Solar Cooking

It’s a sunny day, and I’m baking banana bread in our solar oven. As this way of cooking is usually slower than using a conventional oven, I use half the usual amount of ingredients and end up with a small loaf. Here is my half-size recipe:

BANANA BREAD 

Pre-heat solar oven for half an hour or so. (The temperature will probably go no higher than 275 degrees.)

Grease a small loaf pan or round cake pan. (A dark pan works best.) Place in mixer bowl:

2 T salad oil

2 small bananas, sliced

Beat with mixer until the bananas are a smooth pulp. 

Add and use mixer to stir until moist:

1/4 t vanilla

1 large egg

1 C Bisquick baking mix

1/3 C sugar (or sugar substitute plus a pinch of baking soda)

(opt) ½ C chopped nuts, wheat germ, or blueberries

Beat 1 min with electric mixer. Pour into pan.

Bake 60 min. minimum, and check for doneness. (Depending on the weather and time of day, it may take more time. Today it takes only an hour.) Cool 5 min. Use knife or spatula to loosen from pan.

For apricot bread, substitute 1/3 C apricot puree for the bananas.

My oven is a large glass sphere enclosing a black metal bowl. The whole assembly sits inside a shiny metal reflector that directs the sun’s rays into the oven. Food can be cooked in the metal bowl, but I usually set a smaller pan inside it to hasten cooking and make cleanup easier. The whole system sits on the front porch, pointed toward the sun.

I bought the solar oven when I moved in with my partner, whose home is off the electrical grid. It’s from Solar Cookers International in Sacramento. (Disclaimer: I have no connection with the store, except as a satisfied customer.) We have a lot of fun using it, but more important, we use less fuel for cooking. An added bonus is that the kitchen stays cool in hot weather. The oven works extremely well for banana bread and other Bisquick-based recipes, for stews and other foods requiring long, slow cooking, and for heating water. (Why waste fuel on heating water for washing dishes when the sun will take care of the job?) Some users swear by their ovens for cooking vegetables, but I have had some problems with overcooking them. 

The company that made our oven sends many of them to countries where fuel can be scarce and where the sun shines for much of the year. Though we usually use ours from June through September—we live in the Sierra foothills in northern California—in areas that are closer to the equator, the season for solar cooking can be longer. As many such areas are impoverished, having an inexpensive way of cooking large amounts of rice, beans, or other staples is important.

Solar living is trendy now, and it is common to see large arrays of solar panels on apartment buildings and factories. As environmentalists, we are delighted to see the interest in alternative energy sources. We only wish it were less expensive for ordinary people to invest in the solar panels, batteries, and associated equipment. At present living off the grid is limited to die-hard environmentalists like us who are willing to make some sacrifices (having only a few solar panels and batteries, we must limit our use of electricity severely), and to those wealthy enough to pay the steep prices for solar equipment. In the future this may change. If the cost of fossil fuels increases, and if voters demand it, the government may begin subsidizing alternative-energy companies and helping homeowners  lessen their dependence on oil, gas, and nuclear energy.