Solar-baked Lasagne with Lamb's Quarters

Yesterday I attempted to make lasagna in my new solar cooker. Careful readers of this blog may remember that I said I was going to throw out my old solar cooker. I did, too. I threw it out numerous times, each time with more disgust and determination than the time before. First I threw it into the giant dumpster that was parked in my driveway for the purpose of disposing of demolition and construction debris. The workmen tossed it out. I never mentioned it to them, but I got the feeling that they didn't like anything but their own trash in their dumpster. Didn't matter that I was ultimately paying for the dumpster - it was theirs. Somewhat perturbed, I stuffed it into my trash can (really one of those large black plastic dumpsters on wheels) and put it out on trash day, only to find that the oven was wedged into the can so snugly that it wouldn't fall out into the trash truck when it was overturned by the big pincer robot thing that dumps the cannisters. So more garbage got piled onto it. Next week, same thing. The garbage on top was disposed of, the oven and whatever garbage was below it was intact, mocking me. I felt sure, however, that the next garbage day would be different, that something would shake loose and I would pull the garbage can in from the curb empty. But I was to find that my Theory of Things Shaking Loose was based more on faith than anything else and so I was, in the end, forced to dig through the garbage and rearrange it in such a way that elimination of the hateful solar oven was possible. Good riddance.

Last weekend I made myself a new solar oven, as promised, based on the Cookit plans. I really should start calling it a "solar cooker" instead, since it's not an oven.

I decided to make lasagna, mainly because it seemed easy to prepare, although I had doubts about the noodles actually cooking to the point where you'd want to eat them.

Anyway, I just sort of made something up. Used two partial jars of Newman's spaghetti sauce, ricotta, mozarrella, noodles, some pine nuts, and layered in a bunch of lamb's quarters, freshly harvested from the forest of lamb's quarters which occupies the space formerly known as our garden. I put it out in the yard at 12:21pm.

June and July would have been the perfect times to use the cooker - that's when the sun beats down all day relentlessly and it the temperature hangs around 100F all day long. Now we're in our rainy season. It's warm, partly cloudy, and there's a fair chance that it will rain in the afternoon and evening, but it seemed like it was sunny enough. After I put the pot into the cooker, I went to find some stones to put under the pot because I had apparently lost my homemade cooking trivot. When I came back a minute or so later the pot was already too hot to touch, which was reassuring.

I left it alone all day. Ok, I peeked at it once, but I didn't poke it and obsess over it. I figured if it was a failure we could eat soup for dinner.

The sky became cloudier all afternoon, and finally around 6pm it was completely overcast, so I took the pot in. The recipe calls for 2 hours, but I gave it about 4 and a half. No sense in bringing it in anyway, since it would just cool off and then we'd have to warm it up before dinner. And goddammit, do you know what? It worked. I tasted it and it and it tasted like lasagna. I coudn't believe it. The noodles were cooked perfectly. The top layer ws a little dry, but other than that it was completely appetizing. Not bad for never having made lasagna before.