In the Sun: Tomato Sauce & Schiacciata

As promised, here are photos of the tomato sauce and schiacciata that I made in the sun oven. Not as promised, I still did not take the photos. Rick did, and he also pointed out that I haven't given him photo credit for his other photo contributions to this blog. Oops. Thanks Rick!

I tend to start a lot of my solar cooking indoors. I think some meals come out best that way. The sun will cook your meal all day—and solar oven makers and enthusiasts claim nothing can burn—but at the same time it doesn't quite brown the same way. The food will, however, retain more of its flavor and moisture than a traditional oven. The option is yours as to whether you'd prefer to jumpstart the sauce, or simply put it straight outside. I prefer to give a quick saute to some foods—quicker than I normally would if cooking on the stove, though. For those of you who don't have a solar oven, well, make the sauce in a crockpot and let it simmer on low, or put it on the back burner of the stove on low. It's all good!

Solar Oven Tomato Sauce

Yum, smells good! photo by Rick

Mince two garlic cloves and about 1/4 of a medium onion and saute for a minute or two in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Next add some fresh basil, parsley, and oregano, amounts up to you. (I let the herbs saute for as long as it took me to get the wine out of the cabinet). Add about 1/4 cup of red wine and let it simmer for a few minutes. I like the Pomi brand of tomatoes because of their lack of BPA, but add whatever brand you like and heat for maybe another 2 or 3 minutes. Cover the pot and put in the solar oven. I set mine out at about 10:30 a.m. for three hours. The flavors blend wonderfully and the taste is rich and mellow. There have been times I've left the sauce out all day, but I wanted to get the schiacciata out also. 

Proofing the Yeast

Meanwhile, I had proofed some yeast as I was starting the sauce. Normally I use instant yeast and long ferments, but in this case I added a tablespoon of active dry yeast to 1/4 cup warm water with a pinch of sugar. I left it for 10 minutes to do its thing while I got the sauce together. Once the sauce was outside, I finished getting the schiacciata together.

Schiacciata

Solar cooked schiacciata. photo by Rick

Put 3 cups of flour in a bowl. Make a well and add the proofed yeast and as much water as you need to make a dough that isn't too dry or too wet. I know these are pretty loose directions, but it's all about developing a connection with your food and improvising not only with what's at hand, but what the weather is like on any given day (dry, humid, pouring rain, etc.). For a better estimate, I used a cup of water along with the 1/4 cup already used for the yeast, for a total of 1 1/4 cups on this particular day. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, cover with a clean cloth, and leave for an hour or two.

Erica and I went off for our daily run, distance unknown, but it takes an hour. Hopefully it's more than a mile! Kidding. Anyway, once home and showered I shaped the dough onto a tray sized for the solar oven and let rise for another hour. Poke some holes all over the top, drop some kosher salt in the holes, liberally drizzle top with extra virgin oil, and sprinkle rosemary all over the top. Place the schiacciata in the solar oven until done. Time will vary according to how hot the solar oven gets. For those of you who are cooking it in a conventional oven, cook in a 450 degree oven until brown on top.

Happy eating!!!

Oh, Deer

After a very noisy overnight storm, we woke up this morning to a foggy wonderland that eventually burned off for another gorgeous June day. I put some tomato sauce out in the solar oven at 10:30 a.m. and left it out there until 1:30 p.m. I replaced it with a schiacciata that is outside baking as I write. Photos and recipes on those to follow in another post.

But I wanted to share these photographs that I took of three deer that made their way into our yard. I have to admit to being a horrible photographer. I went to college for fine arts and, although I understood the how of taking a good photo, the actual doing was always a trick (pen & ink was my thing). Well, in order to do a halfway decent blog the ability to take a halfway decent photo is sort of a must. Digital cameras don't automatically mean you can take a good photo, though, they only mean you can take a zillion shots and hope for one that's passable. 

Anyway, I came home from my morning run to find three deer out in the backyard. The deer perked their ears up and watched me, ready to bolt if I looked at all threatening. I snuck into the house and started searching for the digital camera Annalee gave me, desperately trying to find it before the deer took off. Okay, some people are used to deer meandering through their backyard, but it's not usual in my neighborhood.

We're very lucky where we live. We're sandwiched in between a 5,200 acre preserve and the Long Island Sound (our house is 1,000 feet from the beach). RCA (Radio Corporation of America) operated a large transmitting and transmitter research facility on the 5,200-acre site, known as Radio Central, and began transmitting transatlantic radio messages from there in November 1921. In 1927, AT&T initiated the first transatlantic commercial telephone service from there. The site was decommissioned in the 1970s, although you can still see the concrete ruins, old telephone poles, and radio towers if you go back there. The site is now owned by the State of New York and is part of a natural resources management area, which is in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens. As close as the woods are, though, the deer still need to cross a fairly busy road and make their way one mile down to our house through residential streets. Rick says they head down to the beach where he often sees them in the early morning.

Me and the deer watching each other!

So there I was trying to take a photo to prove to the rest of the family that we had three deer in the yard. I tiptoed outside and made soothing noises (probably sounded deranged instead) while I silently cursed the camera and tried to figure out how the thing worked (Rick's been taking my food shots for me, guess I can take over now!) I eventually snapped some photos—or at least hoped I did. All proud of myself I came back inside and took a shower. Afterward I quietly went back out to see if they were still there. Yup. And they were eating the vegetables. Okay, guess it was time to scare them off and save the lettuce. I headed out to the garden and asked them politely to leave. Didn't happen. So I had to make a bit more noise and wave my arms, except they came running toward me instead of away. Being on a narrow garden path with nowhere to go, I turned around and dashed for the back door with the deer, much faster than me, charging right alongside. Well, that went well. If the neighbors were watching I'm sure they were on the floor laughing. The deer did make it out of the yard and continued on toward the beach, the garden looked fine, and I got some photos. I suppose all's well that ends well.

Now I just hope my tomato sauce and schiacciata come out better than my photos.