Thursday, September 4, 2008

Got me a Hot Pot!

Our nephew David and his wife Lana gifted me with a Hot Pot for my birthday! Thank you David and Lana!

A Hot Pot is a relatively recent innovation in Solar Cooking. I've blogged about Solar Cooking HERE. In brief: Solar Cooking is changing lives in places where fuel is scarce and where water isn't safe to drink by providing a way to cook that doesn't require electricity, a fire, or fuel and can pasteurize water in about 30 minutes with just the light of the sun.

My new Hot Pot came from Gaiam. From the website: Sales of the Hot Pot help subsidize the distribution of this device in developing countries to reduce deforestation and respiratory disease caused by traditional cooking methods.

I'm trying to stick to low carb since the holiday weekend and so decided to make myself a little low-carb meatloaf (using the last of our ground Axis) in my new Hot Pot this morning. It came out perfectly! Perfect for a low-carb meatloaf at any rate, you can't put crackers or breadcrumbs or anything like that in a low-carb meatloaf.

The little red things you see are chopped up roasted red peppers.

The meatloaf was probably done in just under two hours (it certainly appeared to be done) but I was doing other things and so didn't check to see for sure if it was done until after three hours. And when I did go check it, taking the meat thermometer with me, I didn't need the thermometer because the juices from the meatloaf were bubbling merrily all around the edges of the pot. It was done, no doubt.

What's amazing to me is that it cooked the meatloaf so hot and so fast (for a solar cooker) with the morning light AND it wasn't full-on sun, there was a very thin layer of clouds low in the eastern sky cutting the light a bit.






This is Texas and it's freaking hot here, if I can avoid turning on the oven you can bet I will. I love having the Hot Pot. It's like cooking with a solar powered slow cooker. I'm eager to try my enchiladas in it! Or a lasagna! Or a small brisket! Heck the top of this meatloaf even browned!

Score your own Hot Pot by clicking this!

X-Posted at Cheap, Fast, and Tasty!

4 comments:

Michelle said...

ooh, I love it! But I suspect Northern Scotland might not be the best place to try solar cooking. Okay, it would be fine in summer when the sun sets at 11:30 pm and rises at 2:30 am, but not in winter! ;-)

You want any slow cooker soup recipes? We bought this giant slow cooker pot from a recycle centre a few years back and now I'm becoming the soup queen.
:-D
I also have a rather nice potroast... if you like garlic.

Michelle said...

PS - I've changed my email address so if you get an unknown email labelled from crows feet - it'll be me sending out my new address, ok?

Michelle said...

Ok ROFL

I can't find your email address so... can you email me on my old address and then I'll send back my new one?

Genie said...

Hi Michelle! I'm not sure I'd know how to find your old email address. It's been a long time since we emailed! I'm at genie lorene at gmail dot com

How much light do you get in Scotland in the winter? As long as it's clear and bright and not too windy, you can cook several things. Cold doesn't matter too much as long as there is sun. Even just two hours of light will allow you to cook a few tidbits. But for slow cooking over a long period of time, yeah, you need five or six hours of light. Wow you get a lot of summer time light! I had no idea!

I'd LOVE some slow cooker soup recipes! Preferably ones that don't involve flour or noodles. And I really love garlic. Got any slow cooker recipes for venison you like?

I went and did your Mayan calendar thingie and part of what I got was surrender too. It's hard to surrender!

Hope you're having a fab day, thanks for looking! And I won't be offended if you don't want to bother the angels with my question. Although if they're just sitting around playing backgammon they might appreciate having something interesting to do, eh?