Solar cooking at home, attempt 1
Jun. 22nd, 2012 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidAlmost all the cooking I do at Burning Man is solar, in a metal container (a flatter-rather-than-tall Indian spice tin that came with smaller cups for individual spices) set on a handy box (keeping it above the dusty ground), often with a bit of aluminum foil curved around it to help focus the sunlight a little (no clue if this is actually effective). However, I've only attempted couscous- or bulghur-based dishes, with foods that are ready to eat, or ready to eat with a bit of rehydration (Indian pouch meals, tuna, dehydrated vegetables, dried fruit, nuts, canned chickpeas, jarred artichoke hearts, tomato sauce, etc.).
Last year one of the houses across the street was getting new windows, and I snagged one of the old ones, with the vague idea that I could use it on the porch as part of a solar oven, or perhaps a dryer (better to use the sun than the oven, especially at certain temperatures!). However, this didn't get me to do more than mooch around on the internet in search of easy plans for cheap solar ovens, until yesterday, in an attempt to make lemonade out of the heat (as it were).
I started soaking some beans (no clue why beans, but that was what occurred to me first, and I couldn't seem to think of anything else until far afterward, when the idea of gluten-free peanut butter cookies seemed like they might work), and thought about what pot might work. I probably should have used the Indian spice tin again, but I remembered I had a black ceramic casserole with a lid that was pareve (the spice tin is milchig, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted all the beans to end up in dairy applications). Unfortunately, I'd managed to burn stuff onto the bottom of the casserole years ago, and I'd put it in the back hallway in frustration after some attempts to get the gunk off. Lo and behold, in this case, that turned out to be the right thing to have done: the burned-on stuff had apparently lightly baked itself off the ceramic while sitting in the hot back hallway, so I was able to lift it out before washing the pot out. Victory with something I'd mostly given up on! Huzzah!
I found a cardboard box that was just taller than the casserole with the lid on, and lined it with foil. I was too lazy to figure out where I had the right kind of glue (glue sticks?), so I used blue painter's tape to get it to stay. I drained the beans, put them in with a bunch of water, put the covered pot into the foil-lined box, and put the window on top, out in the sunlight pouring onto my porch.
I checked it a few hours later, and while the water was definitely hot (um, sticking fingers into water that started out reasonably warm and has presumably gotten warmer? foolish, at best; luckily the burns were minor), the beans were undercooked. I had out-of-house plans for much of the afternoon, and was running late to get to my evening meeting, so didn't check on them again until night, full dark.
The results: still-undercooked beans in too much water. I ended up using conventional means to cook them further this morning.
Variables to play with next time:
Last year one of the houses across the street was getting new windows, and I snagged one of the old ones, with the vague idea that I could use it on the porch as part of a solar oven, or perhaps a dryer (better to use the sun than the oven, especially at certain temperatures!). However, this didn't get me to do more than mooch around on the internet in search of easy plans for cheap solar ovens, until yesterday, in an attempt to make lemonade out of the heat (as it were).
I started soaking some beans (no clue why beans, but that was what occurred to me first, and I couldn't seem to think of anything else until far afterward, when the idea of gluten-free peanut butter cookies seemed like they might work), and thought about what pot might work. I probably should have used the Indian spice tin again, but I remembered I had a black ceramic casserole with a lid that was pareve (the spice tin is milchig, and I wasn't sure whether I wanted all the beans to end up in dairy applications). Unfortunately, I'd managed to burn stuff onto the bottom of the casserole years ago, and I'd put it in the back hallway in frustration after some attempts to get the gunk off. Lo and behold, in this case, that turned out to be the right thing to have done: the burned-on stuff had apparently lightly baked itself off the ceramic while sitting in the hot back hallway, so I was able to lift it out before washing the pot out. Victory with something I'd mostly given up on! Huzzah!
I found a cardboard box that was just taller than the casserole with the lid on, and lined it with foil. I was too lazy to figure out where I had the right kind of glue (glue sticks?), so I used blue painter's tape to get it to stay. I drained the beans, put them in with a bunch of water, put the covered pot into the foil-lined box, and put the window on top, out in the sunlight pouring onto my porch.
I checked it a few hours later, and while the water was definitely hot (um, sticking fingers into water that started out reasonably warm and has presumably gotten warmer? foolish, at best; luckily the burns were minor), the beans were undercooked. I had out-of-house plans for much of the afternoon, and was running late to get to my evening meeting, so didn't check on them again until night, full dark.
The results: still-undercooked beans in too much water. I ended up using conventional means to cook them further this morning.
Variables to play with next time:
- plan enough in advance to have the beans soak properly
- less water, just to cover, since it won't be vigorously boiling away
- figure out how to have one flap of the box top propped up to reflect into the box (more than one isn't feasible when using the window as a top; it is far larger than the box (or get another top, of course, and use more flaps to focus the sunlight better)
- put a smaller box inside the current box, and/or insulate it better
- and of course, try cooking something a bit more amenable to being slightly underdone, such as the aforementioned cookies