Thursday, December 11, 2008

Field Lab Bread

23 degrees was the low this morning....pretty frosty out there. I cooked some chicken last night on my outdoor grill - walked by it this morning heading out to the frigid tundra for my morning constitution and felt a warm blast of air. I left the grill on medium heat all night! Oops. Perhaps my solar oven will make up for all the propane I just wasted.

The day and I were both consumed by making solar baked bread today. Went to Chucks and picked up piece of radiant barrier to try out as reflective material for the oven. Worked pretty good but have to tweak the angle of the side reflectors about 5 degrees. Got to 275 degrees. Mixed up my bread dough but didn't place it in a warm enough spot to rise correctly.....ended up rather flat but hearty'n'tasty. Cooked the two small loaves for 2 1/2 hours. Gave a loaf to Chuck and Kathy and took one up to Dan's as I was invited to dinner there. Had a great steak. Must say I was pleasantly surprised with how the bread turned out - especially because I didn't have to end up using them as bricks. May have to give it another shot tomorrow. Not a bad first bread effort, unconventionally cooked....unlike me, the solar oven did exactly what it was supposed to do.

4 comments:

Solar Cooker at Cantinawest said...

Greetings,

Solar Cooked Bread is quite delicious.

From the looks of your photo it doesn't look like it turned out bad at all.
Nathan Parry
http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com

Anonymous said...

Hey John,

Thanks for the info on Harbor Freight and the wind gens. I will check them both out. I agree with the other poster your bread looked pretty good! Hot bread out of a solar oven.....SWEET!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Looks good to me! But 2.5 hours?
My first loaf the other day also turned out flat... was too cold. How is the corn bread doing? we are all counting on you tomorrow!!!
Soup is done... cooked on fire! A whole new ball game... stews galore from now on!
Be well... Ara & Spirit

John Wells said...

thanks all...the bread was OK but the cornbread came out great! Ara...you can try out my solar oven anytime!!