Dinner's in the Box

Once again, the clouds are messing with my solar cooking plans today. As a child, I remember the summer monsoon pattern being very consistent: clear and sunny all morning, clouds starting to build by noon, downpour with thunder and lightning sometime between 3 and 5 pm lasting only about an hour, and then clear skies afterwards but with cooler temperatures. In this scenario, solar cooking every morning would be a breeze.

This spring and summer, though, it seems like there have been more clouds - ranging from high/thin to scattered or totally overcast - on a frequent basis. This makes solar cooking more of a challenge, especially since we've even had the occasional morning rain.

I needed to cook some pasta sauce for dinner, both to clean out the refrigerator bins but also to make sure there is food ready when I get home from the CSA. I'm usually tired by the end of the shift, especially since it's at the end of the week, and even though I'm bringing home wonderful fresh produce, I don't want to spend another 30-60 minutes on my feet cooking it. So, my Friday routine is to make dinner ahead of time or at least do most of the prep work before I leave.

Since I couldn't cook the pasta sauce in the solar oven this morning, I cooked it on the stove. It started with sauteed onions and garlic, progressed with sliced mushrooms and shredded zucchini, and was then deglazed with some of the "juice" from my olives (red wine, vinegar, water, garlic, and herbs). I added two large cans of organic diced tomatoes, Italian herbs, some roasted eggplant, and about half a dozen sliced olives from the jar. Pasta sauce is best when simmered for a while, but I hated that it was really heating up the kitchen.

I decided retained heat cooking would be a good way to finish the sauce. The Le Creuset pot (great yard sale find!) was too large for the small basket I usually have set up for this so I moved the heavy towels to a box. The pot fit in snugly width-wise but left a little space on each end. After wrapping it with the towels, I topped it with a blanket that got tucked in to the ends to fill in the space. The whole box was then wrapped in foil-backed (bubble wrap) insulation with two small blankets tucked in at the outside ends of the box. I then draped another small blanket over the whole box.

It should still be hot by the time my sweetie gets home from work and may even stay hot unitl dinner time. All he has to do is boil the spaghetti and we'll have an easy and tasty dinner as soon as I get home. Now that's what I call a good boxed dinner!