In my journey to find cheaper and friendlier methods to do daily activities, I finally decided to give solar cooking a try. Cooking with the sun is not only fun, but it is a great way to save electricity on both using a stove as well as not needing to cool the house on a hot day.

Believe it or not, getting started is both cheap and easy. You can do it with every day materials and the only thing you may need to buy is an oven proof turkey bag.

To get started, you need to gather your materials and build a solar cooker following one of many methods available. The particular plans I followed are found here and use everyday materials such as cardboard, foil, elmers glue and duck tape.

The next items you will need are a dark pot with a lid and a turkey bag to put it in. The idea is to put your food, say a whole chicken and cut up potatoes, into the pot and cover with the lid. You then put the pot into the turkey bag and tie it shut with string or a twist tie.

Once ready, you place it on your solar cooker and aim it so the sun hits it full on. You may need to move it once or twice, however as you get used to it, you will find it to b very low maintenence

The whole process is very similar to cooking with a crock pot, and pretty much anything you can do with a crock pot you can do with a solar cooker. The cooking temperature stays right around 225-250 degrees which is more then hot enough to safely cook any food.

In the month or so I have been doing this I have taken advantage of nice days and cooked batches of soup, stew, chili, spaghetti sauce, a few cakes, bread and chicken.

Can you do it where you live? If you get at least a few hours of steady, unobstructed sunlight, then absolutely. It only takes a couple of hours to thouroughly cook the chicken above, but if you are doing something like chili with uncooked dry beans, then you will want more time.

The important thing is to relax and have fun, because you will soon find cooking with the sun is a great way to spend the day outdoors and an even better conversation starter. I mean, how cool is it to show people you can cook without any sort of fuel or electricity?