Mechanarchy Solar Cookers are Custom Built for you from part Re-cycled / part new materials. This one is the first prototype made and as you can see from the photo's below, it produces some amazing results.

Not all the materials used in our solar cookers are re-cycled. The glass top, which is double glazed and vacuum sealed, is made from new materials, to fit the exact size of the old tool boxes we use for the oven outer.

The inner tool box skin is manufactured out of folded galvanized sheet, purpose built for Mechanarchy by a local small business sheet-metal artisan, and the insulation between the inner and outer skins comes from the local Hardware Store.

The mirrors are sourced (wherever possible) from second hand stores and cut to size. The frame that holds the mirrors and glass in place is made from timber and the stand that holds the cooker at exactly the right angle to the sun, is made from old exercise bikes. The swinging saucepan brackets that hold the pans level when the cooker is tilted,

are made from scrap 12.5 mm flat steel. We can also provide used cooking trays that bolt to the swinging brackets, these provide a handy flat base on which you can sit your black / glass lid (much better for soaking up the heat) saucepans.

The cooker above is our largest and can handle three, 5 liter saucepans. It easily cooked in one day, a large pan of fresh red kidney beans, a saucepan of rice and a barm brack cake. Check out just how stunningly golden brown that cake is!

This Zucchini, tomato and cheese bake took about the same time to cook as the cake, 3 1/2 hours, and it came out as golden brown and moist as you could wish. You simply cannot burn anything in a Solar Cooker and because it slow cooks at around 120 Degrees Celsius, you retain all the goodness of your (home grown) vegetables.

So how do you use it? Its easy, you simply prepare your meal just like you would for a conventional cooker. Make sure you select a dish that you don't need to stir, for two reasons:

1) You don't need to stir food in a solar cooker because it rarely sticks

2) Once the meal is in the cooker, you want the lid kept on so that you can keep the heat inside at a consistent temperature.

Golden brown chocolate chip cookies anyone? This page provides just a small sample of the things you'll be able to cook in your new solar cooker. And the best part is that it's all free courtesy of the Sun!

Why is it that something so simple can be so effective and yet hardly get used by anyone?

Perhaps it's because, in our technologically advanced World, we've been led to believe by the marketing guru's that it's only the complex gadgets that are worthwhile. How wrong they are!