Cooking without the Oven

Since deciding not to cook indoors, I've had to be more creative about preparing meals. I don't usually bake much this time of year, simply because I don't like to heat up the kitchen on a hot summer day, but I do tend to use the stovetop daily. Without that available, food has to be prepared other ways.

Here are the appliances I've been using instead:

• Solar ovens
• Large George Foreman grill with interchangeable plates for grilling and a deeper baking one for thicker foods - plugged in outside
• Rice cooker - plugged in outside
• Toaster oven - inside

I also have a propane camp stove and a wood-burning rocket stove but I haven't fired them up yet. The idea of cooking over a hot flame when it's 105 degrees outside is not appealing.

How have I been using these appliances?

• The toaster oven has been used for toast and reheating cornbread.
• The rice cooker has - surprise! - been used for cooking rice.
• The grill has cooked onions, squash slices, and peppers. It's also toasted up bean burritos on several occasions.
• The solar ovens have been used to steam vegetables, toast almonds, and bake rice - all standard foods I cook in them. I figured out I can "saute" onions by tossing diced onions with a little oil and roasting them in a covered pan in a hot solar oven.

I also reheated some leftover pizza from a local restaurant and successfully baked my first batch of cornbread in a solar oven.

Living without the inside oven and stove is not that difficult, but it does require more planning. I can't wait until 5 pm to think about what to make for dinner unless we just want rice and grilled vegetables. And even then, I'd rather plan ahead and cook those in the solar oven so the cooking doesn't use electricity. You can see what I'm cooking in the solar ovens any time by checking out the log.

Speaking of utilities, I received the gas bill yesterday. I must have read the meter wrong as they wrote it down as seven therms, not eight, and then billed only for six after multiplying by the "billing factor". This means the other efforts I made during the month to reduce the bill - taking cold water showers, for example - did pay off a little. It's too soon to look at the meter to see whether not using the oven inside is helping, but I sure am enjoying a cooler kitchen.


I also used some reflective insulation to put together a little insulating cover for the chest freezer. It won't make a huge difference but every little bit helps.


The reflective side is on the bottom.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to check on the zucchini "steaks" cooking in the grill, the diced onion and zucchini cooking in one solar oven, and the oat groats baking in the other. Later, I'm melting the chocolate for a tasty fondue in the solar oven, but not until I clear out the onion smell!