Trevor and the solar oven

We (meaning *I*) have wanted to try this for several years. I have great intentions, but at some point, my kids will be too old. I made a spur of the moment decision last week that we'd have hotdogs for dinner the next day. Since I'd be working, Trevor could cook them in a solar oven during the afternoon while I was gone.

Sometimes I'm just brilliant!

Directions for the oven were simple. They called for a pizza box, but who wants to use an old pizza box, blech. So we substituted a small box we had from amazon. Trevor and his friend cut the lid to make a flap and covered the flap with foil. They stuffed newspapers in the sides of the oven to help as an insulator. We stuffed an 8x8 pyrex dish into the box (you could cook on dark colored construction paper too).



Trevor's directions were to put the hot dogs in, tape plastic wrap over the hole, set the box in the sun, and position the flap to reflect more rays into the box.

But it was overcast. Terribly. All afternoon.

I got home at 6, and he said he'd finally put the box out at 5:30. Not enough time to get things heated up.

So we ate dinner at the regular time. At 8:30, Trevor and his friend opened the box and enjoyed the steamy hot dogs.



Pretty much a success, especially considering we didn't have a lot of cooperation from the sun. And who wouldn't want to eat hot dogs for an evening snack?