Cooking in the sun

Most of our Spring was wet and windy so nice for locals and the tourists to get some hot summer weather. I had an ulterior motive for wanting the sunshine - I had invested in a solar oven and wanted to try it out!

Sustainability and New Zealand (link opens in new window) was one of the papers in the Open Polytechnic's Diploma of Environment and Sustainability that I took in 2006 and which, ultimately, prompted me to move to Stewart Island. It was a shock to learn that my resource use was unsustainable and that human modifications to the environment put future generations of all species at risk. World population figures had always been a tad meaningless to me until I saw a graph like this one...

...and realised that in 1900 there were 1.8 billion - and by the century's end it was 6.4 billion - 3½ times as many in just 100 years! There is no 'Planet B' and I made a pledge to do what I could to lead a more sustainable existence.

My nephew was using solar ovens in Thailand and I went looking online in 2006 but couldn't find any to purchase although there were some plans that I could download. I put it in the too hard basket until I received my December 2014 copy of the excellent 'Green Ideas' magazine and saw a solar oven on the front cover. With Mr Google's help I found Ebright Energy's website with a wide range of products including the Sunflair Solar Oven.

I read the reviews, liked what I saw and put in my order late at night on 6 December and was amazed to get the oven delivered to Ship to Shore on 9 December. I worked until 3pm then hurried home to open the package.

The Sunflair Deluxe Package for $185 with free freight. Package includes
the oven, 2 racks, 2 trays, 2 silicon collapsible pots, an enamel roaster,
instructions, a colour-coded thermometer and a carry bag.

The oven is lightweight and folds flat but super-easy to zip up when it's needed; the racks and trays are used under the pots and the thermometer lets you know when it's 'slow-cooking' time (85-140°C). All items except the enamel roaster fit easily into the supplied bag - it's well thought out and I applaud EBright Energy's founder, Kate Rowland, for her passion and excellent customer service.

It was too cloudy to try it out that day but the weather gods blessed me with a super-sunny morning on my day off and I made my first batch of muesli bars from the recipe on the Ebright Energy website - they took 2½ hours from 10am to 12.30pm.

I popped in some jacket potatoes an hour or so later but the cloud started to build up and the oven temperature dropped smartly once the sun was covered. The oven also needs to follow the sun so recommended that you turn it slightly every 45 mins or so; not a problem when I'm home but not quite so easy if I'm at work. I was impressed with how quickly it heats up when the sun is shining though and even if I'm just warming up water then it's still making a saving on using fossil fuel.

This bread recipe on the website takes 4 hours so that's my next project. Stewart Island could be a tad challenging with its fast-moving weather systems but I reckon that the Sunflair oven is a beaut way to cook for free.