Using the Solar Cooker and Rice Pudding Recipe

On Sunday we used the solar cooker for the first time. It arrived on our doorstep a couple of weeks ago after months of being on back order. Yes, demand is that high, and the company (Solar Oven Society based in Minneapolis) is having a hard time getting the recycled plastic materials they use to make their SOS Solar Sport ovens. I like that these ovens are made in Minnesota and were designed with the help of our very own 3M engineers. I decided to buy one rather than make my own because they're so lightweight (less than 10 lbs.) and more dependable than a homemade version--though I know a lot of people are building their own with great success. See my sidebar under "Interesting and Inspiring" for a page of ideas. I also like that for every Solar Sport I buy, some of my money goes to providing Solar Sport Ovens to homemakers in Africa and other needy countries so that the women don't have to ruin their health cooking over an open fire in their tent or hut.
Here's our Solar Sport oven in the backyard. We start it in the front, east-facing yard, then by afternoon we move it to the back, west-facing yard. The oven does need a sunny day but can be used even on cold days. The solar heating is not affected by outdoor temps., I guess.

We had great results, although the rice was a bit crunchy. We will remedy that next time by adding more water. We made jasmine white rice (which the oven manual says is a little trickier to cook than ordinary white rice), using 1 and 3/4 cups water to 1 cup rice. Next time we'll try 2 c. water to 1 c. dry rice. We also cooked a Delicata squash in the second pot. I just cut the squash in half, scooped out the seeds, put it in the black granite-ware pot that came with the cooker and put a tablespoon or so of butter, some salt and pepper and a bit of brown sugar in each of the scooped out halves. We started everything at about 11 a.m. and ate at about 5 p.m. The squash was cooked perfectly. Both the rice and squash were probably done in just a couple of hours, but since the manual says it's impossible to overcook food in the solar oven we let it stay in there till supper time.

With the leftover crunchy rice (and there was a lot), I decided to make rice pudding this morning. Actually, it's called "Swedish Rice Custard" in my cookbook. It is amazingly good! And a good use of leftovers in these times of high food costs, bad economy. I know we don't like to waste food at all these days.

Here's the recipe for Swedish Rice Custard from my Gloucester Virginia Celebrates 350 Years cookbook (my husband's home town):

2 c. cooked rice (I doubled the recipe today so there's more in the photo than this makes)
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1 T. butter (I only used this to butter the baking dish--can't tell if it should be in the recipe or not too)
2 c. milk
2 eggs, beaten slightly
1 t. vanilla

Combine ingredients in a buttered baking dish or custard cups. Bake at 325 deg. F. for 45 minutes or until custard is set (it's been taking more like 1 and 1/2 hours for me). Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Serves 6.