Because of my work schedule, I can only cook on the weekends, so I definitely wanted to try something today.  Looked out early this morning and saw sunshine — so decided to give it a try.

Today’s experiment involved another frozen Banquet Crock-pot meal – Chicken & Dumplings.  Directions say to add everything except the dumplings and add those 30 minutes prior to end of cooking.

Got everything ready and out to cook at 10:00 a.m.   Weather was partly sunny and 67degrees.  I knew it would be “iffy”, but decided to proceed.

Chicken & dumplings ready to cook

At 2:00 p.m. ( 4 hours cook time ), the oven was 270 degrees and cooking.  The chicken was cooked, the sauce was hot, and ready for the dumplings.  Planned to check again at 3:00 p.m.  But got busy and didn’t get back out until 3:30p.m.  It was then that I discovered that Mr. Sun had gone bye-bye and it was cloudy and cool.  Oven temperature only 150 degrees.  The pan was warm, but the dumplings had not cooked.  Had to bring it in and finish in the oven.

Chicken & dumplings finished but not done.

Okay, so it turned out to not be a great day for solar cooking.  But the problem was operator error in misjudging the weather.  The dish actually cooked very nice, just not enough solar time.