Solar Cooking!

Recently we decided that on The Trip we would like to be able to bake. That was an interesting dilemma as baking and roadtripping doesn't really go together (or so we thought). After doing some research online about solar ovens we decided to go ahead and purchase one. It cost about $250 (with shipping) We bought the most widely used oven available and one that had the most positive reviews. Supposedly this oven could get over 350+ degrees and would cook without burning. We figured it was worth a try. This week the oven arrived completely assembled, and all we had to do to use it the first time was to remove the protective film from the reflectors.

How does it work? It works GREAT! Our burnoff test revealed that the oven could get to boiling in under 10 minutes, over 300 in 20 minutes, and over 365 degrees in 40 minutes! That's definitely hot enough to bake. So, today we threw together a simple no-yeast maple-oatmeal whole wheat bread. After preheating the sun oven we threw the bread mix in and sat back and watched. It cooked in almost the same time the recipe said it would because the recipe called for 350 degrees and that's almost exactly what the oven got to. Homemade bread baked by the sun in about an hour? Yeah!

One of the best benefits of solar ovens is that they can be used in cold weather. A clear cold day is better than a humid hot day because of the light intensity which is the most important part. That means you can cook even below freezing in the winter! Your cooking window is much shorter because of the shorter days, so that just means you need to use your sun time better.

Our hope is that on the trip we will be able to cook our own granola, cookies, bread, and snack bars. We figure not only will it taste better and be better for us than store bought items, but will give us a much different perspective on cooking and eating our own food. In addition to baking the oven can also cook anything else you want. We're going to try slow roasting pork, making rice, and boiling water for coffee. It'll be a cool experience.

http://www.sunoven.com/

Here are some pictures from our first baking.

The recipe.

The oven with reflectors folded up.

Starting temp

25 minutes into preheat.

around 40 minutes of baking.

Crust starting to get golden brown, and smelling great!

Bread in oven.

Checking the bread. Perfectly cooked and ready to come out.

The final product. Check out that crust!!!

So good. 

Mike's visit to Utah

Uintas Weekend Photo Set

Last weekend our good friend Mike Loh came into town. We were originally supposed to meet him in Idaho at City of Rocks for a weekend of stellar granite climbing, but alas the van figured that it would rather sit in the shop for the weekend. Just as we were leaving SLC the engine temperature alarm came on and we decided to get it towed back to our great mechanic Wayne's VW. Fortunately we found out today that it was just the thermostat which goes bad eventually and it was pretty inexpensive to repair, also good news was that we got the gas lines replaced which will resolve some of our leaky fuel issues when filling up the tank completely, unfortunately that one wasn't so cheap to do.

After bailing on City we left Mike a message that we wouldn't be able to make it and that he should come down to Sandy for some Utah climbing. After some missed connections we finally got in touch with Mike, gave him directions to our place and were planning our Saturday of climbing. We were all in agreement that cool temps were the primary concern as the Wasatch Range was supposed to be baking around 96 degrees. With that in mind we opted to go back to the Uintas. The Uintas are a great high mountain range that runs East West across Utah and at 13,000 ft has the highest peak in Utah. The crag we chose is called Ruth Lake and is the easiest to access (only a half mile hike in) and boasts some of the best lines for sport climbers (which we arguably are). We hiked into the wall and promptly onsighted or flashed everything we hopped on up to and including 5.10d. I mention the grade specifically because I'm pretty sure that is Cassie's hardest flash to date and was done after a good deal of time not climbing on ropes at all so our endurance for anything over 20 ft is pretty much shot.

Cassie clipping the bolt before the hard section.

Scalp Fest 5.10d

Mike in a comfortable hand jam. 

Sweat Lodge 5.10b

Near the end of our climbing day I went down to Ruth Lake with Mojo to let him have some fun running around while Cassie and Mike finished climbing. The wildflowers were outstanding and so was the light. I'm really happy with the way some of the pictures came out, and it's all thanks to that evening low light that makes everything look surreal.


After climbing we went into Kamas and had dinner. We left not realizing that both Mike and I had left our credit cards in the bills. The next morning while trying to pay for breakfast the truth was shown and Cassie had a good laugh at our incompetence.

With such a stellar weeekend spent among friends we all agreed that we should really get together and do that type of thing more often, and so tentative plans have begun for a trip in the future. Can't wait!

Click here for the full set of pictures from the weekend. 

The Overlook - 4th of July

Fourth of July is always a mixed bag in Utah. On one hand usually it's a great long weekend, but it's usually so hot you don't feel like doing much at all. The solution? Go to the highest place you can find and try to escape the heat. Luckily there is just such a place called The Overlook near Brian Head Utah. It's a stellar climbing area (I've blogged its praises before) located at about 10,000 ft. This time we had a huge crew of climbers to accompany us along with other friends. All told the group consisted of Cassie, I, Kim, Kent, Chris, Emily, Mike, Danielle, Tori, Chris, Renee, Nicole, Jesse. It was a blast having so many people to hang with. We did a little climbing by getting warmed up on some problems we've done before and then just hung out. The next day Cassie rode 15 miles on a mountain bike trail and got a black and blue behind. Each night we made dinner and talked over beers and watched the sun set. Just can't get much better than that. For the fourth we watched the fireworks from about 5,000 above them and then proceeded to show our patriotism by lighting sparklers and coming close to setting ourselves on fire. I put together a video with clips from Cassie and my trip the previous weekend and combined it with clips from the fourth. Enjoy!

Here is an amazing dinner Cassie made with a recipe from The Splendid table. Ask her to email you the recipe as it's not on their site (at least anywhere we can find it).

Chicken Brochettes in the Style of Fez