Monday, January 21, 2013

Making the Most of Summer

Perth is a very sunny city. Even on the cooler days in winter, the sun is still out there doing its thing.

The 'Mouse House' is a late 1960s place that is quite small and once the summer heat gets in, it can become very uncomfortable. Knowing this, very little cooking takes place over the warmer months, where we tend to rely fairly heavily on the barbecue instead.

I had read about solar cooking at Eat at Dixiebelle's and seen one in action at the Royal Show and was very excited at the idea of being about to cook and bake throughout the Perth heat without heating the house. The possibility of being able to dehydrate food was also great. The experiences I have had with dehydrating (here and here) were really rewarding but I felt guilty with running an appliance for about 12 hours.

After a lot of research I decided on a Global Sun Oven. Although these are transported from the U.S., the distributor was only a suburb away so I was about to head over to their house and have a good look and a chat.

I was so excited about getting the oven that I put it to work straight away. What better way to test an oven that to cook something chocolatey.


The next day I thought that I should start having a look at some different bread recipes. Bread from the local bakery is really tasteless and filled with air, something that I just couldn't handle eating all summer. I found a great recipe for Portuguese White Bread, but do you think I can remember where I saved the recipe?


Our first sun oven bread loaf. Delicious.

On a trip down south, I bought a huge box of apricots from a road side stall in Mount Barker for $15. When we returned home the solar oven was again facing skyward. (The difference between cooking and dehydrating is that the lid is clamped down during cooking and when dehydrating, the lid sits on top of the latches to let the air escape.)



Unfortunately I didn't get around to taking any photos of the dried apricots before they were all eaten. We have also been really happy with the results from the apples, pear and nectarines. Yum.

Over the last few weeks we have had the oven out just about every day either cooking or dehydrating.

I thought I would show you the results of today's cooking. I have been using this recipe a lot lately as I wanted to make white bread recipes first to experiment with the oven. I split the mix in half and used half as a focaccia and the other as a small loaf.





And the house is pretty cool.

Take care

10 comments:

  1. Sounds like you have done a good job by buying that oven!

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    1. I have been really happy with the results so far. I am looking forward to doing some slow, all-day cooking of curries and stews once the weather cools down.
      I hope you are keeping warm.

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  2. very interesting, I was just saying to my husband that it was a shame we didn't have one of these during our stupid hot weather in QLD recently, at least we could have got something useful out of it!

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    1. I have been really impressed with it. There are quite a few sites online that show you how to make one if you wanted to give solar cooking a go. The great thing about it is you can still cook with it during winter as long as you have sunlight.

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  3. Great results. Don't you hate it when you can't find a great recipe. I am trying to get as many on my blog as possible that way they are not lost. Keep us updated with the results.

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    1. I usually get them online as quick as I can but just seemed to be a little too slow over Christmas/New Year.
      Today I think there will be a little more fruit going in. It's going to be sunny here for the next week so far.

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  4. your focaccia looks great! I've never heard of a sun oven before.

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    1. The focaccia was gone in a matter f seconds. With 2 teenage boys here, the bread didn't stand a chance.
      There are quite a few different brands and types of sun ovens. If you lived a little closer you could have come around for a cuppa and a piece of solar cooked cake.

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  5. Oh I'd take you up on the cuppa and solar cooked cake! I'd never heard of the oven either. I'll be doing my own research now. Love your loaves, they look exactly what Z would like too.

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    1. You're more than welcome any time you want to 'drop in'. 3000km isn't that far.
      The bread has been really delicious and it is quite hard to burn! I'm sure Z would love it too. Probably like the choc hazelnut spread we made today too.
      x

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Thanks so much for dropping by. I really appreciate any comments you have to make.

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