A tiny dinner.

Okay, well not even enough for a mouse's dinner. This is my first potato ever (the thing that looks like red yarn is the arrow pointing to it):
The smallest potato

I hadn't even planned on planting any potatoes this year, but there were some growing vines in my cabinet so I stuck them in pots. I was planting when everyone else was harvesting, but since I wasn't going to eat them anyway, I thought I'd give it a shot. They are dying in our 110-115 degree heat, I think after checking them for miniature potatoes, I'll just turn the vines over in the pots and they can be compost for next years potatoes.

I tried some mesquite flour that I made from a neighbor's mesquite pods, which were a different type, they tasted about 100% better than that last batch. Lesson learned. I found a recipe for mesquite cornbread on the internet, and I found a cute cast iron cornbread pan/mold at goodwill for $4, I'll be making that tomorrow along with some solar oven beans.

And finally, there is a new addition to the tiny farm. It's a baby white-winged dove. My husband found it after clearing some bushy lantana in the front yard just sitting on the ground, since he inadvertently destroyed its nest (if there was one there?), I'm taking care of it. It has started to feather in, hopefully it will do okay, though it doesn't seem to think I am its best friend yet. His/her name is Jasper. I will post pictures soon.

Very Simple Solar Cooking Recipes x2

Now that the weather is back to being sunny all the time I busted out with the solar oven again. A nice thing about solar cooking in Phoenix is that when it's 110 outside you can be excited about how well your food will cook, instead of just dreaming about moving to a more temperate climate. I experimented with a new cooking container-- a stainless pot that I found at Ikea and spraypainted flat black with the hi-temp bbq paint. I don't think it worked any better than the black glass plate inside in the clear pyrex casserole dish that I was using. I do think that when I build the next solar oven that is well insulated and has a glass top the pot will be better performing than the casserole dish.

I had intended to make applesauce in the solar oven so I peeled, cored and finely sliced 7 apples and put them in the pot with about 1/2 cup water. (The peels and cores went into a separate crock for my attempt to make homemade vinegar, I'll update on that in a few weeks when I get the results.) I let it cook outside all day and then added cinnamon. I tasted some and they taste just like the inside of an apple pie, even without adding sugar, so I think I'm going to skip the food processor and just eat these as they are. :) It's good to know though that next time I'm making applesauce, I no longer have to simmer the apples over the stove.

2nd recipe: Baba Ganouj (that stuff that's like hummus, but uses eggplants instead of chickpeas) I put an eggplant whole into the pot and set it in the solar oven for the day. I brought it inside sliced it in half and easily scooped out the inside (peel goes in the compost) and put it into the food processor. Along with the eggplant, I added:
1/3 cup tahini
1/3 cup olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 finely chopped clove of garlic
dash of salt

Directions: Process in food processor for about 30 seconds, maybe less.

It tastes great, much better than the time I made it when I thought tahini and lemon "probably weren't too crucial to the recipe"
Fresh out of the solar oven

This pic is a little unappetizing, but it's a false alarm

Ta-Da!