the forecast called for clouds. This time I didn't even bother setting up the Sun Oven, so of course the sun came out. We got home around 12:30 and with at most two hours of good sunlight left there was no time for any prep work. I had a couple of sweet potatoes in the fridge that I peeled, cut up and put in a roasting pan with a little water. Sure enough, about an hour later the clouds were back. The temperature in the Sun Oven had reached 300ºF. There's a good chance the potatoes were already done, but to be on the safe side I left them in until the temperature had gone down to 200ºF. I'll mash them with some butter for a nice side dish with tonight's dinner.

Broccoli Brown Rice Bake and Super Easy Sweet Potato Chili

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read Meatless Monday's weekly email this morning and I actually had the ingredients for one of the featured recipes. That has never happened before. O.K., I substituted asparagus for the broccoli, but I had everything else which is pretty amazing since one of the ingredients was neufchantel cheese. I bought some a couple of days ago when I had a craving for cream cheese. I can't remember the last time I had cream cheese in the house and I'd never purchased neufchantel before. Both the rice bake and the chili were done in time for lunch and it was enough for dinner too. The rice recipe can be found here: Broccoli Brown Rice Bake.

Easy Sweet Potato and Kidney Bean Chili

2 tsp olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can mexican stewed tomatoes

1 can sweet potato

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 tsp chipotle in adobo sauce

salt to taste

cilantro, chopped

sour cream

Heat oil in a large dark sauce pan, add onion and cook for about five minutes until onions are soft. Add next four ingredients, tomatoes through chipotle. Cover and place in Sun Oven for approx. one hour. Garnish with cilantro and sour cream.