Coming Home to a Solar Dinner

We were both out all day today and I wanted to come home to a complete solar cooked meal. I didn't want to have to steam any vegetable, or cook some pasta, or even toss a salad. I wanted something that would go straight from the Sun Oven to my plate. Here's what I came with. Turkey legs with rice and vegetables.

I did all the prep work the night before. I chopped a lot of vegetables. I'll try to remember all of them: one leek, half a small head of savoy cabbage, a carrot, a stalk of celery, about a half cup of butternut squash, a small zucchini and a turnip. I also soaked half a cup of cranberry beans. I washed the turkey legs and removed any excess fat. In the morning I combined all the vegetables and the drained beans with a cup of arborio rice and a cup of liquid - half vegetable broth and half white wine - in a large cast iron dutch oven. I place three turkey legs on top, put the lid on, put it in the Sun Oven, and left for the day. When I got home around four I turned the Sun Oven towards the sun to and left it in until dinnertime. The well insulated Sun Oven, combined with the heat retaining cast iron pot, kept the food warm and at a safe temperature.

When we were ready to eat, around 7:00, I took the turkey out and removed the meat from the bones; I'll save myself this step next time by using chicken thighs. I stirred some olive oil, grated parmesan cheese, and freshly chopped basil into the rice. A little salt and pepper and dinner was served. It was very good. We both had seconds.

Two Days of Solar Cooking - One Blog Entry.

Once again I was too tired post an update yesterday. I had a very busy day. I taught my first two, yes two, solar cooking classes in one day. I was very nervous beforehand, in fact, when Brent (the owner of the store where the classes were held) considered canceling it due to rain forecast, I was almost relieved. Luckily he didn't. The weather cleared up and both classes went very well. We had two Sun Ovens set up, one with rice and beans and the other with the most amazing 16 grain bread made by Kristi. If you live in the Phoenix metro area, I highly recommend you check out Brent and Kristi's store, FoodWise. It's located at 395 E. Warner in Chandler. Kristi holds weekly cooking and bread baking classes that are free. I will definitely be attending some of them in the near future. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I don't have any pictures of my big day. Also, despite spending the entire afternoon solar baking bread and solar cooking beans and rice, I had nothing prepared for dinner. Matin and I went to one of our favorite local spots, Joe's Farm Grill in Gilbert. By the time we got home I was exhausted.

Today I wasn't feeling very creative. We got up early to go to yard sales and by mid morning I still hadn't decided what to put in the Sun Oven. For inspiration we stopped at Trader Joe's on our way home. I found a ready to cook turkey breast with cranberry stuffing. Perfect, all I had to do was take it out of the packaging a stick in the Sun Oven, in a pot of course.

The instructions said to bake in a 350ºF oven for 20 - 30 minutes per pound. The thing about solar cooking times is that they depend a lot on the type of pot used, the quality of the sun, and how often you refocus the Sun Oven. The other thing is cooking times don't really matter. Since the food won't overcook or burn it's almost impossible to ruin it. But since I'd done nothing more than take the turkey out of the package I figured the least I could do was pay attention to the cooking time. It weighed 2.5lb. I put it in the Sun Oven at 11:45. I remembered to use my probe thermometer and at 1:15 it had reached 180ºF. It was ready.

I'm generally not very fond of these types of convenience foods. Somehow the flavors are never quite right and this was no exception. The stuffing was just so so and the meat was a little dry. I actually think it might have been better if I'd have cooked it at a lower heat with some kind of liquid, like white wine, for additional flavor. In any case, I was starving so I was happy to have it for lunch.

Solar Turkey Thighs

A perfect day for solar cooking. Picked up some turkey thighs at the grocery store yesterday. Cooked them in the Sun Oven today. Enjoyed them for dinner on our patio with some brussels sprouts and a nice loaf of crusty bread from a local bakery.

The recipe is very simple. Just saute some thinly sliced leeks in a heavy cast iron pot with a little olive oil for about five minutes, add a couple cloves of chopped garlic and a sprig of fresh thyme. After a minute or so add a tablespoon of flour. Then a half a cup of white wine. Bring it to a boil, add two skinless, bone-in turkey thighs and transfer the pot to the Sun Oven. A few hours later you'll have fall off the bone tender meat and a nicely flavored sauce. Add a green vegetable, some potatoes, rice, or bread, and you've got dinner.

Solar Cooked Turkey Meatloaf

Now that the holidays are over I have a confession to make. There are a surprising number of holiday foods that I don't like. I won't even have a small taste of eggnog, pumpkin pie, any sweet potato dish that contains marshmallows, or canned cranberry sauce. I'm not crazy about turkey. I would never buy a ham but might have a small piece at a party. So this season I was very pleased to find two holiday recipes that will definitely be keepers - Chipotle Cranberry Sauce and Whipped Chipotle Sweet Potatoes. They were so good that today I made a turkey meatloaf in the Sun Oven just so I could make the side dishes. I couldn't find a turkey meatloaf recipe I liked, so I made one up.

Solar Turkey Meatloaf

1 tbls olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 carrot, shredded
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1lb lean ground turkey
1 egg, lightly beaten
2/3 cup dry bread crumbs
1/3 cup dry white wine
4 leaves fresh sage, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme, leaves only
salt, pepper

Saute onion, carrot, celery and garlic in olive oil until soft, about ten minutes. Allow vegetable mixture to cool and combine with remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Form into a loaf and place in a dark roasting pan with a lid. Place in preheated Sun Oven and bake until internal temperature reaches 180ºf.

Turkey and Rice Solar Bake

This year I really want to use all the left over turkey. I made the usual sandwiches on Sunday - I was out of town until late last night so we had our Thanksgiving early - and put the rest of the meat in the freezer. I was planning on making a turkey pot pie but every recipe I found used tons of butter or cream or both. It was starting to get late for solar cooking and I was tired of searching the internet for recipes so I decided to improvise.

To get things started I put a pot of brown rice in the Sun Oven. While that was solar cooking I rummaged around in the freezer and the pantry where I found a bag of mixed frozen vegetables and a jar of turkey gravy. I sauteed an onion and two stalks of celery in some butter for about ten minutes, added the frozen vegetables, about two cups of diced turkey meat, a little water, and let it simmer until the vegetables were soft. When the rice was ready I mixed it with the turkey and vegetable, and the jar of gravy, put it in a glass baking dish, covered it with parchment paper and put it back in the Sun Oven.

To be honest my expectations were not very high. Something edible was all I really hoped for. To my surprise it turned out pretty good. It even had a nice crunchy layer on top. We both had seconds.

Thanksgiving Turkey from the Sun Oven. A Little Early

It took every minute of available sunlight, but we pulled it off. At exactly 3:00 p.m. the probe thermometer reached 180ºF. Our guest don't arrive until seven so we carved it - more like let the meat fall off the bone - and will reheat it when they get here.

Sun Oven turkey is definitely the way to go. It leaves your indoor oven available for all the side dishes and makes a moist, succulent, roast out of what is too often a dry and disappointing Thanksgiving main attraction.

Turkey Surprise

At 7:00 a.m. it's hard to tell what the day has in store for you cloud wise. This morning it was overcast in the west, but the eastern horizon looked promising with some bits of sunlight seeping through. I had to leave for my shift at the Arizona Humane Society before it was possible to determine which would prevail, but I had to pick a side. If I put the turkey thighs out and the clouds conquered, I'd come home to salmonella soup, if, on the other hand, the sun broke through, and I hadn't put anything out, it would be  too late to get any solar cooking done today. I put my money on the partly cloudy eastern sky and set the Sun Oven out.
  No fancy recipe today, just another dry run leading up to Thanksgiving. I put two turkey thighs with some garlic and thyme in an oven bag, put it in an uncovered roasting pan, went off to do my volunteer work, and hoped for the best. I was working in the windowless clinic again so it was hard to monitor the weather. At nine a.m. I stepped outside. The sky was so grey that if it weren't for the fact that it's November and I was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt, I wouldn't have known I was in Arizona. I didn't leave the building again until noon. It was still mostly cloudy, but there was enough sunlight to cast a good shadow. My turkey might have made it after all.
  When I got home the Sun Oven was at 200ºF; hot enough for safe cooking. There was too much condensation on the glass door to tell if the Turkey was ready, but I didn't want to open it and lose any precious heat. I was willing to bet that at such a low temperature it needed to cook longer. The sun was still making an effort to get the better of the clouds, so I left it alone.
The sun fought hard. For the next few hours it seemed to be winning, but right around 3:00 p.m. - when I probably would have brought the turkey in anyway - the clouds staged a major come-back. It was time to call it a day. Luckily, the few hours of sunlight had been enough to fully solar cook the two thighs; they were very tasty and would be perfect for Thansgiving.

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.

Sun Oven Turkey and Rice

I was going to wait until Thanksgiving to make my first turkey in the Sun Oven. I've been told that it can be used to cook a bird as big as 18 lbs. Since it would take us a month to eat that much turkey I opted for thighs only today. After yesterday's overcooked eggs I made an effort to pay more attention to the cooking time. I even used a meat thermometer. The meat took two hours to reach 180ºf. The glass door of the Sun Oven was also starting to steam up which is another sign of doneness.
Normally I prefer white rice but this brown rice that I got from Massa Organics is the best I've every tasted. I brined the thighs overnight and seasoned them with sage, butter, salt and pepper. Even with just two thighs we have plenty of leftovers for another meal.