The Sun Oven

About a year ago, my aunt showed my mom how useful and effective a sun oven is, and last week Mom and I got to try out her new Sun Oven for ourselves. We made stuffed peppers in it and they were delicious.

Solar cooking is such a smart way to cook for your family if you live in a place with lots of sun, like I do. Instead of heating up the house to cook dinner or bake bread (particularly in the summer), you can take the food outside and let the sun cook it for you! This is helpful to the environment and easy on your pocketbook (after the initial investment). Plus, the Sun Oven has other really cool points, as listed on their website:

• They are ideal for everyday use in your back yard, at picnics, while camping, or in the event of a power failure.

• Even though it is called an oven, food can be baked, boiled, and steamed at cooking temperatures of 360° F to 400° F. There is no movement of air in the oven, allowing food to stay moist and tender and flavorful. Sun-baked roasts are tastier and more succulent, and sun-baked bread has unparalleled taste and texture.

• Temperatures in the oven rise slowly and evenly, allowing complex carbohydrates time to break down into simple sugars, emanating subtle natural flavors. The even temperatures prevent burning, so you do not need to stir your food while it is cooking.
  
  And one of my very favorite discoveries: a sun oven can be used like a natural crock pot!:

• There are two ways to cook with this great tool. If you refocus the oven to follow the sun every 25 to 30 minutes, cooking times and methods will be very similar to cooking with a conventional stove or oven. Or it can be used for slow cooking, much like a crock-pot. You can prepare your dinner, put it in the oven, point it where the sun will be approximately halfway through the time you will be gone. Leave, and come home to a tasty, slow-cooked dinner. If you run late, there is no need to worry; it will keep your food warm, moist, and fresh for hours.

If you're interested, check out the above website for a demo video, prices, and more information. (Too bad they're not paying me to be a commercial, eh?)

Gardening: "A Subversive Activity"?

Fellow gardeners: Have you ever considered your garden "a subversive plot"? I hadn't. But it makes sense. And knowing this, I feel more empowered and impelled to continue this subversive activity (hee hee)...

Below is an 18-minute video of Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International. He believes "A genuine shift of power in society will follow when people take food production into their own hands. Some staggering statistics are offered here, that really take the conversation beyond gardening as simply a healthy, virtuous hobby." (Note: his humor is a little hokey at the beginning, so just bear with him. He's got some really good things to say. :) )

Don't You Spend a Long Time Cooking?

This is a common question people ask me, so I thought I'd write a general response here.

In thinking about the best way to answer this question, I've decided I should ask back this question: "How long is a long time?" If you're used to spending a maximum of 30 minutes a day on food preparation, then yes, I do spend longer. On average, I spend about three times that--on those nights I cook.

But what is the nutritional content of your 30 minutes of preparation? And how important to you is your family's nutrition? It's one of my top priorities, which is why I:

• Grind my own flour (See here for details on money saved with this practice);
• Cook from scratch -This means no prepared items (or very few). In other words, no boxed or frozen dinners (I do use dried spaghetti and other pastas on occasion, but they're always wheat/whole grain pastas), and no canned soups (although I will use canned broth if I don't have any homemade broth) since they're full of MSG and/or sugars;
• Use lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, thanks to the Bountiful Baskets program, which makes them plentiful at our house and very affordable.

Something else to keep in mind is that we eat simply. Good, healthful, hearty food, but simple: 

Breakfast at least 5 days a week is either hot cracked wheat ("mush") or oatmeal, which takes a total of 5 minutes to prepare--every other day, since I make enough for two days each time and we warm it up in the microwave. 

Lunch is sandwiches made with homemade 100% whole wheat bread (which I schedule time to make every two weeks) and maybe some fruit. This takes me 15 minutes at the most, depending on the type of sandwich: grilled cheese take longer to make than peanut butter and honey.

That leaves dinner, which is the only meal I have to plan each day. Since our dinners are based on the contents of our Bountiful Baskets, all I have to do is plan what meals to make those veggies into (since the fruit gets eaten quickly and with little preparation needed). And most days I spend a total of an hour and a half (90 minutes) cooking this vegetable-based meal. Nearly every time I cook dinner, I make enough for at least one night of leftovers, which means I'm not cooking 7 dinners a week. In fact, it's more like 3 or 4.

True, too, I will often make, say, a large salad one night as the main course (see Super Salad), and then pull it out another two or three (or more) nights as a side dish. So while I usually offer a main course and two side dishes for dinner, very often one or both of those sides was made for another meal (for example, if I made breadsticks or rolls to go with a soup that we've already eaten), I still have a bread item available to serve with a different main course, perhaps along with the salad I've previously made.

As Liz Edmunds, the Food Nanny, points out, good, healthful food often takes longer than 30 minutes to make, but that's not a bad thing. Just plan for it and make the necessary adjustments. Your family will thank you!

P.S.  A bonus to the time spent in food preparation (and this keeps me going because I don't love cooking) is that while I do it I can listen to a book on CD, to my daughter read to me, or to music. And quite often, one of my daughters will ask to help me, which means quality time together talking and learning.