Solar Cooked Zucchini Pasta

When Oma and Opa visited this past weekend they brought along some yellow and green zucchini so I decided to make some pasta yesterday.

I just cut up one of each into half moons about 1/4 inch thick and added a leftover roasted chicken breast from the night before. Put it all in my oval cast iron pot, placed it in the turkey bag, put it on the solar funnel and set it and forgot it.

I put it out at 12:30 and kept it just off center of the sun because I didn't want it to get too hot. It was 70 degrees and a clear day.

The results- Everything was thoroughly cooked, although if you want a bit of bite to the squash you will definitely not cook it all day. Probably an hour or less in direct sun would be more then enough.

Everything was tossed with hot pasta and served.

Ingredients-

1 medium size green zucchini- cut into half moons 1/4 inch thick
1 medium size yellow zucchini- cut into half moons 1/4 inch thick
1 leftover chicken breast, chopped(meat)
2 ounces of chicken stock
olive oil
garlic
oregano
salt and pepper
* would have added tomato but was out

Re-Heating with Solar

Yesterday was yet another hot day and our plans for schnitzel went out the window. Oma and Opa came to town and that was our planned dinner.

Instead, we fired up the solar funnel and put on a pot of water for pasta. I set it out pretty early so I could do other things and let it get good and hot. Around 4:30 or 5 I wrapped a towel around the pot and set it on the stove to stay hot.

Next I put on a couple bags of spaghetti sauce from the batch made a couple weeks ago and let that get hot. It was heated in my oval cast iron pot with lid and took about an hour to go from refrigerator cold to piping hot. Not too bad, and since I didn't actually check it, it could have been faster.

We did finish the pasta on the stove, but the 2 gallons of water was boiling within a minute and the burner was on for a total of about 15 to cook 2 batches.

Soon I will set up another solar cooker, probably a box version, so I can do more at a time. Of course if I can figure a good way to set more then 1 pot on the solar funnel, I could simply use it.

While not a new item on the cooking with the sun menu, it goes to show how you can use it for many daily cooking needs.