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.

Say Ahh!

**spoiler alert** I am using some pictures from our fabulous trip that has not been named to prove a point in this post.

Hazel has a hard time eating when her siblings are around because, gosh darnit!  They are so interesting to watch, right?  I could often be heard saying things like, "Go play somewhere else, please!  Hazel won't stop looking and you and I can't see her mouth!!"  

Then I had the brilliant idea to have the kids get behind me and say "ahhhh" to encourage her to open her mouth.  It works pretty well!!  However, I think Hazel now thinks that's what you're supposed to do to greet people because it seems like whenever she meets someone new, she's doing this now:

An even better discovery, though, is to let them do the feeding.

Yes, more of it ends up on her face and the floor than when I do it, but now I can do dishes and feed the baby at the same time :)

Upcycled Slide

Before I overload you with pictures from our trip, I need to backtrack a bit and show what fun a tiny slide and a blanket can provide in the back yard.  The slide is no longer fun for sliding, but rather for...

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....)

Happy Birthday Jay!

I'm Back!!

I had a bunch of posts scheduled that I was supposed to finish and have automatically put up while we were visiting Jay's fam in Massachusetts the past couple of weeks, but I failed miserably.  (but I don't care because I'm so excited to post many many photos I took while there...)

Really quickly, here's a pic from Jay's birthday!  

The Frog wanted to put the candles in.  I thought it would be a great counting exercise (28 is pretty high for a 4-year old, right?) until I realized he wasn't really counting.  I made him call it quits.

I counted them after and there ended up being 29.  Pretty good eh?

To the best husband.  ever.  period.  you have my whole heart and then some :)