Announcing Our New Solar Cooking Initiative

...made oven and see how they stack up. But my primary goal in this season of solar cooking is to figure out whether, if properly used, a solar cooker can create meals of the same quality as those I turn out with my kitchen stove. Not “It’s not bad for solar” but “Hey….this is scrumptious!” More than that, I want to figure out what solar ovens do better than real ovens. I want to master the vocabulary of solar cooking. I figure the learning curve is...

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Solar Oven Triumph: Fluffy Egg Strata

...nd for folks who are interested. Before that, though, I want to talk about solar cooking in general. To be honest, learning to use a solar oven is not very straightforward. In a way, it feels like learning how to cook all over again, but with the handicap of not knowing how long any dish should spend in the oven. Imagine if back when you were making your first batch of cookies, your mom’s old Betty Crocker told you they would be done anywhere betw...

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Urban Homestead Trademarks Cancelled!

After six years of legal wrangling, “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading” belong to us all. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has cancelled the trademarks thanks to the hard work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the law firm of Winston & Strawn. Here’s the press release from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Urban Homesteaders Win Cancellation of Bogus Trademarks Global Community Had Faced Baseless Legal Claims and Content Remo...

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Best veggies to cook in a solar oven

...n, and may be a good way to get started if you are a little intimidated by solar cooking Sun oven proponents claim that sun ovens cook veggies better than any other device, because they can be cooked dry, and the slow heat brings out their flavor. This is true to some extent. This is what I’ve learned about sun oven veggies. The cooking results are analogous to steaming. Vegetables which do well with steam cooking do well when tossed into a sun ov...

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“Urban Homesteading” belongs to us all

...r Urban Homesteading, for winning the right for all of us to use the term “urban homesteading” freely from now on out. Longtime readers may remember that back in 2011, the Dervaes Institute sent notices to a dozen or so organizations, informing them that they could no longer use the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading” unless speaking about the work of the Dervaes Institute, as they had registered trademark on both terms. Beyond that,...

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