Tag Archives: solar cooking

All our favorite posts about eco-friendly cooking with the sun using a solar oven including easy recipes posted on TexasHomesteader.com

Preserving The Harvest: Dehydrate Jalapenos

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by Texas Homesteader
*this post contains an affiliate link

I’ve been using my solar oven pretty heavily this year and I’ve finally dehydrated all my excess garden tomatoes for the summer. 

 (again for those of you asking, I have a *Sun Oven and I love it!) 

I’ll use the dehydrated tomatoes in numerous ways. To make tomato paste for homemade pizza and to thicken my homemade blender salsa, among other ways.

This late into summer is usually so very hot and dry that the garden stops producing and I just try to keep the garden watered enough to struggle it along in hopes of getting some kind of tiny fall garden production. 

This time of year 99% of my garden is out of production. But we do have one last veggie going strong – FIERY-RED JALAPENOS!

I use my solar oven to dehydrate jalapenos from our garden. I grind them into a powder and use them to put some SIZZLE into our food. #TexasHomesteader
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Solar Cooking: Homemade Marinara Sauce

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by Texas Homesteader ~ 
*contains affiliate link

Is there much better than homemade fresh tomato marinara sauce?? It offers that taste that you just can’t get from the store shelves. But it’s true that you have to simmer it a bit to thicken it up and intensify all those delightful flavors.

It’s hot & humid here in NE Texas and simmering a pan on the stove for that length of time just didn’t appeal to me at all. Luckily I didn’t have to, the solar oven did a fantastic job and all the cooking heat was left outside where it belongs!

I love solar cooking, it keeps that cooking heat & humidity out of the kitchen. Today I'm making marinara sauce using NO EXTRA ENERGY! #TexasHomesteader
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Solar Cooking: Dehydrating Garden Produce

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by Texas Homesteader
*Contains an affiliate link

I love my solar oven and I use it often. I love that it takes no purchased energy to run. And most of all I love that it leaves all the cooking heat outside where it belongs. 

Recently I began dehydrating overage veggies from my garden. I freeze them as well from time to time but dehydrating them looks pretty cool in my pantry. It also reduces the volume to store by quite a  bit and it works well for use in wintertime Endless Soups – my favorite application.

I decided to try to use my electric dehydrator trays to dehydrate in my solar oven – BIG MISTAKE! Although I left the solar oven’s lid unlatched so it wouldn’t get too hot inside the oven, it apparently doesn’t take very much heat at all to do this:

Did you know you could use a solar oven to dehydrate produce? Then they take no additional energy to store & take up very little space! #TexasHomesteader
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SOLAR COOKING: Making Bread Outside

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by Texas Homesteader
*affiliate link

As I rose early one morning and glanced out the window at yet another beautiful sunrise, I wondered if the day would be good to bake bread outside. The clouds are beginning to burn off. And a quick check of the forecast shows that the weatherman promises lots of sun and low wind.

Of course in a solar oven you need the sun to bake bread, but wind can sometimes wreak havoc with the reflectors. With promise of low wind, I decided to go for it!

SOLAR OVEN BREAD: Making Bread OUTSIDE! I use my solar oven to bake my bread using the power of the sun - gotta love it! #TexasHomesteader

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