Chicken in the pot

Well. Yesterday the weather report said the high would be 69 degrees, "mostly sunny," so I attempted to make chicken again using this recipe at solarcooking.org for "Chicken in the pot."

I followed the directions for the recipe to a T. To a T, I say, except that the recipe calls for 1 can of chicken broth, but instead of using "1 can," I used "what was left over in the fridge in one of those boxes of chicken broth that Cristy buys." Cristy is always harping on me about using enough liquid in these recipes, but what she refuses to understand is that I like finding things out for myself the hard way. That way it really sinks in.

Anyway, the meal got into the oven at approx 10:30 am and came out at 4:30 pm. I would have left it out there longer, but around 4 the sky started to cloud over in a very unpleasant fashion. The chicken was done, but guess what? The vegetables were still crunchy. The chicken was done because I had layered it at the bottom of the pot and covered it with the broth, but the vegetables were essentially being "air cooked," which is probably not the best method for cooking vegetables.

In any case, I had to keep it hot until about 6 anyway so I tossed the whole thing into a crock pot and set it on high for a couple hours. We ate around 6:30. I told Cristy that my feelings wouldn't be hurt if she didn't want to eat the vegetables, but she saw through that lie and ate them. Really, it wasn't bad. Another two hours in the crock was really what the vegetables needed. Oddly, the chicken smelled and tasted to me like Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think it had something to do with the amount of black pepper in the recipe.

So was it a success? Sort of. Next time I'll use the proper amount of chicken broth. Also, there's only a month or less of cold weather ahead of us this season, so the sun is going to be getting stronger and stronger until it reaches it's skin-blistering climax in July.

One other thing. A few people who I talk to about solar cooking express doubt about how hot the oven gets. The oven doesn't really get hot: the pot in the oven gets hot. Even a day like yesterday in early March when the sun is still pretty weak in Albuquerque, the pot in the oven was so hot that it couldn't be comfortably touched. By comparison, put something in your crock put on low (or even on high) and when it heats up, touch the ceramic part of it. You can touch it without burning yourself.