Solar Oven Cooking and Bone Broth Soup

I love being able to take a whole, organic chicken and get 4-5 meals out of it. I always start by baking it in either my solar oven, or for the other 9 months out of the year, on top of my wood stove. The photo below is from last fall cooking on the wood stove, after the chicken was done and I removed the lid. Along side it I was frying some home grown yellow and purple potatoes.

After serving it like that the first night, I then remove the meat as needed for making other dinners for the next two or three nights such as Chicken Fettuccine, Chicken Fried Rice, Chicken Pot Pie, and more. Once I have used up most of the meat, I then take the bones, add some water and spices and let it cook in the solar oven (or on the wood stove), for a full day or so to draw out every last bit of minerals from the bones.

The next day, I remove all the bones and I am left with a wonderful, gut friendly chicken bone broth. I had a lot more meat left on it this time than usual as you can see in the photo above, but that is ok, it makes a good meat hearty soup that way. Sometimes I may turn the broth into a gravy or use as a base for enchilada sauce or something else, but most frequently, I turn it into soup and this is when I like to use my dehydrated (home or store bought) and freeze dried foods. One of my favorite things is Honeyville's dehydrated carrots. I love to just snack on them as is. Once I open a can, I seal them into mason jars to prevent them from going stale.

I also really like Honeyville's diced potatoes and organic (Non-GMO) corn. Then there is my home grown mixed greens blend that goes into nearly every meal I make. It includes kale, grape leaves, strawberry leaves, beet greens, stinging nettle, borage, plantain, carrot tops, radicchio, dandelion leaves, and I am sure a couple of other things I am forgetting. It is a great way to add more minerals and other wonderful nutrients we need. This time of year is when I am drying and storing the plentiful greens into vacuum sealed jars to get me through the year. I actually still have a few jars left from last year and several started from this year!

Other things I add are garden grown sage and golden oregano, dehydrated jalapeños, onion, garlic, tomatoes, red pepper flakes, and Himalayan or Redmond Real Salt (not that junk white salt!).

I then place the soup in the solar oven and let it cook all day.

The dogs are liking the smells coming from the oven

It is so nice to be able to just toss it in there and forget about it the rest of the day while doing my gardening, washing and hanging clothes, and my many other chores. Then at the end of the day when we are done with our work, we have a nice pot of healthy soup waiting for us, cooked by the power of the sun.

Thank you all for your time and hope you have a lovely weekend!

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