Not to worry, the above image isn’t of an alien landing. It’s merely my solar cooker working away on a mouth-watering meal of baby back ribs and baked beans.

I’ve had the solar cooker for a few years, but this particular effort all started when I spotted a recipe for Sticky Balsamic Ribs while wistfully looking through my July 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine. I knew immediately that I wanted to try this with Chaparral Garden’s luscious Blackberry Balsamic Vinegar (just one of their lineup of very versatile and wine-friendly vinegars), and decided that I’d try doing the preliminary roasting of the ribs in the solar cooker.

Slow-cooking ribs certainly makes them fall-off-the-bone tender, but I’ve always had a hard time justifying the energy expense of having them sit in an oven for two-plus hours. Now my guilt is banished and my taste buds are rewarded thanks to the solar cooker! A few hours in that brilliantly low-tech contraption provided the perfect slow heat for the ribs. After that, I put them on the grill, but took the time to repeatedly turn and baste them with the sauce instead of just once suggested by the recipe. You need to take care that the sweet, sticky sauce doesn’t burn, but the tasty end result is well worth the attention.

I made the basic beans in the solar cooker the day before, starting with dry beans and water. (I’ve always been challenged at making beans, which are an absurdly easy thing, but before I got the solar cooker I always made them too tough or too mushy or too something. Now, I just throw ‘em in and come back in a few hours to perfect beans.) The next day, I finished them off using the “All-American Baked Beans” recipe from The New Basics Cookbook by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso – complete with bacon, brown sugar, ketchup, maple syrup, molasses, and Worcestershire sauce.

A solar cooker is so basic it’s pure genius. Mine consists merely of a reflective screen that folds into an inverted dish shape. The food goes into a thin, dark enamel pot that’s inside a closed plastic bag. Yes, I did indeed balk a bit at cooking in plastic, but it doesn’t actually touch the food; it just provides a way of keeping heat and moisture contained around the pot. Other solar cookers utilize a sort-of glass-topped cabinet, which does away with the plastic, and also provides higher cooker temperatures.

I don’t recall how I stumbled upon them, but I’ve supported the efforts of Sacramento-based Solar Cookers International for several years. As you’ll see by perusing through the website, solar ovens have a myriad of positives, especially for water pasteurization in disaster relief efforts and for women in third world countries to whom the task of cooking usually falls. The ovens not only offer an alternative to having to source firewood for cooking fires, but also provide a safer cooking station in so far as kids burning themselves on flames. Using solar energy is also free, doesn’t throw particulate matter into the air, and eliminates the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning associated with cooking in enclosed spaces.

Obviously, solar cooking isn’t always workable or appropriate, but it’s a simple, low tech solution for a lot of situations – including my silly inability to properly cook beans!