Solar Cooking in the Valle

Fantastic event today cooking with the SUN! Especially in this week before the solar eclipse, when all things solar are so hip, it was great to talk about strategies to use solar energy to cook our food! A huge thank you to Valle Crucis Community Park and the Appalachian Energy Center for funding this solar cooking outreach event. The weather certainly cooperated and we were able to learn about solar oven designs and strategies and test them to make sweet potato fries and cookies!

I was able to bring the 12 solar ovens I have used and tested to this outreach event to discuss the thermodynamics, advantages and disadvantages of each design.

Solar ovens are divided into two categories, box cookers and evacuated tubes. Box cookers tend to have more practical cooking volumes to accommodate a wider range of food but evacuated tube ovens are very efficient and can even cook with some cloud cover. Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information about solar ovens or would like to book a solar oven cooking demonstration for your event!