July 2011 - The solar cooker

Our solar cooker

Now I ask you - what homestead is complete without a solar cooker?

We acquired one in June, but actually only had an opportunity to try is in July due to rain, rain and more rain... but we should not complain though seeing at it benefits all of our gardens, and the wild flora as well.

But the day finally came where we had glorious sunshine, and promptly decided to try our new solar cooker. So .. Jan found some chicken pieces, some random veg, and placed everything in a glass casserole. This went into the cooker with lid on, and then we just had to let father sun do his job. :-)

Our casserole in the cooker

The notion of not having to do anything at all to cook a meal was quick strange, and initially we would check the cooker very 5 or 10 minutes just to see if it was actually working. We soon discovered though that cooking food this way takes longer than an oven, and we then left it.

Jan checking our lunch

 It was still all rather exciting though, and we discussed it at length wondering what a solar cooked meal would taste like even..

About 2-3 hours later after having checked the cooker probably a hundred times in between, and having watched it slowly start to simmer, and emit the most amazing smells, we took it out of the cooker. But I have to add, that this thing is super efficient, and even though your food takes longer to cook, the steam and heat created inside is very very hot!!

Our chicken casserole

So we had our chicken casserole for lunch, and boy did it taste good. The flavours were so pure, and untarnished if one can say say that about food. It was a nice simple dish,with a lovely flavour... definitely worth the investment, and definitely something we will do again once we have more sunshine days. :-)