It's Earth Day, Use a Solar Cooker

In celebration of Earth Day I have decided to cook our dinner outside in a solar cooker. Fortunately it's a bright sunny day! The menu is cumin spiced rice with black beans and mojo chicken. Here's the plan.

The black beans were soaked overnight in water. This morning I drained them and placed them in a pot with chopped onion and garlic and fresh water. They went into the solar cooker about 10 AM.

The cumin rice and the chicken will go into the cooker around 3:00. Both recipes are very simple. I marinated the chunks of chicken breast meat in a commercial mojo sauce overnight. It will be cooked in the marinade with sliced onions. The cumin rice recipe is below.

Cumin Rice

1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup of rice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
dash of dried oregano
salt and pepper
2 cups water

Traditional stove top cooking - Place everything in a saucepan. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low/medium and cook for 14 minutes. It should be at a low boil, just above a simmer. After the 14 minutes you should see craters in the rice. Turn off heat, keep covered and let steam for 10 minutes. Fluff with fork.

To cook the rice in a solar cooker place it in an appropriate solar cooking pan and place in your solar cooker. Cook until all moisture is absorbed. Rice generally takes about 2 hours here but will vary according to your cooker.