One of the cuties over on Gay Burners reminded me that I got a bit tipsy a while back and was pimping my blog over there. I've been meaning to get to posting my helpful tips for wonderful cooking on playa, alas my camera was being a flaky the other day and corrupted a whole disks worth of images....but I digress.
So in reality I've got 3 dinners packed already. Some Mac 'n Cheese, leftover from that adventure, and some lasagna from one of Husbear's cooking adventures. The premise is pretty much the same, package meal, seal meal, freeze meal, and on the day you want to eat it, solar-cook meal. Solar cooking is lots of fun surprisingly safe if you are using a well-designed oven, and super easy if you don't want to have to worry about cooking when you get home from a day of play. Just realize that on the hottest of days in Black Rock, your oven may reach temperatures in excess of 350F. That's probably not so good for the plastic bags, so I try to stop by at some point in the day and see if the oven is exceeding 250F. If it is, I open it for a bit and let it cool to just below 200F. On my inspired days, I'll put out some sun tea in the morning and use that as my excuse to check in...."Gee, wouldn't a nice glass of iced tea be great right now?" If you are feeling truly inspired, try some mint, or one of my personal favorites, Jamaica (its actually hibiscus flower, but I guess its trendier to call it by its Mexican name). With the Hibiscus, I've found adding spices, cinnamon, clove, and a touch of anise is quite nice.
A quick note about the safety of solar cooking. Make damn well and sure you have a well designed oven than can sustain temperatures above 160F for more than 40 minutes. These are basically pasteurization temperatures and should kill off any nasty bugs. Vacuum sealing also helps, but it isn't fool proof. The best way to check on a homemade model is to hang an oven thermometer in it....that's what we do with ours.
So here's how I do the Ravioli 3-way. Its always a favorite.
First up is a note about packages. In my experience, having uniform, "bricks of food", makes packing the freezer/cooler much easier. So you'll notice I'm using the same sized containers for all of these:
So portion out the meals. This makes it super easy for everyone to have their meal, when they want it, and you don't have to mess the with the drama of scheduled meal times. The one thing to keep in mind, these essentially turn into casserole type affairs, so plan accordingly.
The off to the freezer they go. Tomorrow (or, quite frankly whenever the hell I feel like it) I'll post about the vacuum sealing.
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