Hot Pot Simple Solar Cooker with 5.3 quart Enameled Steel Pot - AS SEEN ON GOOD MORNING AMERICA! Review
I love this cooker! I live in Southern California where we are bathed in sunshine most of the year. It seems like such a shame to cook using our natural gas stove when there is FREE ENERGY radiating out from the sun! (Free in the "you won't get a bill" sense, not in the "why don't you understand physics?!?" sense. )
The Hot Pot is great and it has the potential to make a serious dent in your summer-time home gas/electric bill, if you use it to its full potential.
It is well constructed (although it DID come from a really large Asian country which shall remain nameless.)
I think it's rather beautiful. Almost like a crystal ball... with FOOD inside!
The instructions are easy to understand and visually appealing. The cooker bowl is perfectly sized. I make stews/goulashes big enough for four or five generous servings...
The shiny reflecting surface is unbelievably reflecty, just like mirrors. And it folds up small and neat. It would fit on a clip board.
My wife and I were cleaning out our cupboards a few months ago and came across a slow cooker. We got all excited about having food all done and ready to eat the moment we came in the door in the evening, so we searched the internet for some recipes and had a lot of fun experimenting with it. (I wish I saved the link for it, but look for a recipe for snapper or tilapia or any white fish in white wine sauce. Unbelievably good.) Unfortunately our slow cooker is only 3 qt, which sounds like a lot, but is honestly not very big. It seems like a waste of effort to do all the chopping and measuring and cooking and only make enough for one meal. Plus we felt very guilty and wasteful cooking with electricity when gas is so much cheaper in Southern California. We stuck it back in the cupboard and forgot about it.
Now, with our Solar Cooker we are resurrecting the slow cooker recipes! Anything that works in a crock pot will work in the Solar Hot Pot.
It takes a little "getting the hang of it" when you start, so don't try out your most expensive recipe first thing. There are really a lot of variables that determine how hot the pot gets, and therefore how long you need to let it cook, so experiment!
You can see some pictures over there that I posted. Over cooked the eggs a bit (whoops!) They still tasted fine. Undercooked the rice a little bit. The dogs were pleased with that.
The directions say you don't need to stir your food while it's cooking, but depending on the recipe I might disagree. I've "baked" potato/carrot/onion/mushroom mixtures and found that the bits of food at the top can blacken and dry out while the foods in the juices down at the bottom stay moist and juicy in a puddle of vegetable juices. Use your own judgement whether or not to stir. It stays hotter and moister if you're not pulling the lid off all the time.
You can cook other stuff besides crock pot recipes, like roasts or bread. I haven't tried this yet as we are vegetarians with a bread machine. But one of these days I'll give it a go with some dough.
I have NOT had success with pasta or rice. Have you ever left a pot of pasta or rice on the stove and forgot to turn it on, then come back and find the food HAS absorbed water, but is starchy and "raw." Maybe I've simply not tried rice and pasta in my Hot Pot on a hot enough day. I'm gonna wait a couple months then try it again.
Be sure when you're cooking that you have hot pads, as the black bowl will be very hot, and even the glass outer bowl and lid can get pretty toasty, too.
One final warning: the black enamel covered steel bowl does have a sharp edge you want to be careful of cause you could cut your finger on it. I haven't, but I've HAVE had cuts on similar pieces of enamel covered camping mugs, bowls, etc.
I have some limited experience with other brands of solar cookers and I find this one to be the most practical for regular use, and the most convenient for storing in the cupboards.
Even if you don't purchase this product for every day use, consider purchasing it for emergency use. Unless you live somewhere that you can just waltz outside and cut down a tree for cooking wood you are dependent upon gas or electricity for cooking. The Solar Hot Pot can help make you a bit less reliant on the "grid" in case of 3, 4 or 5 week long disruptions in service, such as you might experience due to earthquake, terrorist attack on the grid, or who knows what might happen. Even if you have a camping stove to rely on in such a case, why not conserve your fuel as much as possible? If you don't want to buy this, then at least look up instructions on how to make a make-shift solar cooker and stock up on "oven bags" which will take the place of the glass bowl you see in the Solar Hot Pot.
Buy this product and Enjoy your cooker!
Technical Details
- AS SEEN ON GOOD MORNING AMERICA!
- This low-cost, high-performance solar oven can produce cooking temperatures within an hour in full sun and be used for up to six hours.
- The Hot Pot Simple Solar Cooker includes a 5.3 quart enameled steel pot.
- The aluminum reflector sides fold down for easy storage.
- 15" x 15" x 10"; ship weight is 19 lbs.
Product Description
AS SEEN ON GOOD MORNING AMERICA!
This low-cost, high-performance solar oven can produce cooking temperatures within an hour in full sun and be used for up to six hours; perfect for baked goods or slow-cooking stews. The Hot Pot Simple Solar Cooker includes a 5.3 quart enameled steel pot. The aluminum reflector sides fold down for easy storage. The oven can reach temperatures up to 350-400 degrees.
Respected institutions such as Florida Solar Energy Center and Energy Laboratories, Inc. tested and refined the product's design over a six-year period. Sales of the Hot Pot help subsidize the distribution of this device in developing countries to reduce deforestation and respiratory disease caused by traditional cooking methods. USA and Mexico. The Hot Pot Simple Solar Cooker includes the glass bowl.
15" x 15" x 10"; ship weight is 19 lbs.
Sales of the Hot Pot help subsidize the distribution of this device in developing countries to reduce deforestation and respiratory disease caused by traditional cooking methods.
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*** Product Information: Mar 11, 2010 08:35:08
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