Sunny Side Up - Solar Breakfast Muffins

Working hard and don't have time to make breakfast every morning? Hit the McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin on the way to work? Why not save your money and make your own, for free! By solar cooking your eggs and bacon/sausage in your solar oven on the weekend, you can enjoy your own variation of an egg and English muffin and save up to $10 a week.

Based on East Coast average prices: Egg McMuffin $1.80, Sm.Coffee $.80 = $2.60/day or $13.00/5-day week. Egg McMuffin with sausage/bacon and cheese $2.39, Sm.Coffee $.80 = $3.19/day or $15.95/5-day week. (Combos are a little higher.)You can take the price of the separate ingredients and divide that by the number of items in the package to see you're at home breakfast costs for a more accurate savings.

Within the limitations of the 60s and 70s, I did as much advance preparation as possible to utilize my time more efficiently in the kitchen. Microwave ovens were still a new frontier. Raising a family and running a business made menu-planning essential. I did anything I could to save time and money, and still serve healthy meals. Master mixes lined my shelves, pancake batter was stored in a two-quart pitcher for fast stacks, a month's supply of patties were formed and frozen from my own hamburg mixture
 (8 lbs hamburg, 2 lbs beef heart, 3/4 lb calf liver), and eggs were hard-boiled for cream sauces and salads.

Solar Cooking as Kitchenware

If I had known about solar cooking, back then, you had better believe it would have been very much a part of my cooking arsenal. Along with the food processor, blender, grill, microwave, conventional oven, pressure cooker, electric knife, melon-baller, mushroom brush (yes!) and all the other accessories we could get our dainty little culinary hands on, that solar oven would have been solar cooking from morn till night and pulling it's own weight.

Today, it's just as important to find ways of cutting costs. Thanks to solar cooking, we are now able to combine saving money with zero energy usage. A six-part muffin tin and the solar oven will prepare a week of your own English muffin eggs.

• Preheat solar oven to 225F
• Lightly spray muffin tin on bottom and sides (or, use butter/oleo)
• Drop a room temperature egg in each section; flavor to taste

• 
  
  Place muffin tin on SolarWear(tm) base, cover with top; place in oven
  
  
• Check for doneness after about 35 minutes. (Remember: Eggs keep cooking after removal from oven.) 40 minutes works fine, for me.
• Remove from oven and let cool. Wrap each egg in plastic wrap and put in a re-usable container in refrigerator.

Time to Eat:   Lightly toast English muffin; flavor, as desired. Remove egg from plastic wrap, place on English muffin, add pre-cooked bacon or sausage patty, slice of cheese.

Wrap in paper towel; microwave on med-high heat for 90 seconds. Enjoy!