Announcing Our New Solar Cooking Initiative

...n’t mention it, the Internet will make me a liar. Erik posted on it back in 2013. He was gifted a Sundiner, which is a 60’s era solar oven. We never use it because, being a product of the 60’s, it has a very small, shallow cooking box, suited only for cooking hot dogs and frozen dinners. So, anyway, being cheap and not fond of TV dinners, I decided to make a proper, box-style solar oven (there are a lot of DIY plans out there) and test it out come...

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Solar Oven Triumph: Fluffy Egg Strata

...Sport solar oven. It’s an egg strata. I’ve never made a strata before, so making one in a solar oven seemed a bit risky, but I was rich in eggs and stale bread and the sun was out, so I decided to try. For those of you don’t know, an egg strata is a casserole-type dish, typically served at brunch, which is composed of bread, eggs, cheese, butter and milk. It is indeed a fat bomb. But you know what? Fat is not evil. My inspiration for this experim...

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Best veggies to cook in a solar oven

...g, but rather the slight discoloration that some vegetables pick up in the solar oven. The color of the Brussels sprouts is due to a Schiracha sauce, which did not counterbalance their mushy Brussel-sproutsness. These guys have to be roasted, IMHO So you can see this is all going to be a matter of taste, but be assured you can cook any vegetable a solar oven, and if steaming is one of your favorite cooking methods, you’re in luck. Generally speaki...

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Waxed Cloth Food Wrap (Made in a solar oven for bonus self-righteousness points)

...is something I’ll play with if I decide to make more. What’s next for the solar oven? My next crafty project with the sun oven is going to be infusing oil with herbs, and perhaps drying herbs as well. And for those of you who were following our solar cooking initiative, it has been on hiatus because our weather this May was dominated by a heavy marine layer which kept the skies overcast until mid-afternoon. I love this weather, personally, but it...

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Solar recipe review: Moroccan Chickpea Tagine (Works on the stovetop, too)

...comes from the Solavore recipe collection, which is the best collection of solar recipes I’ve found on the internet. I’ve found you have to be really careful with random solar recipes found on the internet–well, you need to be cautious with any recipe found on the internet, but since I’m new to solar cooking my radar that tells good recipes from bad is impaired. Witness a truly appalling, chalky, brick-like cornbread I made a couple of weeks ago,...

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