Chef Tess Shares Fun Kid's Spring Break Cooking Projects On Fox 10

Are the kids making you crazy this week?! Join Me on Fox 10 AZAM this Monday morning at 9:45 for some crazy cool kitchen crafts to make some memories over Spring Break...and beyond!

In the past on Fox we've made a lot of things to keep the kids busy during the breaks. Our first kids segment was all about homemade play dough and since then I've tried to often include a lot of  Kids cooking . 

Monday we'll be making some fridge pickles.  You can also explore the science of pickle making here. We'll be making freezer jam on the segment. I used the Ball instant freezer jam pectin from here.  For full cooked jam instructions, join me in the kitchen when I had a  A Jam Session with the Girls.   It will give you step by step instructions on how to make it at home.   We'll explore how to make a Solar Oven too!  I'll be bringing My First Solar Oven!   It was made of cardboard and one that I used for a few years!

For more information on building one of your own from cardboard boxes look here:

 How I built a Solar Oven or you can also find other Plans for Solar Cookers.

Homemade yogurt  would be a fun project to do with the kids to learn some kitchen chemistry!  

 Treasure Rocks are a great project for your young paleontologist.

Homemade bubbles are cool for any kid.

This week I'll be featuring some great kids cooking and craft ideas all week! 
It will be a great way to build some fun memories with the kids while still having a semblance of sanity. 

Here we go!

Free Sun Oven Cooking Essentials Seminar

I have to share this event because there are so many solar cooking enthusiasts who read my little ol' blog here. Many of you know that I started using the Global Sun Oven several years ago after getting absolutely addicted to cooking with a solar oven I made from a few cardboard boxes. Ace decided it wasn't a phase I was going through, but a passion for using sustainable resources for cooking. He bought me the Global oven as a suprise. After I stopped crying tears of joy...I took it to my patio and cooked with it. Now, years later I can report it is my favorite cooking appliance ever...bar none.   Here's the kicker...   I'm not teaching this upcoming seminar. I've never been more excited to attend something as a student! Why?!  Well, because it's actually being taught by the President of Sun Ovens International! These are the guys who make the Global Sun Oven.  I'm going to be taking the class in spite of my experience, because I think there's never a time to stop learning...especially when it's something one is passionate about! Free Sun Oven Cooking Essentials Seminar - Saturday, March 5th at 10:00 AM.  (At Fitch Park - 1 East 8th Street, Mesa, AZ) Paul Munsen, the President of Sun Ovens International, will be teaching an instructive course on how to use the Global Sun Oven.  This class is great for Beginners and Advanced sun oven users alike.  Paul has a great teaching style and always provides wonderful pointers and techniques for getting the best out of your Sun Oven.  Come and get inspired to use your sun oven more on an everyday basis. SUN OVENS International has been innovative in developing methods of placement, training, and marketing to assist in the positioning of over 34,000 family sized GLOBAL SUN OVENS in  the U.S. and more than 100 developing countries, and 250 large VILLAGER SUN OVENS in deforested developing countries. --http://www.sunoven.com/ I'm happy to say that you can get Global Sun Oven at Preparing Wisely for 250.$  I'll see you at the seminar my friends! I'm so excited!!

Solar Cooking Education and Media Coverage

I believe the greatest untapped source of natural energy, is human potential. That is why I teach.

Today I am not going to feature my usual Mix Monday (full of scratch convenience mixes of one sort or another)...due to a very full schedule with an upcoming segment. I will be at a local school teaching the science of solar cooking to a group of anxious second graders later today. It is amazing to me how something that has become second nature to us, can be something so exciting to someone who has never seen solar cooking up close. That's what I like to do, get kids and adults thinking outside their frame of reference. If I can spark some genius in a child, it may just bring about another innovative design for solar cookers that will bless literally thousands of underprivileged poverty stricken people around the world. In fact, those who once had to walk several miles for fire wood and cook over an open flame are now being introduced to a safe clean method of cooking. I've been told that there are over 100 thousand solar cookers in use throughout China and India and reportedly they are used in almost every county in the world. Why not solar? It's really getting to be quite a revolution worldwide. They are using them to not only cook food, but sterilize water and surgical tools. Really remarkable isn't it?

September has been National Preparedness Month. Why not make a little cardboard box solar cooker and keep it around for any random emergency. You never know what is ahead...and it's always nice to be prepare! Want to learn? You can find ideas here: Plans for Solar Cookers
Why not give it a shot?!

That being said, this Friday at 3:30 on NBC 12 Phoenix, I'll be a featured chef on Valley Dish! Hopefully you'll join me for a delicious and easy Fall dish.

Bigger Bolder Solar Oven is Done...

Bigger Bolder Sun Oven...big enough for 12 loaves started a little while ago. If you didn't peek at that entry, we've basically made a cooker out of an old dresser drawers and some common household items. We have finished the baker for the most part. Looking close to 350 degrees after 1 hour in sunlight.

For the windows we used glass picture frames (16 by 20 inches) so far they have been the biggest expense at eighteen dollars each. For the reflective panels...plexi-glass mirrors (1$ each at our local dollar store). We purchased an oven thermometer (at the dollar store too) to track the temperature and for the gasket/seal around the edges of the glass, we nailed some heavy laundry rope (about 3 dollars). The only other thing I would recommend is getting the metal hinges. Those doors get warm and it's nice to not have to take them all the way off each time it needs to be lifted.

Finished. The mirror panels are leaning against a lawn chair for now until I can figure out a metal chain system. They are clamped together with the metal clips pictured about.I'll let you know how that goes.

Bread is baking as I type. I'm excited to see how it goes.

That's all I have to say about that.

Bigger Bolder Sun Oven...big enough for 12 loaves

I thought I would share the newest solar cooking adventure we've embarked on. It's been really crazy. We've converted a used oak clothing dresser into a solar baker with the capacity of baking 12 loaves of standard bread at a time. It started out like this...

I liked the idea of having wheels, but this one had really been used a lot to move around. So we took them off.

Using the wood from the dresser drawers, we went about breaking them apart and using the high quality wood for the sides of the cooker.

The advantage of using the dresser was that it already had the sections divided and supported by the wood slates. It was just a matter of adding the insulation and building the inner walls of the cooker. Oh...and putting a bottom on the thing.

Insulating we went with rolled fabric, the same height and width of the panel sections.

Sliding the fabric into the sections, we then covered them with another layer of wood.

This is what it looked like when it was all sealed up. Tight seams if any at all. Insulation encapsulated inside the walls to hold the heat in the baker.

Painted black with high temperature oven paint 5$ a can,(safe up to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit), available at any hardware store.
New wheels...2$ each.

Nice handle for easy lifting. 2.50$

Fully painted and drying, it is now awaiting the oven gaskets, glass cover and metal reflective panels. So far we've only spent about 20$.

I'm getting really excited. Can you tell? When we get it finished and bake some bread, y'all will be the first to know. In the meantime, we are having fun.

That's all I have to say about that.

My first solar oven

This is the first homemade solar oven I put together back in 1999. I pulled it out of storage so that everyone could see it. Little did I know that this little project would turn into a full blown excitement for solar cooking. It was made out of two cardboard boxes and insulated with rolled up newspaper. I loved this thing! I actually found the directions on the internet recently, here: How I built a Solar Oven. Thanks to my old High School buddy Darin for directing me to that site. It is the exact method that I used! How cool right? So now you can make one too.

It only had one reflective flap that was lined with Mylar to make it shine...yea the stuff they use to make the balloons. The glass was a cheap piece I found at the Home Depot. I lined the top of the box with felt to hold in the heat. On the bottom I placed a piece of metal that was painted black.

I used it to cook a lot of soups and staples but could never get it up over 275 degrees. Which was okay, but my bread was not what I wanted it to be. I've since graduated to the full blown industrial model. However, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of this one. In fact, had I not kept it, you wouldn't have any idea of the progression of my cooking. I didn't blog back then. I just started blogging in November. Up until that point I didn't even have a clue about the blogging world. Side note... Tara is the one to blame for anything you see here. She encouraged me to start this little project.

Even more random is the fact that in High School, I was in the same college prep. chemistry class with my sister who is just 1 year younger than I am. Our teacher was a dry old codger. However, he did manage to give us the nickname "sunshine twins". We've always been a perky little pair of girls. It wasn't until recently that I have come to know that there is a perfect shortage of light hearted souls. I wish there where more who could see the sunny side of life. So I guess I am a little sunshine girlie myself. Is it any wonder whatsoever that I use the sun to cook?

Solar cooking is becoming very popular. I'm excited to be part of the solar cooking movement. My first TV segment will be coming up soon. Specifically on the solar oven and light and fun summer desserts (that I baked in it). The latest word on the upcoming cooking segment with Fox is that it will be next Wednesday morning. Shortly after it airs, I will again post the link to the Fox 10 Phoenix website.

Baking Bread in a Solar Oven

Sun baked bread....

In previous posts I have talked a little about my joy of cooking with a Solar Oven . Should the need arise in an emergency, we have a way to bake bread and pretty much anything that can be baked. I love my oven. The last 6 months with it have been a great learning adventure.

Particularly, I wanted to share some tips on baking bread in a solar oven.

The chamber in a solar oven is a lot smaller than a conventional oven.

One thing I have found is that is is possible to only bake two loaves at a time. This is okay if you plan on making a few batches. Just start them an hour apart and they will be perfectly timed for the solar oven. The only situation this would not be true, is if you bake your bread in a WIDE mouth quart mason jar. Grease them pretty well! Then you can bake them 3-4 at a time.

Second, For bread, once you have formed it into a loaf, it is okay to put it in the oven immediately. The oven takes long enough to heat up that the final "proof" can be done there inside the oven. This allows your bread not to get too light and have better slicing quality.

Third, I heard that it was very difficult to get anything brown in a solar oven.
The enclosed chamber holds in the moisture.

They will get good and golden brown, however, if you don't clasp the door shut.
Close the glass, but don't clasp it. This allows moisture to escape but not all the heat.

They are still pretty pale, but not white.

Test them for doneness by inserting a meat thermometer in the loaf. If it registers 175 degrees, it is cooked.

In any situation however, it is always good to have some practice cooking in a different way than with gas or electricity. This oven is great for camping!! It is light enough my 5 yr. old can carry it. It is also amazingly fun!

More information can be found at:https://www.sunoven.com/ I don't sell them.

All Things Green...Solar Cooked Split Pea and Pesto Soup

Solar Cooking is one of the easier cooking methods.
Unlike stove top, soups and stew have a very low chance of burning, and the heat source is not only clean and free, it is also what grows these split peas in the first place! You can't get any more natural than that!

Italian style split pea soup with pesto and homemade crackers

For the soup you will need:

1 lb split peas

5 cups vegetable stock

1 medium onion, chopped

1 T dry rosemary

3T prepared basil pesto (I use my own but feel free to use your favorite brand)
Fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

sea salt, to taste

In a dark covered pot that fits in the solar oven, combine the first four ingredients. Cover and place in the solar oven. Oven heats quickly to around 300 degrees. Cook 3-4 hours (if left unattended, it's not a problem...it works like a crock pot in this regard. LOVE that!!)

Remove from the oven with hot pads and add 1-2 cups more vegetable stock for thinner soup,

This is how it looks without added stock.

Add the pesto, salt, pepper, and stock and it will look like this...

Garnish with crackers...

I make my own leaf shaped ones just for fun!

Enjoy being green!

The Solar Oven & My Global Warming...

This is a Global Sun Oven.

Global Warming goes baker.

I use it for a lot of my baking and cooking in the Arizona sun.

It really has nothing to do with heat, so much as sunlight.

Case in point, these ovens are used at the base camps of Mt. Everest.

It is plenty cold there!

Inside it looks very similar to a regular oven.

It has a temperature gauge and a glass door.

But...

It also has these really nifty metal panels to collect sunlight. I love it! I feel like an astronaut baker. See, it's my 2001 Space Odyssey obsession, applied to baking. This is Hal. Pretty scary. Elvis would be proud. Especially when I wear my sequin lined sunglasses to remove the loaf pans. (For the youngies, 2001 is the music played to introduce Elvis at his concerts...)




The glass pane folds down and encloses the chamber. The reflective panels direct the sunlight to the oven, and the temperature raises enough to bake my breads, rolls, roasts, root vegetables, casseroles...really anything I could bake in the oven. So let the festivities begin. I will be adding a lot of information on baking with a solar oven. Because I am just cool enough to do it! Someday I will have a bakery with 50 of these bad boys! In Arizona, I can bake at least 360 days a year that way! You may have less luck in Canada. The other crazy thing, when it isn't sunny enough, I can still heat water to boiling, put it in a covered pot with my rice or grain and cover it with a blanket in my oven. 30 minutes later, my rice is cooked! Not bad on only the energy it took to boil the water!

More information can be found at:
https://www.sunoven.com/
I don't sell them.

Pueblo Red Corn Chili...killer to the core!

I once worked with a woman who was raised by Pueblo Indians. She owns a restaurant here in Arizona and for months I have been absolutely addicted to this red corn chili. Oh my word! It's sooo painfully good. Like I'm in pain from eating so much!! This chili is gorgeously unique in that it has hominy in it instead of beans and is thick with shredded beef. Balanced flavor. Hot and satisfying. I couldn't stop. The kicker was the fresh Traditional Indian fry bread she served with it. Fry bread I learned how to make!!! Again with me and the bread. It really wouldn't be authentic Chef Tess without mentioning the bread to go with the chili right?

My big let down was no chili recipe. Really. She wouldn't give me the recipe for the chili. Instead I have done a lot of steady recipe testing. This is what I came up with. It is actually a traditional Mexican soup called Pozole. It uses pork, but you can use beef and call it red corn and beef chili. For certain it will knock your socks off. Be warned it is hot. I tend to go a little less hot than the traditional because I have kids. Regardless, it is so simple to make! Don't be afraid to try the white hominy! It has a wonderful flavor and makes a unique soup! Great texture!! Most divine with toasted corn chips or served with fat warm tortillas. Also one to add to your list of freezes beautifully. If you're really good, I may just post the fry bread recipe. First make your chili!!
Pozole1- 8 oz can tomato sauce
3T chile powder--not for chili beans, but ground ancho chile or hot New Mexico chile
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1T dry oregano
1 T ground coriander seed (these come with most pre-made spice racks...check yours!)
1 lb lean pork, cut into cubes
6 cups Mexican Style Hominy (canned, or fresh cooked--read directions on package)
1 small can green chile (or one fresh roasted, skinned and seeded)
3 T minced garlic
2 large onions, chopped
2 cups chicken or pork stock

Juice of 4 limes
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1 bunch chopped cilantro (optional for some... a "must have" in my kitchen!)
Salt and cracked pepper to taste

Put first 11 ingredients in a crock pot, solar oven, or pot on the stove, and cook low until the pork is cooked, about 1 hour stove top, 2-3 hours high crock pot or solar oven.

At the end of cooking, add lime juice, green onion, and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper!
Excellent served with baked blue corn chips and a dollop of fat free sour cream.
Stephanie's notes:Very low fat if you use lean pork. Vegetarians try the "soyrizo" found in the produce section.
It can be made without meat or meat alternatives, but isn't technically Pozole, just call it red corn stew. For people like my friend Ronit, this is also gluten free!! Enjoy!

Home-Spun Breakfast Cereal

Made at home? Can It Be Done? Oh dear! Yes!! Cold Cereal is a big one for most budgets. What do you pay for a box of this stuff? If your family is anything like mine, breakfast cereal is a main food group. There are a ton of choices out there. Walking down the cereal aisle can be scary! Some cereals are loaded with sugar and not a speck of whole grain. Hopefully this I can help your budget and your nutrition levels. I'll even tell you how to bake this in a solar oven. How fun is that?
Whatever your reason for making your own cereal--be it family nutrition, budget, or both... here are two great recipes! One is for granola and one is for grape-nuts.
First in line is granola. My husband ate so much granola the last time I made it, that he asked me to never make it again. He had no self control and couldn't be held responsible for his consumption levels. I happen to love granola. I still make it. He still nags me. What is a girl to do? I used to giggle about moms who made homemade granola. It just seemed so "hippie-like". Strap on your wood clogs and whip out your long braided hair. Peace. Love. Nature. Low and behold, I have become what I beheld...one of" those granola moms". Do you see my eyes rolling right now? It's not sooo bad. In fact, I am starting to think that it is one of life's lost arts. Try it sometime!

My granola recipe1 cup cold pressed oil (canola,coconut or grape seed are great!)--regular oil or melted butter work--peanut butter isn't too shabby either.
1 cup honey
2T double strength vanilla (I do go heavy on vanilla)
2 cups whole wheat cake or pastry flour (white all purpose works)
2 tsp salt
2T Cinnamon
10 cups rolled oats
1 cup chopped nuts, optional (we don't want too much fat, right?--Ahh. I do love a good almond or hazelnut.)
2 cups dried fruit (raisins, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, cranberries... whatever you love!)
Directions: In a batter bowl, combine the oil, honey, and vanilla. In a separate 8 quart mixing bowl, combine all remaining ingredients, except the dried fruit. Divide granola between two stoneware bar pans, or two large cookie sheets, Bake at 325 degrees 15 minutes. Stir and cook 10 more minutes until golden brown and crispy. Add dried fruit. Store in an airtight container once cooled. Enjoy! This recipe yields 15 cups ( 4lb 8oz)--30 servings!
Cook's notes: If you use peanut butter, you may need to mix this with your hands or a good big electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Oil seems to mix better. The original recipe called for 1 1/2 cups butter and 2 cups brown sugar. Splenda can be used, but cereal will be not hold together like granola.
Like" Honey Bunches of Oats"?--Mix this granola with 2 large boxes of whole grain corn flakes or frosted flakes! Corn flakes are one of the cheapest breakfast cereals out there! Add to that this inexpensive and healthy granola, and it makes cereal go a long way!--Usually 4 gallon size bags!
Grape nuts are next in line. I've made these for a long time and love the fact that they are almost free! Especially since I make my own bread. Yes. Bread. That is the only ingredient! These require the use of a meat grinder (mine has actually never been used on meat... how weird!) Most often we use it for sprouted wheat bread or grape nuts. I don't sell meat grinders. They can be purchased at most Wal-mart stores near the home canning supplies or in specialty Spanish food markets. I've even seen them as an attachment to some electric mixers. I have the hand grinder because I want to feel like a circus monkey is banging a drum in my kitchen. Um... Or something to do with not using electricity all the time... Hopefully you will enjoy these as much as we do! You can either use whole wheat bread that you may have goofed and it is now really heavy (instead of a paperweight), or it can also be made with regular whole wheat bread. Whatever you have. My whole wheat bread recipe can be obtained in the blog entry "Are you Afraid of germs."

Mom's "Grape Nut" Squiggles 1-2 loaves whole wheat bread
Directions: Grind through a meat grinder. It comes out in long squiggles. Place on a stoneware bar pan or deep heavy sheet pan . It usually takes one pan for each loaf of bread used. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until brown and dry. I break them up a bit with a metal spatula! Serve for breakfast, lunch or dinner with milk or soy milk and sugar or honey. MMM. Yes. It is that simple!
Solar Cereal notes: To bake in a solar oven, make sure you have a dark medium bar pan, divide cereal in half and bake one at a time in the sun oven with the glass top unclasped. This will allow cereals to dry and get crispy golden. Once oven temperature gets to 325, put in cereal and bake the same amount of time!
Global Sun Ovens - http://www.sunoven.com
Did you know that homemade bread is the best air freshener out there?
Who doesn't just fill with joy and happiness at the smell of homemade bread?!
Here's my 2-Cents. Bread is worth learning how to make!
Not only is it cheaper and more nutritious, it's more fun!