Even though it is only February and there is yet another storm on the horizon, my thoughts are turning more and more to summer. It is about this time of year that I think everyone here on the hill gets a good case of cabin fever. The nice weather of this past week just makes it worse. By getting a taste of nice weather again, it makes it even harder to go back to the snowy conditions we have been experiencing of late. Even though the moisture is wanted, needed and appreciated, there is an inconvienance of truding around in it that makes life just a little more difficult than when there is no snow.
For months now I have been baking bread, cooking stews and making meals in the oven without much thought. The extra warmth the oven brings to the kitchen at this time of year is a welcome delight. However, I started thinking of the hot summer months ahead when turning the oven on or even boiling water on top of the stove will make my little kitchen heat up like an inferno. Even though summer brings much lighter dinner fare, there are still some parts of it that need to be cooked. The pasta for pasta salad, water for iced tea, bread for sandwiches and so on.
I got to thinking about solar ovens. I have seen them for sale and I have seen plans on how to build them. Some can even be built out of cardboard boxes. I don't know anyone that owns one, so I have never seen one in action. But even so, I have decided that this summer, I will build myself a solar oven and see if I can use it to bake bread, boil water and cook simple meals. I get ample sunshine at my house and I feel that this could work.
My reasons for wanting to try this are many. First of all, it will keep my kitchen and house cooler, there by eliminating the need to cool it down with fans or air conditioners. That will save energy and help to keep my electric bill down.
Secondly, the sunshine is free, so why not? Building a solar oven seems relatively easy and cheap to do, so I might as well take advantage of the sun. Since I have a gas stove, I will save propane by not using it, so that is two ways I will be saving energy. Since the cost to make one is relatively low, I should re-coop whatever monies I do spend on the oven in energy savings.
Third, it would give me a way to cook when the electricity goes out. Even though I can use my stove when the electricty is out, I can't use things like crock pots. So I would be right back to square one. Cooking in my kitchen and heating it up with no way to cool it down. Talk about suffering. It is bad enough to be out of electricty, but then having to heat up your house on top of it is cruel and unusal punishment in my book. But using a solar oven, my kitchen will stay cool and hopefully, not heating up the kitchen will help in other ways as well, like keeping the fridge cool for a longer period of time, even though the electricity is off.
Even though this method of cooking seems very low tech, I see only good things coming out of it. My house will stay cool, I will cut down on my propane and electric use, I will be using free energy to cook my food and it won't cost much to set up. I think the only problem will be if the oven doesn't actually work. But I don't think that will happen.
As summer approaches, I will be trying this to see how it works. I will post how I build my solar oven and how cooking it in works out. In the meantime, I will keep working on my winter seed sowing project. It looks like I have peas coming up!
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