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votes
Solar oven/cooking
For context, I live in the tropics and get a lot of sunlight for most of the year outside of monsoon season.
I was recently chatting with some coworkers and one of the mentioned baking cookies on their dashboard during the summer, and I remember my brother mentioning doing that when he lived in Arizona. That is something I could probably do here, but we always keep a sunshade up in our car so it isn't incredibly hot when we get inside.
This got me thinking about solar ovens since I remember seeing a video of someone using one to cook online awhile ago, and I was curious if anyone here has one or has any experience using one and if it was worth it or if they would have any recommendations.
I made one once with a pizza box, aluminum foil, plastic wrap and black construction paper. We were able to warm up some chili and hot dogs (in summer in New England). I definitely think you could do some actual cooking with one where you're at.
Modernist Cuisine presents: Cooler Steak
If not powerful enough, take some inspiration from the Mont-Louis Solar Furnace (IEEE) and make a miniature home version for instant cooking
In all seriousness, I would try a cookie bake for sure. A cooler and some foil in the sun should do it. My area is more suited for outdoor freeze drying....
I've never seen a Cool Steak so thank you for sharing that! Seems like fun and I may just give it a try sometime!
I'm hoping if we moved back to our old place we're renting out or settle down in this area we can get some solar panels as I can only image they would pay for themselves before too long with the amount of sun we get in the area.
I've seen YouTube videos of people using really big fresnel lenses to focus sunlight similar to a magnifying glass but on a larger scale and they get hot enough as to be quite dangerous and even melt metal. I imagine you could use it to heat a metal box and have a rudimentary oven, or heat a pot to boil water, or possibly even cook something like a steak directly.
I've seen some of those as well, the sun is no joke!
I was leaning more towards a premade one that I could easily store if needed, but I may look at doing something myself.
Since I work from home having something like this would be handy since I'm thinking I could set it up and let it cook in the later morning/afternoon when we get a lot of sun on the front of where we're staying.