Read as a typical prepper refines her skills with the simple act of cooking dinner. Her biggest collaborator: Mr Sun!

At a little after 10am, I opened up my Sun Oven and set it out in the yard. Although the sky was a little cloudy, I knew enough sunlight would break through to begin warming the oven. I went back inside and went about my morning as usual while the oven preheated.

By 12:00am, the thermometer was reading 275*. It wasn’t as high as it would have been on a full sun day, but it was still hot enough to heat up leftovers to enjoy for lunch.

It took about 30 minutes to get the chicken and potatoes heated through. If I had cut the food into smaller pieces it would have taken less time, but I wasn’t really in a hurry. The food was hot and my house was still cool- a good trade off for a little patience.

After lunch I picked a few ears of corn, some green beans and onions from the garden, and prepared them for dinner in the solar cooker. By this time the oven had reached about 300* as the clouds came and went.

After washing the beans (Kentucky Blue and Chinese Red Noodle Beans), I put them in a roasting pan with 2 cups of chicken broth. Next, I chopped a small onion and some leftover turkey sausage from this morning’s breakfast, and tossed them in with the green beans. A dash of salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of garlic powder, and they were ready to go into the oven.

To prepare the corn, I first shucked each ear and removed the silk. With store bought corn, I don’t normally shuck it first before cooking in a sun oven, however our home grown (organic) corn always has corn worms in the ends. Leaving the husk still attached, I washed and cleaned each ear, and cut off the damaged ends.

Then I peeled the husk back up around the corn, ran it under some water to wet it, and placed it in the bottom of the Sun Oven.

With the food slowly cooking in the sun, I was free to go about the rest of my chores for the day without any more thought as to what we’d eat later in the evening.

As I went in and out of the house, harvesting from the garden and hanging clothes out on the line, I checked the Sun Oven and redirected it toward the sun about every 30 min. You must follow the sun as it travels across the sky in order to keep the oven fully heated.

That wrinkle I mention on page one was a sudden rain storm!

Our intrepid prepper ran outside into the downpour and rescued the solar cooker and dinner. She rushed it onto the covered porch and there was enough residual heat to slowly cook the food to perfection!

Go over to The Prepper Project for more information! When you go off grid it might take patience and a slower pace, but the results can be sincerely mouth watering!