A Day in the Life of Sun Oven Cooking ~

If I could write poetry, I would write an ode about my Sun Oven (S.O.).

I love it, I love it, I love it.

That's about as good as my poetry gets. Ahem...

I will tell you that since we are knee deep into 100 degree temps here in the desert, the oven in my house is not turned on for one second unless absolutely necessary. And by necessary I mean that the children want chicken nuggets and they want them now! Even then the oven is only turned on for a few minutes and I let the residual heat cook the rest of the way. I'm mean that way. I make them wait a few extra minutes.

But what to do when the brood needs bread for toast or better yet, PB&Js?

Well. Thanks for asking.

I throw the raw materials into the bread maker and push "dough" and 15-20 minutes later I take said dough out to rise and position the Sun Oven.

By the time the Sun Oven is heated up, the dough has risen and is ready to go into the oven.

THIS IS MY OPINION not the REAL instructions from Sun Oven. YMMV.

I find that cooking in a S.O. to be a lot like cooking in a crock pot. It holds a lot of moisture and doesn't need to get to really high temperatures to get the job done. Because of retaining the moisture issue, it is VERY difficult to burn anything in your S.O. This is a plus I take advantage of way too often, I must confess as I tend to loose track of time. A. Lot.

So, here is a Day in the Life of Cooking in my Sun Oven. You will not find a lot of pictures in this post. I am not the Pioneer Woman for goodness sakes. Here is the break down:

8am - Decide that it is hot as the blazes, yet the children still need to eat. Start a quick WW dough in the bread maker
8:25 - Put dough into greased pan and let rise. Position Sun Oven on back porch (faces east).
8:45 - S.O. has reached temp of 310 degrees and dough is nicely risen to about 1/3 it's original size.
9:30 - Bread is ready. Cool and slice.
While the bread was baking I put more ingredients into the bread maker so I could have some dough in the refrigerator for another time.

3:30pm - Another time has come. Need food for dinner. Imagine that!?! I need rolls to serve with dinner. Roll and shape rolls into greased pan.
Position S.O. in the front of the house (facing due west).
4:30 - put rolls into the S.O. It took longer for the rolls to rise because the dough was cold.
5:00 - Rolls are ready

This is just today's experience with my S.O. Some days I throw in a dessert to serve with the rolls. It just varies.

And it's nice to know that if we are ever without power or gas, I will have a way to feed the fam.

And...no. I am not being paid by the good people at Sun Oven, but if they want to send a little monetary love my way, they're more than welcome.