Oh Mr Sun, Sun, Mr Golden Sun,,,,

Arizona excells in sunshine, I think everyone knows that. And the saying, "It's a dry heat" is perfectly legit - I have lived in Florida and other equally muggy states, drier is way better. 85 and humid is WAY worse than 100, 105. But then it hits 115 and you question why you continue to live in such a hellish clime.
So we put the sun to use... there are of course, solar panels on many houses, and we've done that in the past. (I would SO love to have a solar-run home, but it isn't cost effective yet to really go completely off the grid... not unless you build it into your initial home and mortgage.) The best we did was to pick a house with a lot of south-facing windows, for the solar gain in the winter.
And to further the solar experience, I bought a Solar Oven. And I COOK with it!! It works! It is basically a black plastic box with a clear top. The top is thick and hollow, two layers of clear plastic with a space of air in between. The box itself has thick, hollow walls. Here's a pic of what I bought, and I paid pretty much that price. http://www.solarovens.org/buy.html (The second one with the two pots for 167.) The oven was designed to be useful in the most backwards, undeveloped areas of the world, so they could cook and also purify water.

And did you know you can also purify water in those little 16oz water bottles you keep recycling? Just filter any water as clear as you can, then fill the bottle and set in the sun... UV rays kill even bacteria and parasites! They have tested the water, the bottles don't leach anything into the water, and it has totally changed school attendance in poor areas of Africa 'cus the kids don't keep getting sick and missing school. In the morning they lay bottles of water across the tin roof of the school, and by afternon the water is drinkable. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4786216.stm

So MY oven just bakes things for me - I've made casseroles, stews, baked rolls... I don't use it all that often, but it's nice to know it really does work, and on a hot day I don't need to turn on our oven, I can just use the sun!

Oh, so here is my latest try - I made sundried tomatoes! My bush keeps giving me these little roma tomatoes and so I've given a LOT of them away to neighbors, and decided finally to try drying them. I just sliced them in half and sprinkled on sea salt and a little oregano, and set them out there for 3 days, venting open the top an inch. And you can see the shrunken final outcome. I just went online for instructions and the first page said to set them out in the sun, covered with some cheesecloth or something, to keep the bugs off, and then 22 days later you have these tomatoes! (22?)Needless to say, I kept looking.

I'm going to do some more tomorrow. I haven't figured out what to do with my finished product, I just know I once had a great pasta with them in it, they are pretty sweet. For now I've put them in a baggie, sucked out the air and tossed it into the freezer. Any suggestions?
UPDATE- I made an alfredo sauce with some Penne pasta, put in a little bacon, peas and the tomatoes. Mmmm!!