Cooking Guidelines

Time for cooking depends on the temperature of the food as it is placed in the oven, as well as the brightness of the day.

Allow plenty of time. Foods hold well in the solar oven without scorching or drying out.

Focus oven and check food about once an hour when you're just getting started. Later, you'll relax and tend the cooking only once every two or three hours.

Most recipes calling for a higher temperature will do fine if you give them more time.

High altitude adjustment: The temperature of boiling water is reduced as the altitude increases. For instance the boiling temperature of water is only 203F degrees at 6000 ft. and this slows the cooking. Vegetables and dried beans may be difficult to cook at high altitudes because of this effect. You may try cooking your food in darkened canning jars with regular canning lids and rings tightened. The rubber seal allows excess pressure to be released but a low increase in pressure is retained and speeds cooking. We only recommend standard canning jars and lids as they are designed for pressure.

GOOD: Clear and sunny. Oven will preheat to 275° - 300°F (130° - 145° Celsius.)

FAIR: Hazy or partly cloudy. Oven will preheat to 200° - 225°F (95° - 105° Celsius.)

BAD: On a completely cloudy day one cannot cook with the sun. If the clouds move in and completely block the sun while cooking, simply finish the cooking in a non-solar way.

If food partially cooks and then rests in incubation temperatures, pathogens may grow in 2 or 3 hours. Partially cooked food should be removed from the cooker as soon as
feasible.

CHARACTERISTICS OF HOW FOOD COOKS IN A SOLAR OVEN

Easy to Cook: (If started early, will be done on a fair day.) Rice, whole grains, rolled grain flakes, cereals, most egg dishes, chops, ribs, fish and most poultry, puddings, crackers, cookies, brownies, fruits, green vegetables, shredded vegetables. Medium to Cook: (If started early, ready by noon on a good day or by evening on a fair day.) Cornbread, gingerbread, medium-sized roasts, quick breads, yeast rolls and buns, soufflés, root vegetables such as potatoes, turnips, some beans such as lentils, black-eyed peas, black beans. Difficult to Cook: (If started early, ready for late lunch or dinner on a good day.) Whole turkey, large roasts, stews and soup and bean pots (unless brought to a boil before placing in solar oven), most yeast breads and cakes, pre-soaked pinto beans, field peas, garbanzo beans, small navy beans, soybeans, kidney beans, red beans, yellow peas, dried peas, split green or brown peas.

Solar cookers work using the greenhouse effect to trap energy. Students have experienced the greenhouse effect many times when they've opened a car door only to find the car interior warm on a cold winter day, or extremely hot on a summer day.

There is a wide variety of solar cookers students may build, some which can be constructed during one class period and others which may require a whole day, but they all work.

Solar Box Cookers, constructed using cardboard, newspaper, aluminum foil, and a piece of glass will typically cook at temperatures between 225 - 275 F.

It is a real oven, and will cook most anything you would put in your oven at home. They are considered a slow cooker, usually taking about twice as long as your conventional oven.

1. Put your food out early and you can run errands etc, and not worry about your home burning down, and the food can be left unattended for hours without fear of overcooking or burning.

3. There's no need to rotate the oven to follow the sun, though it will improve cooking times.

4. You can take a solar oven to the beach or camping, and you can also use it to pasteurize water.

5. A Solar Cooker is very portable. Often, during emergencies,families have to move quickly. The Solar Cooker is lightweight and carries like a suitcase.

6. Solar Cookers will cook any food without dangerous flammable fuels and fire. A Solar Cooker uses no fire to cook food so there is no chance of accidental fire. It is easier for a cook or a bystander to get burned from falling pots or wandering hands during use. Cooking fires must be tended to constantly. This creates an increased burn risk to a child or an adult.

7. The Solar Cooker is safe to use in emergency situations, and every day. While the oven itself will get very hot, the glass and reflectors do not. The glass lid may get hot to the touch (140 degrees F.) but it will not burn the skin when casually touched. The reflectors do not give off heat.

8 .Solar Cookers produce no smoke during the cooking process. A solar oven produces very little smell because moisture is retained in the food. It is the moisture molecules from the food released into the air that we smell when baking in a regular
oven. The gas or electric burner constantly replaces air in the oven and the moisture is therefore released into the room, drying out the food. Solar cookers only use sunlight to cook food and smoke is not a byproduct. When the food retains its moisture it is less likely to burn.

9. Food is less likely to burn, does not need stirring and will not stick to the pan when solar cooking. This allows for easier clean-up, saving precious water and lessens stress in emergencies.

~ COOK WITH THE SUN You can cook almost anything with the sun and a "low tech" solar oven! Lots of Information, Recipes, Directions,