The recipe calls for eggs, but I had some Augason Farms Scrambled Egg Mix  left over from the supplies that Troy at Preparing Wisely had given me for the Great Solar Cookout a few weeks ago.  The egg powder mixes easily with water, but I used milk instead and it gave it a really nice consistency.  Then I seasoned with salt and pepper.  Once it is cooked, it is delicious – tastes just like eggs    — and no one has to know your secret.

The following is not really a recipe, but more of a guideline.  Mix it up however you like.

Breakfast Omelet Muffin

Breakfast Omelet Muffins

• 6 – 12 eggs ( or egg powder +water or milk, mixed per package directions)  depending on how much you want to make
• 2 – 4 Tbsp milk to thin the eggs
• 1 – 2 cups of filling of your choice (cooked sausage, ham, onions, peppers, mushrooms – whatever you have)  I used cooked sausage and onions.
• 1 – 2 cups of shredded cheese (your choice – I used a cheddar Mexi blend)
• Salt, pepper

Pre-heat the solar oven while preparing the ingredients. 

Beat the eggs and milk ( or prepare the egg powder).  Chop up the fillings and add to the eggs.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add half of the cheese. 

Spray a muffin pan with PAM.  Fill the muffin tins with the egg mixture.  Don’t overfill as they will puff up while cooking.  Top with remaining cheese.

I made only half a recipe, and  my pan was large, so it made 4 muffins.  But I think it would have made 6 regular size muffins.

Bake uncovered in the solar oven for about 1 – 1 1/4 hours.  Let cool before removing from pan. 

Freeze excess muffins and reheat as needed in the microwave or toaster oven.

Breakfast Omelet Muffins after cooking in the solar oven

Breakfast Omelet Muffins in the GSO

Caramel Apple Cake topped with Whipped Topping and peanuts

Caramel Apple Pudding Cake

• 2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, thinly sliced
• 1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow cake mix, divided (save out 1 -2 Tbsp dry mix)
• 2 pkg. (3.4 oz. each) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
• 1-1/2 cups cold milk
• 1 jar (12.25 oz.) caramel ice cream topping, divided
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, divided
• 1/2 cup PLANTERS Dry Roasted Peanuts

Pre-heat solar oven while preparing cake.

Toss apples with 1 – 2 Tbsp. cake mix. Prepare cake batter with remaining cake mix as directed on package; pour into 13×9-inch baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Top with apples.

Beat dry pudding mixes, milk, 3/4 cup caramel topping and water with whisk 2 min.; drizzle over apples. Place in solar oven.

Bake cake uncovered 2 1/2 to 3 hours until golden brown. Cool 20 min. (Sauce will thicken slightly as it cools.)

Whisk remaining caramel topping and COOL WHIP until well blended.

Spoon over cake slices just before serving; top with nuts.

Sliced apples on Caramel Apple Cake

Caramel pudding mixture spread over apples on Caramel Apple Cake

Caramel Apple Cake baked in solar oven.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

• 2 cups cooked chicken, shredded  ( I used leftover chicken, both light & dark meat)
• 1/2 cup thick & chunky salsa
• 1 (19 oz) can of enchilada sauce ( mild or hot, your choice)
• 1 (11 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 2 cups tortilla chips, coarsely crushed
• 1/4 cup green onions, sliced
• 1 med tomato, chopped (about 3/4 cup)
• 1 cup Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese blend (shredded)
• OPT: jalapeno peppers

Pre-heat solar oven while preparing casserole.

Mix the chicken, salsa, enchilada sauce and corn in a mixing bowl.  Place tortilla chips in bottom of baking dish.  Top with chicken mixture. sprinkle with onions, cheese, and tomatoes.  Bake in solar oven about 2 hours until hot and bubbly.  If desired, add additional cheese and chips to top just before serving.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Chicken roasted in the GSO

The pan is called a Fusion Pan Roaster.  It is a pan with a cone in the middle.  In the past, we have often cooked “beer can” or “coke can” chicken on the grill or in the smoker.  I’m sure you have seen the wire racks meant to mimic this style of cooking. Maybe you’ve even cooked chicken this way yourself.  The Fusion Pan cooks the same way, only there is a pan to catch the drippings, so you can use it in your oven. The minute I saw this pan, I knew it was perfect for the solar oven.  It fits perfectly in the GSO.

Fusion Pan

After thawing the chicken,  I washed and dried the outside and then applied a chicken rub all over.  This not only seasons the chicken, but also gives it a nice color.  We make our own rub using salt, pepper, chili powder, red pepper, cumin, garlic, and a few other spices.  You can use your own favorite rub – either commercial prepared or of your own recipe.

Chicken with spice rub in Fusion pan

Chicken roasting in the GSO

The chicken sits upon right on the Fusion Pan. I placed it directly into the GSO.  I did not cover the chicken.  The oven temperature hovered between 275 ° – 300°.  It took exactly three hours to roast.  when done, the skin was a beautiful golden brown – not entirely from the rub — and the meat was moist and tender.  It quite literally fell off of the bones.

Chicken roasted in the GSO

Great Solar Cookout 2012

We set up four cookers.  Each cooker is impressive and interesting.  I even took my Wonder Oven.  And people were fascinated with them.   A photographer from Channel 12 was there.  He took a lot of pictures of my cookers and even did a short interview.  (As of this morning, I haven’t seen it on their website, but if I do, I’ll post the link).

Our canopy and line of cookers is in the back row.

I started a chicken in the GSO early in the morning.  I estimated that it would take 3 hours to cook.  The delicious aroma of that chicken roasting could be smelled through out the park, and drew people over.  The visual impact of seeing a chicken actual cooking in just a box sitting in the sun was impressive  and the realization that solar cooking was “real cooking” could be read on their faces.  Plus, they found it incredible that it would only take 3 hours for the chicken to cook.   My estimate was right on the mark.   Exactly three hours later, that chicken was golden brown, fell off the bone, moist, and tender.  It didn’t take long for the chicken to be devoured.  And one man stood around just gnawing to the bones left on the cutting board.

Golden brown roasted chicken after 3 hours in solar oven

We started off the morning baking cinnamon rolls in the windshield shade cooker, followed later by a steamed zucchini and vegetable mixture ,  and pinto beans in the Cookit.  I like demonstrating these small cookers to show that fancy commercial ovens aren’t necessary – only the sun is necessary.  And in an emergency situation, you can fix dinner with a car sunscreen sitting on a box.  One young man was really impressed with the car shade.  He said he gets lots of sun on his balcony and realized that he could make a small cooker to sit out there.  He said he could make dinner and “impress the ladies.”

The car sunscreen cooker is an effective low budget cooker and can easily be put together in an emergency situation.

The CookIt is light weight and folds up small. It is a good portable cooker.

In the SOS Sport, we started with an omelet to complement the cinnamon rolls, and then made potato soup and fresh bread.

Omelet baking in the SOS Sport

A great BIG thank you to Troy at Preparing Wisely, a great local store, for providing all of the food that we prepared at the event.  Stop in or visit on line.  Tell them that you saw us at the Great Solar Cookout.

Thank You to Preparing Wisely for providing the food that we prepared at the Great Solar Cookout

We had a great day at the Great Solar Cookout. 

See you there next year!

M & M Blondies

• 1/2 cup + 2 TBSP butter (total of 10 TBSP)

• 1 cup packed brown sugar

• 2 TBSP regular white sugar

• 1 egg, beaten

• 2 tsp vanilla

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/4 – 1/2 cup desiccated coconut (fresh won’t work)

• 3/4 cup M&M’s + a few more for the top

Pre-heat the solar oven while preparing the ingredients.

Heat the butter until melted – either stove top or solar — until it begins to brown, then let the butter cool slightly, until just barely warm.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the browned butter and sugars.  Stir in the egg, vanilla, and salt.  Stir in the flour, and coconut.  When the batter is well blended, stir in the M&M’s.

Pour the batter into an 8×8 inch prepared pan (I sprayed mine with Baking Pam) and smooth the top.  Sprinkle with the additional M&M’s.  Bake in solar oven for about 2 -2 1/2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let the blondies cool and cut into squares.

M & M Blondies ready to bake

Delicious M&M Blondies

Wonder Oven

Last Christmas, my daughter made me a Wonder Oven, a type of thermal box.  She found the directions online.  It is basically a pillow, much like a bean bag chair.  It has two parts – a top and a bottom.  A pot fits into the middle of the bottom section, and the top covers the pot.  The Wonder Oven keeps food hot for several hours, and in fact will actually cook or continue to cook food while it is keeping the food hot.  Basically, you heat up the food to a cooking temperature, put it into the Wonder Oven and let it sit for several hours.   Wonder Ovens are not new.  The concept has been around for a long time.  And there are several websites devoted to  wonder ovens, hay boxes, and other types of thermal boxes, with detailed instructions for making and using them.  Thermal boxes don’t have to be fancy and can be made from all kinds of materials including  blankets, hay, newspapers, fur, wool, etc.  Mine is filled with little pellets and  I usually use it to keep the food warm until dinner time after I have taken it out of the solar oven. It is a perfect complement to my solar oven.

When I was a girl, my mother always made a two cakes for Easter – coconut and strawberry.  The strawberry was my older brother’s favorite, but everyone loved it and he had to fight the rest of us to get more than one piece.  Recently, my office had a “Cupcake Wars” contest.  In trying to decide what to enter,  I wanted to do something besides chocolate.  Looking through my cookbook, I came upon this old favorite.  Although  I used a regular cupcake tin to bake the cupcakes for the contest, for the solar oven, I used little miniature bundt pans (didn’t have enough little bundt pans and solar time to bake all I needed for the contest this way.)  Either way this recipe is a winner.  And I brought home the Cupcake Queen crown to prove it.

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Filling

• 1 box yellow or strawberry cake mix
• 1 (3oz) box strawberry jello
• 2/3 pkg frozen strawberries, thawed (crushed, with syrup)
• 1/2 cup water
• 3/4 cups oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup finely chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

Pre-heat solar oven while mixing the ingredients.

Mix all ingredients and beat for 3-4 minutes until well mixed.  Pour into a greased and floured pan.  Bake in heated solar oven for about 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until done.  Cool a few minutes before frosting.

Strawberry Filling/Frosting

• 1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted and cooled
• 1/3 cup (remainder of pkg) frozen strawberries
• 1 box (1 pound) powdered sugar

Mix thoroughly and pour on top of cooled cake.

This cake is very rich and moist and doesn’t need much frosting.

Solar Strawberry Cake baking in GSO

We love sweet potatoes.  We eat baked sweet potatoes year around.  During the holiday season, I make Candied Yams, just the way my mother did and my grandmother did, etc, etc probably going back to Scarlet O’Hara and the plantation.    Although this recipe includes apples and cranberries, the flavor is much the same as my holiday yams.

Sweet Potatoes with Apples Baked in the Solar Oven

Sweet Potatoes with Apples

Makes 4 Servings

• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
  2 medium Granny Smith apple, cored and diced into small (3/4 to 1 inch) pieces
  2 – 3  tablespoons dried cranberries
  3 tablespoons brown sugar
  1  teaspoon salt
  1 teaspoon cinnamon
  4 tablespoons butter, melted

Pre-heat the solar oven while preparing the recipe.

Combine the sweet potatoes, apples, and cranberries into solar oven pot.  Combine the brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon.  Pour the brown sugar mixture over the sweet potatoes and apples.  Pour the melted butter over everything.  Stir until all are coated evenly.  Place into the hot solar oven.  Bake for 2 – 3 hours.