cooking solar experience/ recipies

[detali]

It was interesting reading all the posts under solar ovens but I think we need a thread to share our experience with solar cooking. I am new to this. I finished building my solar over about three weeks ago and have used it a lot. I have described it in another thread. There are things that I am learning that are different from cooking in the house. Here is a recipie that I like a lot.

Instant soup-almost

Before I go out to do yard and garden work for the day I put
3 cups of water into a quart Jar
add 1/2 cup total of various legumes, dehydrated veggies, rice or barley
1 tbsp olive oil
1 bullion cube
screw the lid on loosely
place in solar oven
focus the oven ahead of the sun

Round about noon I have a delicious, nutritious soup.
I add whatever more seasoning it might need just before eating.

When the family comes, I do this process is a gallon jar.

Please share your recipies and cooking tips

 

[freemotion]

You use a gallon jar to cook in instead of a black pan in a cooking bag, like all the instructions seem to call for? Lid on tightly? I can get gallon pickle jars from a local restaurant, sounds great! I will be making mine after spring planting is all done, mid-June, likely. It has been so cold here, anyways. All the instructions say the air temp needs to be at least 70-80 in the Northern states. I like your recipe! And this thread. Hope to contribute this summer and keep this going.

 

[detali]

No, I don't put the lid on tightly, just barely screwed on. There needs to be a little give to let steam escape from the cooking process. I like using jars. That way I can see when things are actually boiling.

From my experience the outside temperature is not as great a factor in getting the solar oven to heat up as making sure that the oven is focused directly into the sun. My focusing device is a nail on a cardboard disc. I hold that up against the glass front. If the nail casts a shadow, then I am not correctly focused. Then I have to turn the oven further south or west as the case may be. Also I use several pieces of 2x4's to place under the oven in the front to tilt it up in to the sun in the middle of the day. It's amazing what difference that makes. In addition I found a nice flat piece of slate rock that I layed in the bottom. I let that heat up to preheat my oven. Then with the rock hot already when I open the oven I don't immediately dump all the heat. That gives me time to place my food inside and replace the glass cover and in a short time it starts to boil.

 

[freemotion]

OH, great and inspiring details!