Solar cooked Dinner in a Pumpkin Failure!

by Joyce Lee
(Hurricane, UT)

Don't try this at home folks! A whole pumpkin stuffed with a casserole is a bit too much to ask for the limited times you have to cook this time of year!
I questioned myself as I put the pretty wet ingredients inside the uncooked pumpkin to bake, but decided to take the chance. My oven is only preheating to about 325ish so putting something in that dense and wet really killed the temp. It had trouble heating back up even to 200 so not enough good sun hours to bake the casserole inside and the pumpkin too.
Next time I'll cut up the pumpkin and cook it first before adding it to the casserole ingredients.
Or I might just stick to stuffed peppers. Orange with a cut out Jack O Lantern face! Stuffed peppers work out really well in the sun oven!

Stuffed bell peppers

3-4 bell peppers
1/2 pound ground beef
1 egg white
2 slices whole wheat bread cubed
1/2 sm onion, chopped
1 sm tomato, diced
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup chili sauce
2 Tbsp prepared yellow mustard
1 and 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
lightly mix together all ingredients but the peppers.
wash peppers and cut Jack o Lantern face in front. slice off tops and seed and core. fill with stuffing and place into pan leaning against each other for support. bake until tender. Mine take around 2 to 21/2 hours.



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Yes, a whole pumpkin would be a challenge in a solar cooker with the limited cooking hours of the fall and winter.
We usually solar cook our pumpkins (cut up) after Halloween for use in pumpkin pie, sopaipilla and other recipes and it works great.

Thanks for the great insight.

Nathan
Admin