Even on days when I’m taking a break from cooking I still like to set up my Sun Oven. It comes in handy for all sorts of things. Keeping a pot of coffee warm, heating up a frozen meal for lunch, and making Sun Oven Sun Tea  are just a few of the things that come to mind.

Today I used it to roast some garlic.

Roasted garlic has almost as many uses as a Sun Oven. Spread it on bread, use it in soups, mix it with some sour cream for topping baked potatoes.

Just take a head of garlic, remove the excess papery skin, put it in a small, dark pot or metal mug, cover, and pop it in the Sun Oven 30 to 40 minutes. Let it cool then squeeze the garlic out. If you don’t have a small lid use a dark tea towel as a cover. A muffin tin works great if you want to make a big batch.

Anyone who’s ever had Sun Oven roasted chicken will tell you that it’s some of the juiciest chicken they’ve ever tasted. The meat is fall-off-the-bone tender and infused with flavor.

Crisp skin can be a challenge though. Too often you get a little bit of crispy skin on the very top of the breast while the rest of the bird is submersed in the cooking liquid. And nobody likes soggy skin.

Placing a rack on the bottom of the roasting pan will elevate the chicken, or any other kind of roast, just enough to keep it dry. But don’t discard the juice, drizzle a little bit over each serving just before bringing it to the table.

I read somewhere that meat loaf is one of America’s twelve most popular foods.

Cooking it in the Sun Oven is a good way to ensure it maintains its high ranking.

Given that it is so popular I’m sure most of you have your own favorite recipe.

To adapt yours for solar cooking you’ll only need to find a way to cover it. You could always go the aluminum foil and tea towel route, but I prefer to use an oval roasting pan. Mine is 14 inches long and just fits in the cooking chamber by placing it on the leveling tray on a diagonal.

It’s big enough to hold a standard bread pan with room for potatoes around the sides. The meat loaf comes out nicely browned and any juices that might overflow will be caught in the roasting pan.

For a larger loaf I line the roasting pan with foil and bake it without the bread pan. The foil makes it easy to lift the meat loaf out and the pan keeps the juices out of the Sun Oven’s cooking chamber. On a final note, my two favorite meat loaf recipes can be found here and here.

Anytime a recipe calls for sautéing it can be done in the Sun Oven. Just remember to keep an eye on it, sautéed garlic (or anything else) is almost as easy to burn in the Sun Oven as it is stovetop.

Sun Oven Chickpea and Cauliflower Soup

Ingredients

1/2 pound dried chick peas, previously cooked, drained reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

10 ounces cauliflower flowerets, fresh or frozen (thawed)

1 carton or canned (26.5 ounces) chopped tomatoes

8 black olives, pitted and chopped

1 tablespoon vinegar

salt

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1 pound whole-wheat pasta, shells, elbow macaroni or similar shape, cooked according to package instructions

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Set Sun Oven out to preheat.

In a large pot, sauté the garlic in the olive oil until golden brown; can be done in the Sun Oven or stovetop. Add the red pepper and cauliflower. Stir to coat. Add tomatoes, olives, vinegar, chickpeas and 1/2 cup reserved chickpea cooking water. Season with salt. Cover and simmer in the Sun Oven until the the cauliflower is tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Pour the soup into a large serving bowl. Stir in parsley, cooked pasta, and cheese. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

There are an infinite number of chicken recipes that are only improved by solar cooking but obtaining crispy skin is a challenge. A challenge I’m still working on. The moist environment and relatively low temperature of the Sun Oven’s cooking chamber lends itself better to slow braising. Not the best cooking method if you want some crunch to your chicken.

After hearing about a new way to prep chicken, or other meats, for roasting on Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s radio show “The Splendid Table” this weekend I had to give it a try. Her  guest, Molly Stevens, described a simple method of seasoning the meat with kosher salt and letting it mature in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to (I believe) two days.

With sunny days in the forecast for the rest of the week I got a batch going Tuesday evening. All you have to do is season the chicken with kosher salt, about 1/2 teaspoon per pound. Place it in a baking dish and refrigerate it, uncovered over night or longer. To cook it I let it come to room temperature before putting it on a rack in a baking dish. Then I covered the dish with tin foil and a dark tea towel and put it in a preheated Sun Oven.

After an hour I took a peek. It didn’t look quite done and the skin was still a pale yellow. At this point I decided to let it cook uncovered hoping the skin would brown more. After another 20 minutes in the Sun Oven the result was meat that was moist and delicious and skin that wasn’t soggy but wasn’t exactly crisp either. I think I should have resisted the temptation to uncover the dish. I’ll try it again; hopefully next week’s forecast will be favorable to starting a dish so far in advance. That’s always a risk for the solar chef.

Using a Sun Oven does not mean you need to give up all convenience foods. It’s our busy time of year and I just don’t have the time for a lot of prep work.

Luckily there are good tasting, easy to prepare, healthy boxed mixes on the market that come out great in the Sun Oven. The instructions usually say to bring some water to a boil before adding the dry ingredients. For solar cooking just mix the dry ingredients in a pot with room temperature water, cover and put it in the Sun Oven. The cooking time will be longer.

The lentils I made today took 45 minutes as opposed to the 10 it would have taken to cook them stovetop. Despite the longer cooking time I still find using the Sun Oven more convenient since I can go about my business without the risk of burning anything.

If you have the time many of these mixes can be spruced up with the addition of some freshly chopped vegetables for a more personal touch.

Roasted Carrots

Ingredients

4 medium carrots

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preparation

Spread carrots out on a small (toaster-oven sized) rimmed baking sheet. Toss with oil, cumin seeds and salt. Roast, uncovered, in Sun Oven until soft, 30 to 45 minutes.

The recipe I used for Wednesday’s pie left me with a quite a bit of extra dough. If I’d left it in the freezer I’m sure it would have wound up pushed to the back and forgotten, so today I put it to good use with some of the other Thanksgiving Day leftovers and make some quiche. After consulting a few different recipes online I decided to wing it. First I baked the crusts (in the Sun Oven, of course) then filled the individual tart pans with a mixture of 4 eggs, about 2/3 a cup of mashed sweet potato, cooked chopped swiss chard, some crumbled cooked bacon, and grated Parmesan cheese. Then back to the Sun Oven to bake until the filling was set. The four pans would fit on the leveling tray, but for easier handling, and better air flow, I used two of the dehydrating racks as pictured below.

The weather forecast for Thanksgiving Day here in Southern California isn’t looking favorable for solar cooking. I’m afraid this year I’ll have to plan on roasting my turkey indoors, but, if you are lucky enough to be in a part of the world where you’ll get enough sunshine, solar roasted turkey is as easy as it is delicious. When I lived in Arizona I was able to cook a 14 pound bird (unstuffed) in three and a half hours. Here’s how it’s done:

Remove the leveling tray from the Sun Oven’s cooking chamber and place a rack on the bottom of it. Put the seasoned turkey in an oven roasting bag, place a probe thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, seal the oven bag, and place the turkey in the Sun Oven. Roast until thermometer reaches 180˚F. Carefully transfer cooked turkey to a large roasting pan. Cut bag open, allowing cooking juices to drain into the pan. Transfer turkey to a cutting board and let rest for ten minutes before carving. Use cooking liquid to prepare gravy. Enjoy!

The new dehydrating racks were the perfect excuse I’d been looking for to invest in some silicone baking mats – just in time for the holiday baking season.

The first thing I wanted to experiment with was a batch of crunchy crackers. I was so excited to try them out that I completely forgot about the weather. By the time they were ready for baking, the skies, as predicted, were overcast.

This batch was baked on the dehydrating racks and the silpat mats in my conventional gas oven. I don’t know why, but I was surprised to find that they didn’t taste quite as good as solar baked crackers. I’ll wait for a more favorable forecast for my next batch.

And in case you’re wondering, the mats measure 11.75 in. x 8.25 in.