Our Family

Our Family
Liberty, Heather, Glade, Ryan, Kim

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Soaking in the Rays


It has actually been pretty warm and sunny around here the last week or so (nothing to you Arizonans though). It actually got into the upper 80s on Friday. I have used my Sun Oven more than ever before. I made 6 loaves of bread in it (2 at a time) on Friday, and cooked dinner in it on Thursday, including the rice. So that has been kinda fun. We don't have air conditioning, so I hate to heat the house up too much by using the oven.

By the way, I have had a couple of questions about it, so here's the low-down. My parents bought a sun oven for each of their kids for Christmas. It hasn't been quite as good for here, because of so many clouds, but anywhere in the Southwest seems like it would be wonderful. I haven't used it a TON yet though.

With the Sun Oven you have to plan ahead. It has an adjustable height with a tray inside that swings keep whatever you're cooking flat. You put it out facing the sun and at the right height for about 20-30 minutes to preheat. The warmer days work the best up here. Then you put whatever you're cooking inside. The door latches closed and cooking begins. My experience has been that it takes longer for things to cook, but it is kind of fun to be doing it all with the sun's energy. Just go out every 30-60 minutes to adjust the height and direction of the Sun Oven to keep it facing the sun. The best times to cook are about 11:00-4:00 or so. It is sometimes hard to get it up into the higher temperatures, which is why it takes longer to cook things. This past week I have gotten it up to 350* though, and it held on 325* for a few hours on the hottest days. Not quite as warm as I would bake in a normal oven, but good enough to do the job.

Overall, it's been kind of a fun experiment. I would like to cook in it more. The coming week is supposed to bring clouds, although we'll have to see how much since it is still supposed to be in the 80s.

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