Neat food idea from a guy in Silicon Village.

—R

Posted by: "tomfoolery_sj" tsontheroad@... tomfoolery_sj
Date: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:46 am ((PDT))

I am making some big changes to my food prep plan for this year. I
have brought a propane stove in previous years. But the wind always
seems to make using it a problem. It does work, but seems
inefficient.

So I am relying on using an electric kettle for instant soup prep. I
also have a small espresso maker that will give me my Coffee I.V.
drip in the morning.

In year past I have used tasty bites and rice packets. They can be
easily heated by the sun on or under your car windshield. So far so
good. But I wanted to have more variety and not have to bring things
that need to be kept chilled. So why not take to solar heating up to
the next level?

I realized that I could cook rice and beans with a solar cooker. I
did a lot of research and found one that folds flat, is easy to make
and is used all over the world:
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/CooKit

So I built one out of thin plywood, but you could use cardboard or
reflectix (!!). I made the "King" variation, because it is easy to
scale. See the plans in the wiki page above. I used two 2x4 sheets of
~3/16th plywood from Home depot. It was lighter than masonite. The
units I used were 1.5". You can pick any unit size you like in the
variant I used. Some thought had to go into the cuts because I was
using two separate sheets of material not one large one.

I built it on Saturday and want to report the results: WOW!

I baked three small potatoes in a few hours and later in the day
cooked Zatarains rice and beans. The potatoes were creamy and very
soft and tender. You MUST use oven mitts to pick up the pot when it
is done cookingor you WILL get burned. The temperature in the oven
bag was over 200 degrees. I had a 1 quart and then a 3 quart black
saucepan inside the oven bag to hold/cook the food. Water boiled off
of the surface of the saucepan when I adjusted the oven bag and
condensation dripped on to it.

I think I can cook eggplant, butternut squash, onions and of course
rice and beans with this unit. I can weigh it down so it does not
blow away. It is small and flat when I fold it up. I used continuous
hinges to make mine, but heavy fiber tape would work too.

I'll report more if I have good or bad luck with my pre-playa testing.

-TomFoolery

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