Today was one of those wonderful spring days that most people get in April or May. It was around 80F and breezy as all get out.
Perfect day to do laundry. I did one load, hung it on the line and it was dry long before the other load was finished washing. I only did the 2 loads and really should have done a couple more to take full advantage of the weather, but I have laundry on my couch from before Christmas (I, apparently, am the only one capable of sorting it for putting it away - yes, my kids are spoiled).
Some time back, Sally spoke of her adventures with sour dough bread. At the time I was working with amish friendship bread - which I've since killed. Yeah, I suck that way. But, I got a sourdough starter from a friend and decided to try it. I've kept it alive for well over a month (divided it once) and today I baked my first loaf. I was really afraid it would be VERY sour because it traveled to Oklahoma and back with me and wasn't refrigerated during the trip. But it turned out really well. Next time I do it, I'll plan to let it rise overnight and put it in the solar oven. I half wanted to do that last night, but we were out of flour and Mr. Gaia didn't want to drag out the grain mill while we were trying to get the kids settled down for the night (it is rather loud). I feel like we really wasted the sun today.
Hopefully tomorrow will be as sunny and breezy and I can get another load of laundry done. I'm not sure if I have anything to be cooked in the solar oven or not, but I'll ask Mr. Gaia to think to see if there is anything we can do.
Showing posts with label Solar Oven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solar Oven. Show all posts
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Surprise Father's Day
I'm not sure how we managed it, but we managed to surprise Mr. Gaia. I'm very impressed that both boys were able to keep it to themselves. Of course, I didn't tell them the plan until Friday.
Mr. Gaia had a great day.
I mixed up some bread for the solar oven (finally a sunny day!). Of course, I got distracted and used gluten instead of the softer whole wheat flour (I usually mix 2 different grinds). I realized it when I took it out of the mixer to knead and it was tougher than a brick. Crap!! So, I quickly heated some more water, started mixing another batch - with no gluten this time - and then mixed them together. I'm happy to report the bread is really good, just a tad bit chewy, but a soft chewy. I've got a loaf in the freezer ready to pull out and bake next sunny day.
After we put the bread in the solar oven to cook, we decided to go to some furniture stores. Mr. Gaia and I haven't had a bed in 7 years. We have just had our mattress and foundation sitting on the floor. We also haven't had a dresser or chest of drawers in the same amount of time. I have open wire shelves to hold my clothes. We've decided we'd like to look more grown up. So we went to 3 different furniture stores, but none of them had what we want. We like simple, clean lines. Mission style is always good. We did find a lot that had the simple lines we wanted but the pieces were "Texas sized" and would be overwhelming in our room, not to mention that they would block our windows.
Then we went to Sam's to walk around and have lunch. That reminds me, I have to send an email to corporate. This Sam's never has Dr. Pepper on the weekend, or ice. How freakin' hard would it be to realize that you ALWAYS run out of Dr. Pepper and to order an extra canister? To make it worse, they never post an out of order sign on the machine - so you waste what little ice you can manage to get by having it covered in jet water. Today she told me the sprite and powerade canisters were empty too. None of them had out of order signs. Can you imagine the poor people that thought they got Sprite? At least with a cola you can tell the color is wrong.
Then we came home and the boys played on a Slip 'n Slide. These are so not fair, no one over 100lbs or 5' can play on them. Of course, it is wasteful of water so it's a good thing we aren't in a drought this year.
After they'd played for a while, Mr. Gaia sent them to the shower and mixed pina coladas for us.
Then he opened his gifts - a beer butt chicken cooker and a board game - The Game of Life. When I was a kid, my granny wouldn't let us play games with dice. So my mom bought us this game to take to her house (we still had Monoply, etc at home). Let me tell you, the game has changed since I was a kid. I swear I remember retirement was either rich or poor house, now it's comfortable or rich. It was a fun game to play with the kids and it provided some good teaching moments. Oceanus bought a house when he was a starving artist with a salary of $20,000 per year. He had to take out a bank loan. At the end of the game when he was last, we talked about how much money he had spent to buy his house. Hyperion was in a hurry to finish and kept treating it was race to the end. We'd explain that like real life, longer was better. He came in 2nd last.
Mr. Gaia had a great day.
I mixed up some bread for the solar oven (finally a sunny day!). Of course, I got distracted and used gluten instead of the softer whole wheat flour (I usually mix 2 different grinds). I realized it when I took it out of the mixer to knead and it was tougher than a brick. Crap!! So, I quickly heated some more water, started mixing another batch - with no gluten this time - and then mixed them together. I'm happy to report the bread is really good, just a tad bit chewy, but a soft chewy. I've got a loaf in the freezer ready to pull out and bake next sunny day.
After we put the bread in the solar oven to cook, we decided to go to some furniture stores. Mr. Gaia and I haven't had a bed in 7 years. We have just had our mattress and foundation sitting on the floor. We also haven't had a dresser or chest of drawers in the same amount of time. I have open wire shelves to hold my clothes. We've decided we'd like to look more grown up. So we went to 3 different furniture stores, but none of them had what we want. We like simple, clean lines. Mission style is always good. We did find a lot that had the simple lines we wanted but the pieces were "Texas sized" and would be overwhelming in our room, not to mention that they would block our windows.
Then we went to Sam's to walk around and have lunch. That reminds me, I have to send an email to corporate. This Sam's never has Dr. Pepper on the weekend, or ice. How freakin' hard would it be to realize that you ALWAYS run out of Dr. Pepper and to order an extra canister? To make it worse, they never post an out of order sign on the machine - so you waste what little ice you can manage to get by having it covered in jet water. Today she told me the sprite and powerade canisters were empty too. None of them had out of order signs. Can you imagine the poor people that thought they got Sprite? At least with a cola you can tell the color is wrong.
Then we came home and the boys played on a Slip 'n Slide. These are so not fair, no one over 100lbs or 5' can play on them. Of course, it is wasteful of water so it's a good thing we aren't in a drought this year.
After they'd played for a while, Mr. Gaia sent them to the shower and mixed pina coladas for us.
Then he opened his gifts - a beer butt chicken cooker and a board game - The Game of Life. When I was a kid, my granny wouldn't let us play games with dice. So my mom bought us this game to take to her house (we still had Monoply, etc at home). Let me tell you, the game has changed since I was a kid. I swear I remember retirement was either rich or poor house, now it's comfortable or rich. It was a fun game to play with the kids and it provided some good teaching moments. Oceanus bought a house when he was a starving artist with a salary of $20,000 per year. He had to take out a bank loan. At the end of the game when he was last, we talked about how much money he had spent to buy his house. Hyperion was in a hurry to finish and kept treating it was race to the end. We'd explain that like real life, longer was better. He came in 2nd last.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Fresh ground wheat
I made bread again this week. I used our new grain mill to grind the wheat (well, Mr. Gaia did), but I don't think it was ground finely enough - the texture was more like cornmeal.
The bread simply did not rise. I'm not sure why. I proofed the yeast, so I know it was good. I used my same recipe. The only difference was the flour. I'm hoping it wasn't the flour. That would really suck. I suspect the flour was really too coarse, but I don't know that that would have made that much difference. It still tastes good, it's just a little dense.
Today, Mr. Gaia cooked salmon in the solar oven. He sprinkled just a little dill on it with some salt. It was really, really good. When he finished that, he put in bratwurst and then we went for an 12.5 mile bike ride (took an hour and twenty minutes). It was perfect when we got back. Yummy and delish.
I've been really lazy lately. My house is a mess and I don't think I met any of my June goals. Shame on me. I'll soon be traveling to pick up my kids, so the blog will be quiet. I'll be going somewhere with no internet and no cell phone service. I'll bet you didn't know such a place still existed in the US, but it does.
The bread simply did not rise. I'm not sure why. I proofed the yeast, so I know it was good. I used my same recipe. The only difference was the flour. I'm hoping it wasn't the flour. That would really suck. I suspect the flour was really too coarse, but I don't know that that would have made that much difference. It still tastes good, it's just a little dense.
Today, Mr. Gaia cooked salmon in the solar oven. He sprinkled just a little dill on it with some salt. It was really, really good. When he finished that, he put in bratwurst and then we went for an 12.5 mile bike ride (took an hour and twenty minutes). It was perfect when we got back. Yummy and delish.
I've been really lazy lately. My house is a mess and I don't think I met any of my June goals. Shame on me. I'll soon be traveling to pick up my kids, so the blog will be quiet. I'll be going somewhere with no internet and no cell phone service. I'll bet you didn't know such a place still existed in the US, but it does.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
More cooking
So today, Mr. Gaia made more steel cut oats.
He follows the standard recipe:
1 c of oats
3 c water
pinch of salt (he never uses enough, so I add more after they're done, whole grains NEED salt).
He mixed this together and put it in our corning ware casserole pan. Then let it cook for an hour. They're yummy, nice and creamy.
Then he tried to make oven fried chicken. It wasn't bad, but I'm not a huge fan. He made 3 different kinds - one breast coated in crushed corn flakes, one coated in crushed wheat flakes (he used Uncle Sam's cereal so there were some flax seeds too) and one with just a sprinkling of corn starch. All were seasoned. He let them cook for about 30 minutes (use a meat thermometer to make sure they reach the right temperature). I think using the rack insert for our pan would have made them much better, maybe they would have had a chance to get more crispy. They didn't crisp at all placed flat on the pan.
I think tomorrow I'll try banana bread and see how that works out. But I need to bake more bread, so I'm not sure there will be time or room.
Biking:
89.1F, 59% humidity, 16.1mph SE wind at the beginning. At the end, 84.9F, 67% humidity, 15mph ESE wind. We biked 5.42 miles and it took about an hour. At the end, we stopped at a Raspa (sno-cone) stand and walked the bikes the last half mile home, while we enjoyed our raspas (natural lime for me, natural mango for Mr. Gaia).
He follows the standard recipe:
1 c of oats
3 c water
pinch of salt (he never uses enough, so I add more after they're done, whole grains NEED salt).
He mixed this together and put it in our corning ware casserole pan. Then let it cook for an hour. They're yummy, nice and creamy.
Then he tried to make oven fried chicken. It wasn't bad, but I'm not a huge fan. He made 3 different kinds - one breast coated in crushed corn flakes, one coated in crushed wheat flakes (he used Uncle Sam's cereal so there were some flax seeds too) and one with just a sprinkling of corn starch. All were seasoned. He let them cook for about 30 minutes (use a meat thermometer to make sure they reach the right temperature). I think using the rack insert for our pan would have made them much better, maybe they would have had a chance to get more crispy. They didn't crisp at all placed flat on the pan.
I think tomorrow I'll try banana bread and see how that works out. But I need to bake more bread, so I'm not sure there will be time or room.
Biking:
89.1F, 59% humidity, 16.1mph SE wind at the beginning. At the end, 84.9F, 67% humidity, 15mph ESE wind. We biked 5.42 miles and it took about an hour. At the end, we stopped at a Raspa (sno-cone) stand and walked the bikes the last half mile home, while we enjoyed our raspas (natural lime for me, natural mango for Mr. Gaia).
Monday, June 11, 2007
Fresh bread!
The solar oven bread turned out perfect, nice chewy crust and a great texture. So, here's what I did - I mixed the dough up at about 1:30am and left it in the fridge. At 7:00am, Mr. Gaia punched it down and put it in the loaf pan (he suggests making a change and letting it do both rises in the loaf pan). Mr. Gaia set up the solar oven to start gathering some heat (but he had to set it up to face west, so it wasn't that hot at noon). I came home from work at noon, put the bread fresh from the fridge in the oven (it was about 150F at that point). I left the bread in the oven until I got home at about 5:30. So it had a little over 5 hours of cooking.
My reciped adapted to be only one loaf (I think in the new loaf pans, we can get 2 loaves in, but we couldn't in the stoneware pans):
1 7/8 c water (bottled water works best if you have hard water or lots of chlorine)
1 heaping T yeast
1.5 T oil
2 1/4 t honey
2 1/4 t molasses
2 1/4 t salt
1.5-2 T flax seeds (freshly ground in a coffee grinder)
2.5 T vital wheat gluten
3-5 c whole wheat flour (I don't actually measure the flour)
Heat the water to 100-120F, dissolve the yeast in the water. Add oil, honey and molasses (a little tip - I use one the shot glass measuring cups, measuring the oil first will allow the honey and molasses to slip right on out, no sticking at all). While the yeast is proofing, grind the flax seeds (I throw the salt in with the flax to help it grind a little more finely). When the yeast has proofed, add the flax and salt. Add the vital wheat gluten. Add the flour 1/2 c at a time. I use the kitchen aid with the dough hook. I add flour until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and there is no dough on the side of the bowl at all. I then pull the dough off the hook, turn it over and add a little more flour. I mix until the dough is stiff and not really sticky. At this point, I take it out of the mixer, I knead it a few times just to be sure it is uniform and then put it in an oil bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
Biking update -
Temp was 84F with an ESE wind of 13.8mph. We rode 2.45 miles.
My reciped adapted to be only one loaf (I think in the new loaf pans, we can get 2 loaves in, but we couldn't in the stoneware pans):
1 7/8 c water (bottled water works best if you have hard water or lots of chlorine)
1 heaping T yeast
1.5 T oil
2 1/4 t honey
2 1/4 t molasses
2 1/4 t salt
1.5-2 T flax seeds (freshly ground in a coffee grinder)
2.5 T vital wheat gluten
3-5 c whole wheat flour (I don't actually measure the flour)
Heat the water to 100-120F, dissolve the yeast in the water. Add oil, honey and molasses (a little tip - I use one the shot glass measuring cups, measuring the oil first will allow the honey and molasses to slip right on out, no sticking at all). While the yeast is proofing, grind the flax seeds (I throw the salt in with the flax to help it grind a little more finely). When the yeast has proofed, add the flax and salt. Add the vital wheat gluten. Add the flour 1/2 c at a time. I use the kitchen aid with the dough hook. I add flour until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and there is no dough on the side of the bowl at all. I then pull the dough off the hook, turn it over and add a little more flour. I mix until the dough is stiff and not really sticky. At this point, I take it out of the mixer, I knead it a few times just to be sure it is uniform and then put it in an oil bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
Biking update -
Temp was 84F with an ESE wind of 13.8mph. We rode 2.45 miles.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Solar Oven Update No 2
It was hot today - a high of 94. So Mr. Gaia decided to cook in the solar oven. First he made brownies (yummy!), then lasagna and finally steel-cut oats.
So that whole "takes twice as long to cook" thing? Yeah, not so much if the temps are high enough. The brownies aren't nearly as moist as we like and the lasagna noodles are beyond overdone. I haven't tried the oats, yet.
It occurred to me, too late, that if the temp was boiling or above, there's no reason to think it will take twice as long. I think this will take some getting used to.
Tomorrow I plan to bake more bread. It's supposed to be 30% cloud cover tomorrow, but I think that will be fine. It's still supposed to be hot. I'll mix up the dough tonight, let it rise in the fridge overnight, then first thing in the morning, punch it down and let it rise in the breadpan in the fridge. I'll come home at noon and put it in the oven (which Mr. Gaia will set up and leave to preheat before he goes to work).
We did buy a cheap loaf pan that is dark colored and should absorb less energy from the oven (thereby letting it stay hotter to actually bake the bread).
Goals update:
We biked tonight at about 8:00. It was 83F with a SE wind of 16.1 mph. We biked 1.71 miles (according to google earth) a good portion of it facing a headwind (I'm not up on vectors enough to figure out how strong of a headwind when we were riding due east and due south).
So that whole "takes twice as long to cook" thing? Yeah, not so much if the temps are high enough. The brownies aren't nearly as moist as we like and the lasagna noodles are beyond overdone. I haven't tried the oats, yet.
It occurred to me, too late, that if the temp was boiling or above, there's no reason to think it will take twice as long. I think this will take some getting used to.
Tomorrow I plan to bake more bread. It's supposed to be 30% cloud cover tomorrow, but I think that will be fine. It's still supposed to be hot. I'll mix up the dough tonight, let it rise in the fridge overnight, then first thing in the morning, punch it down and let it rise in the breadpan in the fridge. I'll come home at noon and put it in the oven (which Mr. Gaia will set up and leave to preheat before he goes to work).
We did buy a cheap loaf pan that is dark colored and should absorb less energy from the oven (thereby letting it stay hotter to actually bake the bread).
Goals update:
We biked tonight at about 8:00. It was 83F with a SE wind of 16.1 mph. We biked 1.71 miles (according to google earth) a good portion of it facing a headwind (I'm not up on vectors enough to figure out how strong of a headwind when we were riding due east and due south).
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Solar oven update
So we baked bread today. Let me say that there were some limitations because the oven only holds one loaf and my recipe is for two loaves, so I had to cut it in half. This would not normally be a problem, but I mixed it up last night at 1:00am, so I suspect my math might have been off.
Mr. Gaia set the oven up about 2:00pm and it got up to around 300F. When he put the loaf (in its stoneware loaf pan - it's recommended that you use black cookware, but we don't currently have any) in the oven, the temp dropped to 250F and stayed there.
We let the loaf bake for about 3 hours (it looked done after about an hour, but food doesn't burn in the solar oven, so we left it).
The results - a smallish loaf (it could be that I didn't use enough yeast because it just didn't rise well at all) that is dense. But it is moist and tasty.
I would definitely bake bread in the solar oven again - but I would be a lot more careful about my math.
I'm especially glad we have it because our AC is broken. It waits until it's almost 100F and then breaks. Sigh. Luckily, we held onto our window unit AC and FABULOUS Mr. Gaia was able to rig it up in the bedroom today so we could at least have a cool room for sleeping (after 2 nights of 87F temps). I can't even imagine running a regular oven when the house is as hot as it is now. I doubt we will be cooking much inside until we get it fixed/replaced. Mr. Gaia grilled tonight (yummy steaks from Sun Harvest Foods along with grilled onions and grilled jalapenos stuffed with garlic cream cheese).
Mr. Gaia set the oven up about 2:00pm and it got up to around 300F. When he put the loaf (in its stoneware loaf pan - it's recommended that you use black cookware, but we don't currently have any) in the oven, the temp dropped to 250F and stayed there.
We let the loaf bake for about 3 hours (it looked done after about an hour, but food doesn't burn in the solar oven, so we left it).
The results - a smallish loaf (it could be that I didn't use enough yeast because it just didn't rise well at all) that is dense. But it is moist and tasty.
I would definitely bake bread in the solar oven again - but I would be a lot more careful about my math.
I'm especially glad we have it because our AC is broken. It waits until it's almost 100F and then breaks. Sigh. Luckily, we held onto our window unit AC and FABULOUS Mr. Gaia was able to rig it up in the bedroom today so we could at least have a cool room for sleeping (after 2 nights of 87F temps). I can't even imagine running a regular oven when the house is as hot as it is now. I doubt we will be cooking much inside until we get it fixed/replaced. Mr. Gaia grilled tonight (yummy steaks from Sun Harvest Foods along with grilled onions and grilled jalapenos stuffed with garlic cream cheese).
Monday, June 04, 2007
Solar oven cooking
Rani asked if cooking in a solar oven takes longer. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is "it depends". Generally, the oven I have (the Global Sun Oven)will not get hotter than about 350F and ours tends to hang out at about 250F (which is sufficient to cook meats and brownies). I'm thinking that if we would get it out during the hottest part of the day it would easily hit the 350F threshhold.
Mr. Gaia cooked the corn and salmon in 2 separate batches (it would have been big enough for both, but I don't think he thought of it) and it took about 2 hours long. So, probably he could have cooked both in about 1 hour.
The way the oven is made holds in the moisture (like a baking bag) and so even as food cooks for long periods of time, it doesn't dry out. We've had sausage and salmon cooked in it and they were both very tender and moist.
Wednesday is supposed to be sunny and hot (hitting 100F) so I'm going to mix up a batch of bread dough tomorrow night which Mr. Gaia will put out to bake at noon. That will mean it will cook for 4-5 hours, but the cookbooks we've looked at say that in the sun oven, this will be okay.
I'll report more after I've tried it. So far, our experiments have been successful - we've done roasted corn, sausage, salmon, roasted almonds and brownies.
Mr. Gaia cooked the corn and salmon in 2 separate batches (it would have been big enough for both, but I don't think he thought of it) and it took about 2 hours long. So, probably he could have cooked both in about 1 hour.
The way the oven is made holds in the moisture (like a baking bag) and so even as food cooks for long periods of time, it doesn't dry out. We've had sausage and salmon cooked in it and they were both very tender and moist.
Wednesday is supposed to be sunny and hot (hitting 100F) so I'm going to mix up a batch of bread dough tomorrow night which Mr. Gaia will put out to bake at noon. That will mean it will cook for 4-5 hours, but the cookbooks we've looked at say that in the sun oven, this will be okay.
I'll report more after I've tried it. So far, our experiments have been successful - we've done roasted corn, sausage, salmon, roasted almonds and brownies.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Sun Oven Report
We got it yesterday, but didn't have time to try it out then (and it was a little overcast).
Tonight, we cooked bratwurst in it. Within 30 minutes it was 310F (the outside temp was 89F). This was at 4:30, so not at the sun's full strength.
One mistake we made is that we didn't use a covered pan. The moisture from the bratwurst condensed on the glass lens and blocked some of the sun's rays. The temp dropped to about 210F. They cooked for 1-2 hours (I'll admit it, I took a nap) reaching an internal temp of 150F. The final temp of the oven at 6:30 was 150F.
This was a great success. The brats were moist and well cooked. The next experiment will probably be cornbread. I'm not sure how to handle the covered pan issue, maybe cornbread won't be as big of a deal. Cast-iron isn't the most suitable for a solar-oven, but I'm thinking heating the pan to melt the butter won't use that much energy and once the pan is heated, it will work fine in the solar oven.
Tonight, we cooked bratwurst in it. Within 30 minutes it was 310F (the outside temp was 89F). This was at 4:30, so not at the sun's full strength.
One mistake we made is that we didn't use a covered pan. The moisture from the bratwurst condensed on the glass lens and blocked some of the sun's rays. The temp dropped to about 210F. They cooked for 1-2 hours (I'll admit it, I took a nap) reaching an internal temp of 150F. The final temp of the oven at 6:30 was 150F.
This was a great success. The brats were moist and well cooked. The next experiment will probably be cornbread. I'm not sure how to handle the covered pan issue, maybe cornbread won't be as big of a deal. Cast-iron isn't the most suitable for a solar-oven, but I'm thinking heating the pan to melt the butter won't use that much energy and once the pan is heated, it will work fine in the solar oven.
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