Bonnie Rabbit Trails: Solar oven experiments

This spring I met Rick Jost who runs a phenomenal project providing solar ovens to Haiti. You can read about that in my earlier post. But, I had asked him if I could buy an oven and he does not sell the ovens in the US because he needs to focus his resources on the people who really need it, not the ones who find it interesting for a time or two.

However, he did let me borrow an oven for as long as I would use it and in return I would experiment with recipes and tell his story. Wow, win-win!!!

So, now that the sun finally found South Dakota (took a while!!), I picked up my oven and started experimenting. My first try was a simple chickpea curry and it turned out really good, but I didn't get any pictures of it. Next day I made two whole wheat breads and they were delicious. I am so hooked on this!

I can see how in Haiti, where sunshine is more abundant and fuel costs are so high, this is a fantastic resource to prevent cholera and other food born deceases. Also, people can allocate their money to food instead of fuel.

If you want more information about the project or wish to support, contact Rick or visit his web site at www.gbgm-umc.org/solarovenshaiti.

In the meanwhile, I keep experimenting :-)

A little water, oil, salt, eggs, honey, yeast, spices, whole wheat flour, ground flax seed, and white flour.

Wow! A little more dough than I had expected....about that recipe thing :-)

Divided the dough over two greased pans, put the lids on and off the oven they went.

Done! I was pleasantly surprised at the beautiful color too. I had baked them with the lids on and wasn't sure if they would brown or even get gooey, but they were great!