Sun Cooked Foods This Summer

You can use the sun for more than just tanning. You can cook with it too. Solar cooking is an eco friendly way to prepare and even bake your favorite foods. This ancient method locks in vital nutrients while providing the same use as your indoor stove. Strange but true. You can make those UV rays a part of your culinary life

Solar cooking isn't new.The ancient Romans used the sun in their various cooking methods. Skip a few centuries to the 18th when a Swiss naturalist develops the first eco friendly outdoor oven that relies entirely on solar power. Nowadays sun fueled stoves and ovens are usually seen in Third World Countries where there is no electricity and no water. They are easy to set up and easy to cook and bake with. They leave basically no carbon footprint because they utilize no water or fuel. They don't emit smoke into the air either. There are two kinds of solar ovens for today, the parabolic and hot boxes or ovens. The first requires the sun's rays to directly hit the cooking vessel and heat it. The second is a mini greenhouse where it "bakes" the food from inside. Solar ovens are not expensive . You can buy them for as low as $135 dollars. Most come with their own baking sheets and pots and pans. They're pretty easy to set up, Construct one in the morning for cooking in the afternoon.Food solar cooked has a more natural, stronger taste and this is perfect for homegrown vegetables along with cooking with fresh picked herbs from the garden.

Unfortunately solar cooking does have a downside. You can only use the oven between the sun's peak hours which are between 10 AM and 2 PM. Forget cooking on rainy or overcast days.Also be wary when cooking any meat , especially beef, chicken and fish because the bacteria may not be cooked all the way out of them. it takes some adjusting and guesswork to get a meal right. Experiment with little things like cookies or vegetable side dishes first to get the hang of it. See what works the best for you and at what time. Soon you'll be handling solar cooking like a pro.

Use the sun this summer not just for tanning but for cooking. You'll be hooked on this novel yet old idea. Not only that you can get yourself a nice color while you're baking cookies or cooking ratatouille.