Ratatouille In the solar oven.

I made some modifications to the solar oven, reinforcing the top of the cardboard with some wood.  While shopping this morning, we picked up ingredients for ratatouille:  zucchini, mushrooms, eggplant,  onion, tomato purée, spices.  Then into the oven at noon.  After 4 hours, things were pretty well done, but some things were a little al dente.  I finished them off in the microwave.  We had the vegetables with rice.  I also rounded up material for my solar oven II.

Solar Oven Brownies

My first brownies.  My first attempt had too much brownie mix and came out soggy.  The next day I used half the amount and when I came home at night it was done.

July 2, more solar cooking

This weekend I started with some frozen hot dogs from our freezer and put them in the solar oven no. 1 from last week.  They went in at 10 am, by noon they were ready to eat. I also thawed and warmed the frozen rolls in an unplugged crockpot in the sun.  Both to see how that would work, and to keep the buns from the squirrels, who showed some interest when I just set them on the table to thaw.

The oven generally had a temperature a little above 150 deg.F.  However, after I took two of the hotdogs out and we approached solar noon, the temperature did reach 200 deg. F.

My wife Ginny and I had a hot dog lunch, after browning (finishing off) the hot dogs in a frying pan. The oven did not brown the hot dogs.  I did enjoy my second hot dog directly from the solar oven, brown or not.

After lunch, I made my second solar cooker.  I used the box that my bicycling helmet from Nutcase came in, and covered it with aluminum foil and Saran Wrap.  I reoriented both cookers towards the early afternoon sun and put an English muffin in each to see if the muffins will toast.

The quickly made nutcase cooker quickly warmed to 200 deg.  However, because it is a windy day, I needed to anchor the cooker upright after it blew over.