# Solar Cooking - Sheppards Pie



## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

We finally got a one day break in the hazy semi cloudy days, and since I'm working from home today I jumped on the opportunity to use my Sun Oven! 

I made a bisquick pie crust, then I mixed 2 lbs of ground beef I canned last weekend when we were getting all the heavy rains, with 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, dried onion flakes and garlic to flavor, then top with cheese and in the Sun Oven it went!

Those stackable baking pots that come with the package I bought are deceptively big. They look small to me because I dont do a lot of baking with pans like that, but they sure do pack it in! I cant wait to use this more often now that the weather is starting to cooperate again. Next bright sunny day forecast is Saturday so I need to plan something else to try!


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

Baking bread today!


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Great job on your first solar cooking endeavor*

Way to go...that is a great recipe to start out your solar cooking with.

We cooked six loaves of Banana Nut Bread and the filling for Chilean Empanadas yesterday as well as broccoli on the parabolic.

And last Saturday we used our Sun Ovens for Bacon, Six loaves of white bread, Blueberry Quick bread and more...

Lots of sunshine to take advantage of.

Anyone else out there who has been taking advantage of the sun's free energy?


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

some pic's of my very tasty successful solar cooking! 










this is monks pie before:










this is monks pie after being topped with cheese and baked in the oven. My grandma liked to put tomato slices on top, but she stopped because I didnt like it, now I'm starting to reconsider that and I'm sorry grandma


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

Looks good.

You might consider posting the recipe here.
I would like to try it.

Maybe even share it with the visitors on our website recipes page
if you don't mind.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

The bread was a "no kneed" box from the grocery store, Fleischmann's brand, that one was Country White I think it was, sorry already pitched the box. It had the flour, a packet of their Rapid Rise yeast, and a packet of sugar to feed the yeast. (4g of sugar, I weighed it because I was curious for when try milling my own flour how much to use)

I just followed the directions on the box as far as mixing everything, I had the sun oven already setup and closed coming up to temp, and then I set the dough in the baking pot outside in the sun to rise, then baked it for 2 hours, from noon - 2pm, every 30 mins checking to adjust the direct sunlight with the little calibration holes on the oven.

The monks pie I had to change up the recipe to accommodate the size of the cooking pot but I was fine with making a lot because I wanted leftovers anyway.

1 cup of bisquick and 1/4 cup of water to make the crust (I had to use 4 cups of bisquick + 1 cup of water to completely line the bottom and sides of the pot with 1/4" or more of crust.

I used 2 lbs of ground beef that I had already browned and canned the week before. I added 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and dried onion flakes, and I put in some minced garlic too stir that all together. Cover with cheese, I use a mix of cheddar and jack, and I used a LOT!

I probably cooked this much longer than I really needed to, I think that was in the oven from 10am to 1:30 or 2pm, I forget, and again, I was checking every 30 mins to adjust for direct sunlight.

I'm going to buy one of those high temp BBQ thermometers so I can get a better idea of how quickly the oven works. Still though, you can see in the picture it doesnt burn, the cheese was completely melted, the bisquick crust was **perfect!!!!**


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

Well, that's an easy and simple recipe.

I will definitely try this in my solar oven just as soon as I get some more Bisquick.
I might just make it, along with some other things, for our upcoming solar cooking demo we are doing for a large church group on March 29th.

My wife also wants me to make some Chilean Sopapilla (Chilean Fry-bread)on the parabolic to sample out that day as well.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

I cant wait to get the parabolic dish!  if everything goes to plan I will be contacting you soon!

Wednesday is going to be pot roast I think, it's the last real sunny day in the upcoming forecast so I want to cook that when it's ideal and I happen to be working from home that day so I can go out and adjust the oven every 30 mins, etc..

the rest of the week is showing partly cloudy so I'm thinking I might start playing around with the WAPI thing! Why not try pasteurizing water when I'm here at home and life is great as opposed to first time out in the boonies on my land in AZ when I havent done it before and dont know what to expect, right?

I probably need to start keeping a log of what I'm cooking, when I start it, how long I cook it, what the weather is and if I really go nuts I could get one of those light meters that photographers use. 

I'm an IT geek so I get my freak on when I'm crunching numbers and experimenting.


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Sharing your solar cooker experiences*

We have lots of users that like to keep logs and to analyze and know the "hows, wheres, whys, whats" etc. of their solar cooking.
I am a bit like that, but not near as much as some people.

And others, they are just content with the fact that it works and they can cook their food with the power of the sun.

If you ever want to share your insights, and experiences with your solar cooking endeavors you are always welcome to do so on our site as well.
We have lots of visitors that really like to read what other people's experiences are with regards to solar cooking. And they love the detailed and technical stuff also.

The WAPI you received is a handy little device that can be used hundreds of times over for testing the pasteurization level of your water and it does not only have to be used with a solar cooker, it can work in boiling water over flames as well.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

more experimenting today!

I used both stackable pans today, I put a 2lb pot roast in one, covered with a mix of 1 can golden mushroom soup, 1 can cream of mushroom soup w/roasted garlic and 1 can of diced hot ortega chilies.

cooked from noon to 3:40'ish and was fantastic! very tender, very juicy and absolutely delicious!










I also baked potatoes, I tried two ways, first was just, 2 whole potatoes, I did gouge them a few times with a fork for venting though. force of habit from microwaving so many I guess... and the other way I cubed up two more and those I dusted with salt and pepper and then lightly covered with tobasco sauce.

They were perfect! the whole taters were easily mashed up and cooked thoroughly throughout. The cubed ones were delicious and that's just about as hassle free as you can get!

No pic on those, taters are taters but they are really tasty 

I'm really liking this solar oven and I highly recommend you look into it. Next sunny days for me when I'm home are Sunday and Monday so I'm probably going to do a few loaves of bread and then I'm not sure about Monday... I'll figure that out

Maybe a soup, I'll see if any of those copycat recipes sites have the zuppa toscano recipe from Olive Garden. That's a pretty popular one so I bet it's out on the web somewhere and it's really good!


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

Dakine said:


> I'm really liking this solar oven and I highly recommend you look into it. Next sunny days for me when I'm home are Sunday and Monday so I'm probably going to do a few loaves of bread and then I'm not sure about Monday... I'll figure that out
> 
> Maybe a soup, I'll see if any of those copycat recipes sites have the zuppa toscano recipe from Olive Garden. That's a pretty popular one so I bet it's out on the web somewhere and it's really good!


ah oh, It looks like you've become addicted to solar cooked food! 

That is one of the inherent risks when you start cooking great food with free energy and getting great results. All of a a sudden...you are wanting to try and solar cook every thing.

We fell under the influence years ago and have pretty much solar cooked everything you can think of (well, except maybe some of those really exotic fancy dishes)

We have cooked lobster, crab, ribs, angel food cake, chocolate cheesecake, mango cheesecake, bundt cake, Spanish Paella, etc. and a lot of common, everyday recipes as well.
And our solar cookers are great for cooking our food storage items from dehydrated to freeze dried to MRE's and all of our grains and beans etc.

Congratulations on your successes and I hope you have fun with many more.

Happy Solar Cooking


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Pork Roast and Brown Rice*

Dakine

Today I cooked a pork roast and brown rice in my Sun Ovens and we were eating dinner when my wife and youngest son walked in at 4:40 PM (early dinner today)

I think your roast looked better and was probably tastier since it was beef.



















And a fishstick lunch in the Sun Oven today as well...


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

Have you cooked chili or soup in the sun oven? If so, how does it handle dishes with wet ingredients?


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

Yes, we do, lots of soups, stews, chilis and casseroles in our sun ovens.
I made a really good five meat chili about four weeks ago, but I don't remember how I did it, or rather all the ingredients I used.
I'll have to experiment again.

Solar ovens are great slow cookers for soups and chilis...set them out
and let them go.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

21601mom said:


> Have you cooked chili or soup in the sun oven? If so, how does it handle dishes with wet ingredients?


I didn't talk about my first attempt with the sun oven because I didn't want anyone to get the wrong impression. The sun oven did exactly what it was supposed to do, is capable of and it was simply me trying it out for the first time and I'll go into that now that I have a couple of REALLY tasty successes behind me!

The very first thing I tried was chicken fettucinni, and I used cubed raw chicken breasts and Chicken Helper recipe package. I learned a few things, and the food was still very tasty and edible, it just wasn't something you'd ever pay for in a restaurant.

My biggest planned test was "did it cook the raw chicken?" and yep, absolutely, in fact not only did it cook the raw chicken, just as advertised, it didnt BURN anything whatsover and I was doing the 30 mins adjust to sun movement cooking.

What did go wrong is that I used noodles that you can basically see through and put them in a soaking pot full of milk and water, and then I continually put them on the highest heat setting by constantly readjusting the oven to follow the sun!

When it was done, those fragile noodles were basically a big lump of noodle mush, tasty mush, but still mush.

I want to try TWO more variations on this. First I want to try it with the slow cooking method, where you preposition the oven for where the sun is during your peak cooking time, and see if that kind of cooking changes how those fragile noodles react to time in the oven with all of that liquid.

Second, I want to try the same thing with cooked (my canned chicken) and then full sun but for a very much shorter period of time since I'm only using the sun to heat not cook the chicken and I think that would also be much more forgiving on the fragile noodles.

Unfortunately being coastal, we've gotten into a period of heavy overcast clouds and even drizzle rain, so my sun cooking is on hold 

so circling back... I'd say that cooking with liquids worked VERY well, but using very thin noodles is not a recipe for success, at least not the way I cooked them that time, and my results may change but I haven't had the opportunity to try other methods yet.

also for our intents and purposes here, I called it a huge success just cooking the chicken, the noodles turning into more of a porridge consistency was just my inexperience and for prepping purposes... yeah I got this... Dakine is cooking with the sun and eating tasty hot meals!


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Solar Oven mush...noodles*



Dakine said:


> My biggest planned test was "did it cook the raw chicken?" and yep, absolutely, in fact not only did it cook the raw chicken, just as advertised, it didnt BURN anything whatsover and I was doing the 30 mins adjust to sun movement cooking.
> 
> What did go wrong is that I used noodles that you can basically see through and put them in a soaking pot full of milk and water, and then I continually put them on the highest heat setting by constantly readjusting the oven to follow the sun!
> 
> When it was done, those fragile noodles were basically a big lump of noodle mush, tasty mush, but still mush.


I had to chuckle at this, I am all too familiar with "mushy" solar cooker noodles. It happens.
A good portion of the time they turn out well, but there are times when I overcook them as well.

Some dishes we will wait until the rest of the food (meat, veggies) is about 3/4 of the way cooked and then we will quickly stir in the noodles for the remainder of the cooking time and they will cook up just fine.

You can also get "mushy" rice at times, so you have to take care not to over extend the cooking time with this as well.

I have even overcooked in my solar ovens dry beans (white) to the point that they were mush also, so I used them in a tomato-bean soup recipe where you put it all in the blender with the other ingredients and...voila, beans were perfect then 

This is half the fun of solar cooking, learning and experimenting and having fun with it...


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Easter Dinner, "a la Solar Cooker"*, was not a sure thing before Sunday since we were not quite sure what the weather was going to be like, but the day dawned bright and sunny.

By the time we got home from church though the sky had some high thin clouds, but nothing to impede the ability of the solar cookers.

So, we decided that we would cook our turkey (bought at Thanksgiving) in the Sun Oven and at 12:30 PM I placed the 14 lb turkey inside of a...( rest of story and photos at:

http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com/solarcooking-archive2.html


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

LOL! funny timing! I was working from home today and wanted to cook a pot roast yesterday but it was still frozen solid (my fridge has a colder than cold spot) so I let it thaw and cooked it today.

It was about a 2 inch thick slab of roast, and I only put in 1 can of cream of mushroom and 1 can of golden mushroom soups, and I stacked that pan on top of the other pan with potatoes, no prep whatsoever but just washed and hand scrubbed and in the pot!

DELICIOUS!!! 

Everything was perfect! I got a late start, because of working from home I couldn't get everything setup as early as I wanted to, I meant to start at 10:30'ish when the sun breaks the crest of my roof where I like to place it but that didnt happen and it was after 11:30 before I actually got it out there, and then I went and ran errands at lunch and completely forgot to readjust it when I got back home until maybe... I think it was 1:30 when I remembered, temp gauge was still way over 200 tho. I moved the oven and kept it cooking and did the 30 mins readjust thing the rest of the afternoon and at 4:30+ when I finally pulled the dinner out, it was PERFECT! Meat thermometers both hit 170 easily and the taters were mashable with barely any pressure whatsoever with a fork.

I'm hooked! 


I will be buying the parabolic dish for frying, soon I hope... much later this year I will probably try to buy a 2nd oven.


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## myrtle55 (Apr 1, 2014)

Here n western Washington we have sunshine only sporadically , mostly summer months. So what kind of success could I expect with a solar oven if Sun is not a given ?


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Solar Cooking in Cloudy, Rainy Washington...*

Yes, you can solar cook in Western Washington State, but as you indicated it would not be as often as someone in Phoenix for example.

Over the years we have had many customers and many fellow solar cooking colleagues from less sunny areas, indicate to us that they are able to solar cook more than they had originally imagined by taking advantage of all of the sunny days possible.

In fact, there is even a Seattle based solar cooking group who are quite active. So this goes to show you that it can be done and there are those avid solar cooks who take advantage of every opportunity they get some sunshine.

We even have colleagues in cloudy, rainy England (and London) who solar cook whenever they get the chance. Of course some really love to complain about the cloudy days and swear they are going to move to a sunnier climate, but they persist where they are and enjoy it when they are able.

We have also sent cookers to Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Holland, Japan and Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Oregon etc. etc. and those places can have their challenges with weather as well. Many report having solar cooked much more than they had imagined at first.

My personal philosophy is that: no one will have sunshine every day they would like to solar cook (even in my own desert location), and we should all have expendable fuels such as wood, propane, charcoal briquettes, etc. etc. stored in our preps for when there is no sunshine. Use the solar cooker when there is sun and conserve the expendable fuels for when they are really needed.

I solar cook even on less than ideal days, albeit not always what I would like to cook, but I can still heat up lots of foods very well on these kinds of days.

*Here is their Facebook page:* https://www.facebook.com/SeattleSolarCooking

*For those in the San Diego, CA area here is a meetup group in which I have many friends:* http://www.meetup.com/cooking-532/

Hope this is helpful.

From the Seattle Solar Cooking Group.


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## myrtle55 (Apr 1, 2014)

Thank you kindly, it seemed I was a naysayers...lol


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Flat Bread in a Hot Pot Solar Cooker*

This was shared with us by a colleague in South Dakota who was able to cook flat bread in her Hot Pot Solar Panel Cooker...
You can read more about how she did it at:

http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com/solar-baked-flat-bread.html


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Solar Cooking this last week*

Made a Beef Stew










And a beef pot pie










And solar cooked brined chicken:


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*Batter Fried Solar Mushrooms and Fettucine "Al Pasto"*

Batter Fried Mushrooms and Fettuccine "al Pasto" (Chilean for: on the grass)

Sunday dinner was almost food for the birds when the Fettuccine on the parabolic cooker was toppled onto the back lawn by a strong micro-burst wind that came out of nowhere.

But a veteran solar cook, having had previous experience with such, just scoops the pasta right back into the pot, rinses it in the sink, fills up the pot with water and sets it right back onto the parabolic and finishes the job...

Despite having a few blades of very cooked grass in the pasta, it all turned out quite well.

(oh, and the grass will recover in a few weeks after it gets some new growth with ample watering)

We also baked three batches of Sweet Rolls that turned out really well.


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## cantinawest (Nov 9, 2011)

*My wife did the solar cooking today*

Chicken Enchilada Al Sol...

I arrived home from work today to find my wife had prepared a chicken enchilada for dinner and it was out in the Sun Oven waiting for my arrival...Now some people would not find that too strange, except for the fact that I usually do 90% of the cooking in our household. My wife is the main secretary at one of our local middle schools and she usually never gets home until long after I do on most days through out the year, but since they are on summer break she is taking advantage and using the solar cookers and doing more of the cooking.
Usually she is bragging to her co-workers of how she just has to come home and sit down to an already made meal when she walks through the door. Her co-workers don't get the same treatment.

My wife over the years has gotten more familiar and more comfortable with using the solar cookers, which was not the case in the beginning.

I really should be grateful huh?


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