My weekly project; windshield solar oven
I've been wanting to try a solar oven. Mom tells me we made one when I was in grade school and cooked a few things in it, but I can't say I remember anything about it.
It's hot here. VERY hot. The evap cooler is on its last legs (we've been saying this for a few years, but this is really the end, I swear) so the house stays bearable... barely. From around 10am to 3-4 pm I park myself in front of the fan and move as little as possible. The Man is working graveyards and sleeps during the hottest part of the day in the relative comfort of our bedroom, which has a portable A/C that makes it much more bearable. If I could switch my work schedule to graveyards, I would. However, that's just not practical.
At any rate, cooking in a very warm, humid house is no picnic and I avoid it at all costs, with most meals cooked after 9pm when the heat isn't so unbearable. So, the solar oven issue has been on my mind lately.
The one I've had my eye is made with a reflective car windshield shade as see on SolarCooking.org I have one of these shades for years, stuck in the back of my car but never used. It is the least labor-intensive construction I've seen, and to make it even lazier I used binder clips instead of sewing on velcro. I folded the screen like instructed and fastened the top and bottom with binder clips.
I perch the cone on top of my 22 qt. canning pot and a rectangular cookie cooling rack set across to provide a spot for the cooking container. It is fairly unstable; the breezes we've been experiencing lately quite easily catch the sides of the oven and shift it about. I think a fairly hearty gust would blow the whole thing over.
The rack wouldn't sit with any stability in the oven until I folded the tip of the cone down so it sat inside the pot. That did a lot to improve overall stability.
My first attempt at cooking was a simple maple baked bean recipe; 4 cups cooked pinto beans, 1/2 chopped onion, salt, pepper and about 1/4 cup maple syrup. I put the mix in a small black pot with a smoked glass top. I started too late; 3pm, and by 5pm the onions were softer but still firm. So, the next day I put the pot back out at around 2pm and by 5pm the onions were perfectly done.
My next attempt was a simple brownie recipe, placed in a glass pie plate and topped with a black finished shallow round pan. I kept the whole thing outside for about 3 hours, and when I brought it in a probe inserted came out clean so I thought it was done. Nope... only the top was. I finished the brownies in the oven. Lesson; this type of oven requires a dark cooking container, as only food exposed to a dark surface seems to cook nicely.
It's been cloudy these past few days, but as soon as it clears up I'm going to try cooking a chicken/veggie dish.
It's hot here. VERY hot. The evap cooler is on its last legs (we've been saying this for a few years, but this is really the end, I swear) so the house stays bearable... barely. From around 10am to 3-4 pm I park myself in front of the fan and move as little as possible. The Man is working graveyards and sleeps during the hottest part of the day in the relative comfort of our bedroom, which has a portable A/C that makes it much more bearable. If I could switch my work schedule to graveyards, I would. However, that's just not practical.
At any rate, cooking in a very warm, humid house is no picnic and I avoid it at all costs, with most meals cooked after 9pm when the heat isn't so unbearable. So, the solar oven issue has been on my mind lately.
The one I've had my eye is made with a reflective car windshield shade as see on SolarCooking.org I have one of these shades for years, stuck in the back of my car but never used. It is the least labor-intensive construction I've seen, and to make it even lazier I used binder clips instead of sewing on velcro. I folded the screen like instructed and fastened the top and bottom with binder clips.
I perch the cone on top of my 22 qt. canning pot and a rectangular cookie cooling rack set across to provide a spot for the cooking container. It is fairly unstable; the breezes we've been experiencing lately quite easily catch the sides of the oven and shift it about. I think a fairly hearty gust would blow the whole thing over.
The rack wouldn't sit with any stability in the oven until I folded the tip of the cone down so it sat inside the pot. That did a lot to improve overall stability.
My first attempt at cooking was a simple maple baked bean recipe; 4 cups cooked pinto beans, 1/2 chopped onion, salt, pepper and about 1/4 cup maple syrup. I put the mix in a small black pot with a smoked glass top. I started too late; 3pm, and by 5pm the onions were softer but still firm. So, the next day I put the pot back out at around 2pm and by 5pm the onions were perfectly done.
My next attempt was a simple brownie recipe, placed in a glass pie plate and topped with a black finished shallow round pan. I kept the whole thing outside for about 3 hours, and when I brought it in a probe inserted came out clean so I thought it was done. Nope... only the top was. I finished the brownies in the oven. Lesson; this type of oven requires a dark cooking container, as only food exposed to a dark surface seems to cook nicely.
It's been cloudy these past few days, but as soon as it clears up I'm going to try cooking a chicken/veggie dish.
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