Solar Brownies

Today is another sunny day so I couldn’t wait to use the solar oven again. We’d run out of snacks so a treat sounded good. We checked out
Cooking with Sunshine: The Complete Guide to Solar Cuisine with 150 Easy Sun-Cooked Recipes
from the library so I looked inside and found an easy brownie recipe to try out.

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The recipe worked fine. I made a few adjustments to the recipe. Organic Sucanat instead of brown sugar and pecans instead of walnuts.

After I finished and was folding the reflectors a couple came walking down the side walk.

“Does that really work?” he asked.

“Yep,” I answered. “I just finished baking some brownies in it.”

“How hot does it get?”

“It was just at 300° F.”

They both thought it was very interesting. I chatted a bit more, pointing out the benefits such as not heating up the apartment on a hot day like this. We’ve had similar conversations before with people that see the sun oven. It’s always nice to demonstrate possibilities.

Solar Cooking

The day is clear and sunny. A perfect day for using our solar oven to bake dinner. We took a lasagna out of the freezer yesterday. It’s still fairly frozen but hopefully later it’ll be nice and hot.
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The oven was up over 100° F after a few minutes. At the moment it is up to 250° F — when conditions are right the ovens work very well.

UPDATE
[thumb:577:l] [thumb:578:l] [newline]The oven got up over 300° F. The lasagna was actually finished earlier than we had thought it would be but it came out well. The dark pan over the top helped, I think. It bubbled over a bit in the oven but that cleaned up easily.

Garden

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The porch garden is doing well. Three of the four potatoes are up to three levels in the cages. We’re not going any higher but we need to pack more straw into the cages. The strawberries, marigolds and other flowers are all doing well too.

[thumb:572:c] We have a new addition now – chives my parents brought us on their recent visit. It’s a welcome addition to our porch garden.

No Car Today

Today is the first day of the Wizwheelz Car-Free Challenge. The good news: the weather couldn’t be better. Clear, sunny skies outside for the ride to and from work today. The bad news: I didn’t sleep as well as I would have liked last night. At least today was a day I work late so I didn’t have to get up early.

This week is also Bike-to-Work Week and Friday is Bike-to-Work Day. The events this month are a good chance to raise awareness of riding a bike in traffic and using a bike to commute. Hopefully each year the number of people that continue to use a bike will increase. It is easier on days like today with the sun out than cloudy, rainy days.

Potatoes

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The porch garden continues to do well. The potatoes seem to be outgrowing the boxes pretty much as fast as I add new levels. I need to make several more and pack in a lot more straw. As nice as the weather has been it is a boon to the porch garden. It’d be nice to be able to do more but we can only do what little we can at the moment.

North Route

Today I decided to do another long ride. I went out the same way I rode last weekend but instead of going to the South-bound Chehalis Western Trail I turned and headed North. After reaching the trail I rode for awhile out the trail before turning around to head home.
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This route took me over the new I-5 overpass to the trail leading out to Woodard Bay. The new overpass is a nice addition that enables pedestrians and cyclists to easily cross the busy interstate. There are two more planned overpasses yet to be built over two other streets, Pacific and Martin Way. The Bridging the Gap project will connect the two portions of the Chehalis Western Trail. [thumb:564:l][thumb:566:l][thumb:565:l][newline]
On the way back I took the other trail that follows the interstate and comes out near the library, then on up to home. The whole ride was just over eight miles. I’m not in the best shape so I can sure feel this ride. It was nice, though. I’m going to keep working on building up my miles and speed. Eventually I plan to outfit my bike so I can easily ride around to local farmers and pick up locally grown produce, eggs, etc.

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