SunOven Chronicles: Beef Stroganoff

The Low-Down:

I used this recipe my mom used to make all the time growing up.

I browned the meat in the pot, then added everything else except the flour/broth mixture, and put it in an unpreheated Sun Oven facing south.  I can no longer remember the exact amount of time- I would guess from about 11am to 4pm.

When I took it out, I thickened it on the stove again.

It wasn't quite as good as normal, but it was still very good.  It's not a great Sun Oven recipe, though, because you still have to boil water to cook the noodles.  (at least I did, maybe you don't actually have to? I just doubt cooking noodles in the Sun Oven would go over very well...)  For some reason, I prefer to cook all or nothing in the Sun Oven.

Sun Oven Chronicles- Chicken Tikka Masala

Despite the semi-soggy broccoli that happened with the beef and broccoli in the sun oven, I decided to try it again, but this time cooking it resting on top of the rice.  I used the clear lid and I think it was not a good idea because look what happened to the broccoli after 1 hour in the sun:

Compare it to regular steamed broccoli (I couldn't bring myself to make the family eat the bleached out stuff)

left: bleached out, "sunned" broccoli, right: regular, microwave-steamed broccoli

And I just put the chicken with the sauce in the other pot and let it cook for an hour.  It wasn't as good as grilling the chicken and thickening the sauce in the pan, as the recipe says, but it was ok.  Just didn't have as much flavor, or something.

Sun Oven Chronicles- Pot Roast

I decided to try my hand at slow-cooking in the sun oven.  Most of my attempts thus far have been only shorter baking and rice.  What better test than the classic pot-roast?

The top pot:
I salt and peppered the roast, inserted some whole cloves of garlic, and browned each side for 10 seconds in olive oil before putting it in the pan.  It's zucchini season around here (i.e. people feel free to leave zucchini on your doorstep, whether you like it or not...) and so I thought I'd throw in some zucchini, and I was a bit too ambitious at Costco last week, and bought a thing of mushrooms, which ended up being twice as many as I really needed, so I threw some of those in too.  Hopefully those won't be confounding variables to my trial.  I added no liquid to the roast.  (The SunOven site says things are more moist in the sun oven and often times you should add less liquid.  I thought the zucchini would probably produce quite a bit)

In the bottom pot, I put some potatoes and carrots.  I salted and peppered them and as an afterthought, misted them with olive oil. I figure it can't hurt...

I used the black lid (not the clear one).

Here's the before pic:

Preheated the oven facing the sun.
put them in a 250 oven at 9:30am.
Turned the oven more south and less angled, but so there was still a bit of sun shining in.

When I checked on it a couple of hours later, it was still at 250.

I pulled it out about 4:30pm.  The sun was no longer shining in, but the oven was at 150 and when I tested the temp of the roast, it was about 170 (well done...)

Here's what they looked like!

the carrots and potatoes looked exactly the same and the pic is slightly blurry,
 so I decided not to show them

I took the roast, zucchini and mushrooms out and made a gravy.  I couldn't believe how much liquid was in there, especially since it started out completely dry!

We were all starving and I forgot to take a picture of the final plate.  Everything was good though- I would say as good as normal, though the potatoes and carrots didn't have that nice roast flavor since they had to be cooked in a separate pot.  If you don't like zucchini, you probably won't like this- it was very soft (as zucchini gets...) but I liked the flavor of it.  My husband wouldn't try it because he said it looked like a pickle and he doesn't like pickles.  (He doesn't really like zucchini either though...)

Sun Oven Chronicles- Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

My mother-in-law makes a delicious pineapple upside-down cake and I thought it might be a great treat for the Sun Oven.  (I made it way back for Father's Day since it's one of Jay's favorites.  Now you know how behind I am with my posting....)

You can see the Recipe there.

Worked great!  I think regularly the bottom should be thicker and gooier, but still tasted good.  Probably if I made sure to melt the butter w/ the sugar much longer over the stove, I could overcome that.

I was worried it was over-done because the top was so browned, but tasted just great!  I baked it an hour.  (used the 8x8 amounts in the recipe)

Sun Oven Chronicles- Sweet Simmered Pork Chops w/ Rice Pilaf

Here's the regular recipe for Sweet Simmered Pork Chops (originally from "How to Cook Everything")

The Summary

Cooked them both an hour.

Rice was WEIRD (used jasmine and topped it off with basmati) 1 c rice and 2 c chicken broth (bouillon cube, though crushed, didn't dissolve...) it was mooshy and not quite all the water was absorbed after an hour.  some of it seemed uncooked.  weird.  

meat was fine.  had to reduce the sauce over the stove after.  cooked broccoli in microwave- forgot to add it to the pork.  maybe better to cook the pork uncovered to naturally thicken?

Sun Oven Chronicles- Chinese Beef & Broccoli w/ Rice

I make an easy and tasty Chinese Beef and Broccoli dish fairly often.  Last month, I was planning to make it for dinner one night and thought, I wonder what would happen if I cooked it in the SunOven?

This was quite a "wild" idea, (look at me.... I'm sooo wild and crazy!) since this is normally a quick meal, and everything is sautéed, but curiosity got the better of me and here's how it went down: 

I cooked the beef 1 hour and added the broccoli for a 2nd hour.

Cooked rice 1 hour- added it's pot on top when I added the broccoli. (cooked them stacked)

Th beef was great! really tender.  After looking at it when I added the broccoli, I'm sure it was done after the first hour, but it didn't burn or taste overdone or anything after a second!  (as the "SunOven people" tout...)  The broccoli was fine, but a bit softer than I typically like- maybe try only 30 minutes next time?

The sticky rice was mostly fine, but I dished mine out last and I got an occasional crunch- Jay didn't though.  Not sure why...

All in all, I'd make it in the SunOven again!  I think the meat was definitely more tender this way...

Sun Oven Chronicles- Strawberry Pie

The highlights:

-it baked 2.5 hours (more than twice as long as the recipe requests.)

-it did brown, but I used an egg white wash

-the crust was not crispy and flakey, despite me having the feeling that it would be a good one while making it...  It was more like the pre-formed store-bought stuff.  (which is so not worth the calories...)

-some of the crust literally slid off from slow cooking- the crisco melted before it could bake properly

-the inside didn't set up very well

-tasted ok

-glass got really fogged up

-the strawberry drippings in the bottom cleaned up really easily!

I guess you really need the oven to be hot, hot for excellent pie, and 350 wasn't hot enough.  Guess we won't be having pie in an emergency... darn.

Sun Oven Chronicles- Bread on a Cloudy Day

So, this was a sad day in SunOven land...  But I'm glad I tried it, so now I know!

I've really been wanting to try making some bread in the SunOven.  It just doesn't seem like it would really work, for some reason...  and if I'm planning on using this with my Emergency Preparedness and it doesn't bake bread, what am I going to do with all that wheat I have?

One thing that was hard was the glass got all fogged up, so I really had to open up the oven to check on the bread and see how it was doing.  Also, since the bread doesn't brown as well in the SunOven, it's really hard to tell when it's done.

Something else I wanted to note is that it was the first time I've tried to use it on a cloudy day, and as you can see, the temp hovered around 200, instead of staying at about 350 as usual.

As you can see...  it totally deflated.  I think it might be because of 1)too low of baking temperature- it would probably still work great for, say, chili, but not to great for something requesting over 300 degrees. 2) I had to open the oven door several time and decided to use an "instant read" thermometer to determine if it was cooked all the way through.  However, my thermometer is anything but "instant" despite what its name would like to convince you of.  3) does poking several holes in your break cause risk of losing precious "fluffing" air bubbles?  anyone?  4) I'm pretty sure slow bread braking can also cause it to over-rise and then there is too much air to support the shape and it can collapse from that.

I will say, it still tasted good- it was moist and not too dense, despite what it looks like.  I haven't given up, I'll just have to try again.  Next time I'll:
-make sure it's a sunny day, with a consistant temp of at least 300 degrees.
-maybe put it in before it's done rising in the pan all the way, allowing it to continue to rise during the slower baking process.
-give myself an excuse to buy this thermometer ? :D (in pink, obviously....)

Sun Oven Chronicles- Chicken Maryland with Rice

This recipe for Chicken Maryland.  Here's the summary:

Cooked 1 hr- rice on bottom, chicken uncovered on top.

The chicken came out:

Not crispy

Not browned

But very juicey!

Bacon not done

Rice mostly worked, a few crunchy bites- not sure if from the outside or what?  Next time I'll taste w/out stirring up first to see if it's clear which part didn't cook well.

 I brought it in and stuck it under the broiler for 5 minutes and it looked more like it should.  I guess the pans are broiler safe! :)

If we had to eat like this with no power, I wouldn't complain :)

Sun Oven Chronicles- Lemon Bars

So, I tried to make lemon bars in the sun oven.  And I kind of did...

You're supposed to bake the crust first.  Once it is nicely browned (30 minutes) add the filling and bake for 30 more minutes until it's setup.  THe only problem is not everything browns in the sunoven (usually it needs to be in there a long time)  I thought the crust looked done but when I poured in the lemon filling, it was clear that it wasn't.  The lemon in the spot where I poured it, broke the crust apart and went underneath.  So the lemon bars ended up with crust on top in some places, and crust on bottom in others.

interesting.

They tasted ok though, just looked weird.

Sun Oven Chronicles: A Few Fails...

Despite how it may seem, I've had a few fails in the sun oven too.  

There is this claim that the sun oven won't burn your food and your food will turn out more moist than in a traditional oven because of its "nondrying heat".  It also claims you can cook multiple layers of cookies because of its "even heating".  I of course enjoy proving people wrong found it my duty to challenge such claims.  

Test 1)

Roasted carrots.  Roasted carrots are soooo good.  However, they can dry out really easily (at least I seem to dry them out often) and so I thought I would try peeling and cutting a carrot and just sticking it in there and see what happens.  You can KINDA see their reflection in the top reflector, but it totally fogged up and I forgot to take an after shot (which wasn't much to look at...).  (and it was so long ago now, I have no idea how long I left them in for.... I would guess less than an hour.)

Basically, without olive oil, and at such low temperatures (350, when normally I roast at 425) they totally did dry out and weren't yet as soft as I would consider to be done.

 Ok. that WAS kind of unfair, since that's not how I would normally roast a carrot, exactly...

Test 2)
The accessory kit contains three stackable racks that you can use to bake or dehydrate three layers at a time, to make maximal use of the small oven and supposedly works because of the "even heating".

I made some oatmeal pumpkin cranberry cookies and froze the dough into balls (a phenomenon I have seen plenty online, but have yet to try myself) so that we would have easy-to-access, cookies on demand.  (kind of a dangerous thing, now that I'm writing it out...)  So I got out two of the racks, and put 4 frozen dough balls on each layer.  I can't remember how long I baked them for, but I know the recipe says 12 minutes and it was much longer than that.  At least 30 minutes.

 They look good right?  I brought them in for a comparison and after eating them I quickly realized two things: 1) the bottom rack was not cooked as well as the top and 2) both layers weren't really done yet.

Unfortunately, I don't think this test can be considered conclusive yet because I have since tried baking them in a regular oven and they also came out looking done, but the middles were still so mushy that if you tried to grab one off the cookie sheet, the middle would be left behind.

Boo.  Me thinks this test is to be continued...

Now about burning food...

Test 3)
This next test, I feel is also a bit unfair, BUT they do claim that your food won't burn, right?
Sundays are very tricky right now because we have church at the dreaded time of 1pm- a.k.a. naptime.  This means that after church is a mad dash to get food into our kids' bellies and put them right to bed.  I was going to just cook chili in the sun oven while we were gone, but then I knew I'd still have to do the cornbread when we got back.  Then it occurred to me that if nothing supposedly burns in the sun oven, maybe I could cook both the cornbread and the chili in the sun oven while we're gone.  I had a Young Women's presidency meeting before church, too, so that means it would all be in there over 4 hours...  I didn't take a picture, but I put the chili in the pot and then balanced a bread pan with the cornbread on top.

Here's what came of it:

 The cornbread turned out verrrrry dark and crusty on top.  BUT, the kids still ate it and it didn't actually have a burnt taste- it just wasn't as soft and tender as usual.

The chili was fine.  Not burnt at all.

After the multi-level cookie incident, (and before I discovered that they don't work well cooked when frozen) I tried baking them again and they weren't done after my initial check, and then I kinda forgot about them... (45-ish minutes later...)

Again, they weren't "burnt" as in blackened and burnt tasting, but they were totally crispy and hard- not how I wanted to eat them...  So yes, you can over-cook things if you're a doofus, but it is harder to burn foods than a regular oven.

Sun Oven Chronicles- Banana Bread

I have a favorite banana muffin recipe and I decided to try making a loaf of banana bread instead (my muffin pan won't fit).  Worked out great!

 I think it baked about 1 1/2 hours.

 One thing I like about the sun oven, is you don't have to watch your baked goods as closely, because it takes awhile to burn.  If you check on most things every 15 minutes, (not cookies, they're so small, they cook faster...) you're ok.

Sun Oven Chronicles- Flourless Chocolate Decadance

I admit.... if there's ever an emergency, I doubt I will be needing to bake a flourless chocolate torte... BUT I needed to make some for a YW activity (we were sharing our best recipes.  If you love chocolate... THIS is the cake for you!) and since I was making a double batch and it needs to be baked in a waterbath, I didn't quite have enough room in my regular oven to bake them all, so I decided to try out one of my 6" rounds in the Sun Oven, even though in the how-tos, one of the trouble-shooting things that can go wrong in the sun oven is having too much condensation on the glass, which can prevent the oven from getting as much sun inside... (was that sentence long enough for you?)

As you can see, it totally worked!!  I put my 6" cake pan inside an 9"x9" dark glass pyrex with about 1" of water and baked them in late afternoon.

This was a double experiment because the recipe has you make one batch in an 8" round (must be 2" high, and that even usually goes way over the top for me...), and I made a double batch into  2-6" rounds and 12 muffin tins, and had enough left over for 1 ramekin as well.  Point being, one 8" round is to be baked for 30 minutes, and I wasn't sure how long to do the smaller ones.  I think I baked this 6" round for 30 in the Sun Oven (my muffins only baked for about 15 minutes, and the otheI think...)  They both tasted great, but for some reason the Sun Oven one actually came out of the pan easier.  Weird...

However, not all my experiments have turned out dandy, as you shall soon see...

Sun Oven Chronicles!

In case you hadn't noticed, the baby food Fridays are over because I've not needed to make any more.

Never fear, something much nerdier is about to come forth- solar cooking!!

Jay and I have felt a push to be prepared for an emergency, and though we'd probably be okay with food for at least a couple of months, if we lost electricity, we'd be in big trouble.  We've debated quite a bit about what to rely on for cooking food, and I've been swayed by the Sun Oven.  I mostly love that it requires no fuel to store, and that I've been wishing for a double-oven since we moved here and this, believe it or not, may have given me my wish!

When I think of Solar Ovens, my first thought takes me back to a time when I tried to cook my own "pie crust cookies" in a homemade one with my friend Charlotte many, many, many moons ago.  As you may have guessed, that tin-foil-lined box covered in plastic wrap never got hot enough to do much more than turn our pie crust slimy.

Nice.

Well, this technology is *a bit* more advanced. :)

I've only had the Sun Oven for a week, but I've been cooking up a storm, and I'd like to chronicle my successes and failures here, so I can remember what worked and what didn't and be able to reference them in the future.  Who knows, maybe someone "out there" would learn something as well.

Without further ado, here's my first attempt: Granola Bars.

I love this recipe from mealmakeovermoms.com and I thought I'd give it a go in the sun oven.

First off, I was impressed that after only 20 minutes, it was at 325 F!  That was much quicker than I thought it would take.  You could also really feel the heat coming out when you opened up the oven to put the food in.

 The recipe says to bake them for 18 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  I checked them after 18 minutes and they weren't done, but then I forgot to set a timer again and sort of forgot about them...  I think they were probably in there about 45 minutes, luckily, they ended up being great!

 As you can see, they even browned a bit!  One of the great things about the Sun Oven is that it just heats up the air inside the oven, unlike a regular oven that blows heated air into the oven.  That means your food won't get dried out as it would in a regular oven if you say, forgot about it...

They turned out just as yummy as usual.  Hooray!

PS I bought my sun oven here- they are having a 20% off sale on the newer American version, until June 21st, if you're interested.