Summer Fun: Make A Solar Oven and Pita Pizza

 Do you remember making solar ovens in elementary school? I did. And when I taught 6th grade we made them. It is so much fun. My husband and I have been talking about making them since moving to the Arizona heat. It is so hot here- we were curious to see how it worked. Our boys got a kick out of it too! It is pretty easy to do. We saved a few pizza boxes. We lined them with foil on the inside, and used some skewers to prop up the lid at an angle. I sort of made holes in the box with the skewer so it wouldn't move.

Since the sun moves, you will have to turn your solar oven slightly, as your food cooks, depending on where the sun is. We preheated our ovens by leaving them out in the sun for about a 1/2 hour.

S’mores work really well in these. So do little mini wieners. We decided to make pita pizzas. The cheese had to melt and the pepperoni was frozen-so it had to cook also. We set a timer so we could see how long it took. The time it takes will depend on where you live and how hot it is.  I took photos of this in progress, but my card was not in my camera so I do not have those photos- oops. But here it is almost done:

After 37 minutes- we had cooked pizza! The kids were very excited- they had made their own lunch- in an oven they made! The best part is we did not have to heat up the house by turning on the oven. When it is over 100 outside....the last thing you want to do is turn on the oven.

Next we tried cookies. We had some homemade cookie dough in the fridge.

Here are the cookie dough blobs after about 10 minutes or so. Obviously, it will take a lot longer to cook than the conventional oven.

So what happened to the cookie dough??

I can't tell you....because "someone" got to them before I could see and ate them right up.... that would be my 4 year old.  He said they tasted good, but from what I saw, he enjoyed some cookies that were not quite cooked.  We will definitely be doing solar ovens again!

Happy Summer!