Solar Smothered Onions Pasta Sauce

This is another recipe from Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking". I don't know why I felt compelled to follow it exactly instead of cutting down on the butter and oil as I normally would. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but it's only Monday and now I don't have many flex points left for the rest of the week.

The sauce would normally simmer stove top, covered, at a very low heat for about an hour, then continue cooking uncovered, at a higher heat until the onions are brown and most of the liquid has evaporated. To make it in the Sun Oven I once again focused it in indirect sunlight to keep the temperature around 200ºF until the onions were soft. At this point I uncovered the pot, focused the Sun Oven directly towards the sun, and propped the glass door open to allow the steam to escape. Even with the door open a crack the Sun Oven properly focused reached 350º. It was really hot today, 110º, so that might have played a part.

Here's the recipe, using Marcella's quantities. Next time I'm going to use less fat and less pasta.

Smothered Onions Sauce

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs olive oil
1 1/2 lbs onions, sliced very thin (I used vidalia)
Salt
Black pepper, freshly ground
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 Tbs chopped parsley
1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 to 1 1/2 lbs pasta

Put butter, oil, onions, and some salt in a heavy dark pot. Place covered pot in Sun Oven, focused to keep the temperature at 200º, until the onions are soft, about one hour.

Uncover pot. Focus Sun Oven directly towards sun. Prop open door to allow moisture to escape, and continue cooking until the onions turn a deep, dark gold color.

Add the wine, salt and pepper to taste, stir and continue cooking until the wine evaporates.

Remove from Sun Oven stir in parsley.

Here's what we had for dinner. The butternut squash was also made in the Sun Oven. The zucchini could have been solar cooked but was a last minute thing that I made while the pasta was cooking.

More Zucchini Stuffed with Salmon

Not new recipe, not even any new twist to it. I made it  a couple of weeks ago and liked it enough to make it again today. Don't let the picture fool you, one can of salmon goes a long way, I actually had to use two baking dishes and stack them in the Sun Oven, only half the zucchini are pictured here, it's enough for six to eight servings. Looks like we'll be having the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Solar Salmon Stuffed Zucchini

In may seem kind of silly to buy zucchini when we're going to be inundated with them from our garden in a few weeks, but this is what I wanted to eat today so that's what I did. It's easy to make. I used my salmon loaf recipe to stuff the hollowed out zucchini. I didn't have a big enough covered pan to fit all of them so I used a useful solar cooking trick; take a glass baking dish, cover it tightly with tin foil, then cover that with a dark tea cloth before placing it in the Sun Oven. It works, trust me. The tea cloth will not catch of fire and if you don't use one the heat will be deflected out of the cooking chamber and ruin your food.

Solar Frittata for Lunch

Sometimes it's the improvised meals that come out the best. We're going to Cibo with friends for dinner tonight. It was a bright sunny morning. A perfect day for a nice solar cooked lunch. After foraging around in the refrigerator, I came up with some eggs, zucchini, leeks, potatoes, and some fresh mint. I figured I could use these to make a decent frittata. I started off by sauteing the leeks and the sliced zucchini in a cast iron frying pan. When they were just beginning to soften I transfered them to a bowl to cool and tossed them with some chopped mint. Then I lined the frying pan with some finely sliced potatoes using a mandolin to get them paper thin. In another bowl I beat six eggs with a little milk, some grated parmesan, salt, and pepper. I mixed the eggs and the cooled vegetables together and poured everything over the potatoes. The was a slight moment of panic when I realized I'd never put the frying pan in the Sun Oven before; luckily it fit. The result was a lovely golden brown frittata with zucchini on one side and potatoes on the other. I was hoping there'd be some leftover for us to offer our friends as an appetizer before going out, but no such luck - we polished it off in one go.

Meat and Veggie Loaf

Today went well. I remembered to take the ground meat out of the freezer last night, I had all the ingredients on hand, and there was not a cloud in the sky. The meatloaf was in the Sun Oven by 10:00 a.m. I took it out around 1:00 p.m. I'm pretty sure it was done earlier; I got distracted. That's one of the good things about solar cooking, your food won't dry out so cooking times are not so important.

I used my basic meatloaf recipe and added some shredded carrots and zucchini to make it a little lighter. My favorite part is the aluminum foil loaf lifter. A trick I found somewhere online. Take a piece of tin foil, fold it in half, and put it on the bottom of the roasting pan with the ends hanging over the sides. When the meatloaf is ready just lift it out of the pan. Whoever thought this up is a culinary genius.
                                                









                                                                              

Zucchini Chips Win Again

With plenty of leftover brisket in the fridge for dinner I took advantage of the available Sun Oven to do some more experimenting with veggie chips. Today I made a combination of beets, parsnips, and zucchini and once again the zucchini chips are the best. Next time I'm going to use zucchini only.
Veggie chips are very easy to make. Just slice the vegetables thin and spread them out on baking trays coated with cooking spray. Another light spray on the vegetables and place them in the Sun Oven with the door propped open on the latches to allow the steam to escape.  To make the most of the room in the oven chamber I stacked four pizza pans, using metal canning rings to keep them separated. This time we managed to not devour them immediately and I'm looking forward to enjoying them with our lunch tomorrow after volunteering at the Arizona Humane Society.

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.