Cooking with the Sun: How to Build and Use Solar Cookers [Paperback]

Dan Halacy (Author), Beth Halacy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

Cooking with the sun shows how to harness the sun's energy in preparing food. It presents detailed plans, liberally illiustrated with line drawings and photos, for building solar ovens that can cook a 12 pound turkey in three hours, and a solar reflector "hot plate" that perks coffee and cooks steak, bacon and eggs, hot cakes and other stove-top meals. The oven will reach temperatures of 375 degrees F, and the "hot plate" 650 degrees F.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Solar cooking is easy, free, and clean, and you can build a solar oven and a solar hot plate with a few dollars' worth of materials and hand tools. Cooking With the Sun gives simple directions for both, along with a host of recipes -- pizza, chicken, pecan pie -- that will convince you that low-tech is the way to go. Endorsed by the American Solar Energy Society and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Review

Cooking with the Sun is beautifully done and superb reading...very useful and inspiring. -- Jan Bayea, Chjief Scientist

Environmentalists, do-it-yourselfers, barbecues and campers should delight in this comprehensive guide for harnessing the sun's energy to prepare food. -- Public Citizen magazine

Here are intelligent instrucions for constructing and using several different solar cooking models, including recipes and information on where to buy supplies and commercial solar equipment. -- The Bloomsbury Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 114 pages
• Publisher: Morning Sun Press; Rep Sub edition (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962906921
• ISBN-13: 978-0962906923
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #380,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Special Appliances
  • #19 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Reference
  • #30 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Healthy

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Basic, but Thorough, June 19, 2001

By 

"dreamstrike2" (Matteson, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cooking with the Sun: How to Build and Use Solar Cookers (Paperback)

This is a well written, friendly book that teaches solar cooking without being preachy. The directions to make the cookers are reasonable...The recipies are also good and well organized for the different kinds of cookers. As energy prices skyrocket, these kinds of cookers can really help save you money, keep the environment a little cleaner, and keep your house cooler. (You can bake with these things - and you don't have to bake yourself along with the cake or run the a/c to cool off again!) And though the sun doesn't shine all the time, it's free, and even in California, you'll be able to keep cookin' right through the rolling blackouts while not heating up the kitchen!

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent rewrite of an older book, August 23, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cooking with the Sun: How to Build and Use Solar Cookers (Paperback)

The original "Fun With The Sun" (1961) by Dan Halacy has been revised and updated. The section on building a box cooker has been completely rewritten and results in a more elegant and easily built cooker. The chapter on building a reflector cooker produces a more compact and easier to handle unit but the construction involves a bit more work. The second half of the book is devoted to some excellent recipes. I have tested several and found them to be very good. This is an excellent book for teaching anyone to use our most plentiful energy source.

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple solar ovens and "hot plates' made easy!, November 17, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Lafayette, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cooking with the Sun: How to Build and Use Solar Cookers (Paperback)

Cooking with the Sun is the only book that gives a brief history of solar cooking and explains how to construct with clrear text, line drawings, and photos an oven that is as efficient as the expensive commercial solar ovens. You can build it for under $25 in materials and it will reach 350 to 375 degrees F. The "hot plate" just like the burner on your stove top is also easy to build and will reach temperatures of 650 degrees F within minutes. You can fry, steam, grill, poach with instant heat The book offers all you need to know to use solar cookers and over 90 recipes with resources. The sales of this book has tripled since the awareness of the Y2K problem. People are looking for easy ways to cook should they loose their power source.

THE SOLAR STOVETOP COOKER: PATTERN, ISNTRUCTIONS RECIPES ($12.00) is now available. This amazing product allows you to build the fascinating "hot plate" with ease. It gives you all the critical angles so there is no figuring to do. All you have to do is cut out the angles and trace them onto cardboard and assemble the cooker. It can be built in a weekend. It comes with an easy step-by-step instruction booklet with recipes, how-to information, and other solar cooking resources.