Solar Tuna Pie With or Without Egg Sauce

Solar Tuna Pie With or Without Egg Sauce

Somedays, you just want food on the table with minimal preparation. A fast peek midst the stores on my shelves and in the fridge and the Solar Tuna Pie with Egg Sauce was born! And, it was delicious -- both the cooked pies and the cold leftover filling for sandwiches, the next day.  Using ready-to-fill refrigerated pie crusts, two per package, I cut each roll in half and lightly rolled them to compress the dough and make it just a touch thinner.  Tuna mixture: 2 cans drained tuna, 1/2 medium onion, 1 green pepper, 1 stalk celery, 1/4 head Boston lettuce, (all finely chopped), 1 Tablespoon sweet relish, 1 teaspoon yellow mustard, salt and pepper to taste, 1/4 teaspoon mace, 1/4 teaspoon cumin (optional), 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese.  Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Solar Christmas Amish Friendship Bread in a Jar

Solar Christmas Amish Friendship Bread in a Jar

The holidays will be here before you know it and this is the perfect time to get started. With just a few variations, Amish Friendship Bread becomes a delicious Christmas present. And, it's your choice of how dramatic you want to be. For me, the standard recipe has generally produced three standard loaves of bread or one large bundt bread. To get a head start on Christmas, why not make two loaves and 3 pint-sized canned breads from a single recipe. Before long, you will have plenty of Hostess gifts ready for all those holiday parties on your calendar. Before sealing the jar, adding a quarter cup of rum or brandy will ensure that your gift will keep indefinitely. Without the rum./brandy, your gift will have a shelf life of between 3 to 6 months without any loss of flavor. Keep in a cool, dark, part of your pantry or on the bottom shelf of your refrigerator.

A Peck of Powder in a Pint - Dehydrated Garden Fresh Tomatoes!

A Peck of Powder in a Pint - Dehydrated Garden Fresh Tomatoes!

Tomato Flakes and Tomato Powder

One of my favorite kitchen appliances is the dehydrator -- I have a Nesco, one of those round ones that will hold up to 12 trays but still takes up little room.  My girls loved to snack on dehydrated vegetables -- they're sweet, crunchy, and the flavor is so good, it's almost beyond description; but, more to the point, they're healthy!  This year's garden was more beauty than produce which meant I would have to supplement my harvest with a trip to the local farmer's market. These two jars came from just one peck of tomatoes -- the jar on the left has tomato flakes for soups and stews needing a burst of color along with taste and the jar on the right has tomato powder for fresh tasting flavorings, pastes, catsups, and sauces. Believe me, the taste result is well worth the effort.

Solar Short Ribs with Carrot Coins and Spaghetti Squash

Solar Short Ribs, Carrot Coins and Spaghetti Squash

This is one of those ideal solar meals that can be cooked in a conventional oven, crockpot, or solar oven. Short ribs need slow cooking and low temperatures to break down the fibrous tissue to a melt-in-your-mouth experience. (If the fibrous tissue doesn't break down, imagine long-term chewing of dental floss...) This meal produces a table full of 'rollin' eyes and gnashin' teeth' (as they say in the country), after which you sit out on the porch to listen to home music and the old folks' tooth-suckin' wisdom... (urp!)  So, let's get started...

Happy Labor Day! - September Toast

My September Toast to You!

I always think of the fall as a time of new growth.  School starts and minds are open to new information that will help us discover how to continue or choose a lifetime path. In that light, here is my September toast, to  you:

May you... let the past be your strength to the present ...set your goals in support of your future ...and have the knowledge to see when your direction changes, to stay the course of your dreams.

Solar Curry Frittata, Artisan Loaf Bread, and Chamomile Tea

A Light Solar Curry Frittata, Artisan Loaf Bread, and Chamomile Tea

It's been hard thinking of heavy meals in this incredibly hot weather, so I had one my favorite light summer brunches, a frittata with herbs and a few veggies from the garden.  The Artisan Loaf bread is featured, again, because I've been testing my process to make sure you can do the same thing -- lower heat with the end result being a crunchy crust and beautifully textured inside... Then, the palate was cleansed with some Chamomile tea in one of my favorite teapots...

The Solar Curry Frittata:  Preheat solar oven to 225F.  Thinly slice the following: one summer squash, one red bell pepper, one large mushroom, one medium onion, 4 medium

Solar Cooking Question - Give Me the Children

Solar Cooking Question of the Week - Give Me the Children

This past week in my comments, I was asked a very good question by Maggie at Walk On The Happy Side.  She inspired me to start a new section for this blog -- answering questions from mainstream folks who are just discovering solar cooking and want more information.  Once a week, I will pick one or two of your questions and answer them to the best of my ability. (No, I'm not going to answer questions about the contents of my car trunk or where I get my drugs -- although, I must say the expression on the helpful policeman's face when I brought out the axe, the whip, and my seven-inch filleting knife, looking for the jack, was priceless!)  This week's question was also a challenge that you can read in its entirety in my previous post.  Here is the paraphrased question:

"Cause here's your challenge... While I love the idea of saving energy, the earth and living naturally all at once. How would you encourage me into the solar cooking world?"

Answer:   Well, Maggie, truth is, whenever you want to introduce a new way of thinking, you start with the children.  Their minds are little sponges, open to new ideas and eager to know everything about their world.

Today, I rest, because I have been asked to guest blog for Michelle over at All Home Cooking - All Year Long.  She does scratch-cooking, cake baking, menu planning, and is a food loving gal who loves a good challenge in the kitchen, experimenting with ingredients, twisting recipes, and feeding people!

It's always fun to meet new people and, in BlogLand, Michelle gives me hope for the art of cooking in the hearts of today's domestic engineers! Hope you'll visit her site and catch my post.  I'm going to have a nice glass of wine, prop my feet up, and plan my fall garden! (Right...back to work...)

Brandy, Bread, and Okra-Squash-Cheese Casserole

Plum Brandy Aging - Country Style
Life has been a little disjointed, lately, but I did manage to get a few things done. My neighbor was kind enough to share the bounty of her fruit trees and, although her lack of spraying did not produce picture-perfect plums, and we enjoyed some delicious desserts. Along with the hornets and bees (who ADORE fresh fruit), the wind had knocked down quite a bit of still very good fruit that would salvage into some great wine/brandy.  I went for the brandy.  After letting the plums do their thing in some sugar and a touch of yeast for ten weeks, I poured it all through an old T-shirt in a strainer and added the vodka for a gallon of some holiday brandy for pleasure and gift-giving.  The plums made a fantastic full-bodied wine that

A Different Kind of Container Garden

A Container Garden for Marriage
Another weekend of saying goodbye to a beloved sister-in-law.  We were once seven strong and are now down to two... And then, it was the annual weekend for the family reunion that has been taking place since 1926... the older generations go (I'm one of them, now) and the young begin to replace... it's the natural order of things but hard to bear the passing... Watching the intertwining of their lives, all I could think of was what I had written several years ago in response to a woman asking what container gardening could possibly have to do with love... I know it was the influence of watching these families living their lives in love that inspired my words...