Farm Fresh Blog

I am a lazy cook. I live by the motto -

"If it takes longer to make it than it does to eat it, it isn't worth it."

That said, I've just discovered a new way to cook!    Solar!

I know!  In a typical Texas summer, it gets hot enough to turn your seatbelt buckle into a branding iron. I started tossing around the idea of solar cooking for the ranch in North Texas. Because we haven't built a house yet, we're still living out of a travel trailer. Let me say it again,

It gets HOT in Texas!

If you're living in a travel trailer, you don't want to do ANYTHING to heat that sucker up. You can cook outside over a campfire. That's easy to do. There's lots of mesquite wood just layin' around! BUT . . . hot summers often come with a drought up there.  Drought means no camp fires because we don't want to start forest fires.

So I started looking at the Global Sun Oven and was impressed enough to try one. All the research is good. They even use it on Mount Everest. Great for camping and home use. This is a real winner in Third World countries where finding cooking fuel is a problem.

Check it out:    http://youtu.be/VvATI3yuVak

Dear Friend and her husband have one and swear by it. So I took a chance and ordered one. Got that puppy set up this morning and tried something simple. Rice.

I set it up on top of the pickup truck because a certain large gray member of the family "might" just play with the solar oven if he can reach it.

 Yes, he would!

The oven is light - only 21 pounds. It's easy to set up. Just unfold the panels, open the plexi-glass lid, put your food inside, close and lock the lid, and wait for the sun to cook your vittles!

This was sinfully easy! Just put your stuff in there and leave it alone. Not only does it not heat up the kitchen, but you don't have to worry about anything burning!  This is MY kind of cooking.  It's like a crock pot but you never have to worry about burning the house down. Uses no electricity. It reaches temps of 350-450 degrees. Not bad. You can also bake with it.

Woo hoo!  Well on my way to Green Cooking!

Note: The hardest part about cooking in the solar oven is climbing in the back of the pickup truck! People who don't have horses, sheep, and goats in the yard won't have that problem.