Dashboard Pizza Bagels

Guess what! Today's high was ONLY 95 degrees! That's actually a cooling trend for us this summer in Dallas, and it's about time, too! This summer went down in the record books as the hottest summer ever recorded in Dallas, although we missed tying 1980's record of total days over 100 degrees (69 in 1980) by only two days. (See article here.) To commemorate the heat wave, an enterprising Texan is now selling T-shirts proclaiming, "I survived the heat wave of 2011"!

I think I speak for just about everyone here in Texas when I say we're ready for some nicer weather. A cool front is supposed to be arriving tomorrow, bringing us a much-deserved low of 59 degrees F! (I'll believe it when I see it!)

Anyway, I'm wrapping up this summer's series on Car Cookery with a snack we ate a lot in college: pizza bagels.

I made these a while ago when our heat wave was still in full force. The outside temperature was 105 degrees, and it was 158 in our trusty Suburban. It's a recipe so easy that even college kids can make it.

First, grab a bagel, and cover the center with a slice of pepperoni so the sauce and toppings don't fall through the middle.

Then add whatever toppings you like. I added pepperoni, black olives, red onions, garlic powder and mozzarella cheese.

Put them in a pan, and then broil them in your oven, toaster oven or hot car.

When all the cheese is melted, take a bite! They're awesome!

If you've enjoyed my entries about Car Cookery, you may want to read some posts by a woman in Phoenix in her series titled "Dashboard Dining." Her stories are funny, and I'm really impressed by the elegant three-course meals she has cooked in her vintage Mercedes Benz. Maybe next summer I'll be inspired to cook something gourmet on my dashboard.

And surprisingly enough, there's another way to cook with  your car: on its engine block! I first heard of this when I watched an episode of Food Network's "Extreme Chef" TV show. The contestants had to cook an appetizer on a hot car engine, and miraculously, two of the three dishes turned out OK! Apparently this is not a new idea. You can check it out on WikiHow, WiseBread, YouTube or Instructables. There's even a whole cookbook on engine-block cooking titled "Manifold Destiny"! So feel free to be creative in your future cooking experiments. Engine cooking would even be good when it's not hot outside, so you could do it in the spring, fall or winter. Why not try it the next time you're camping or going on a picnic?

I hope you've enjoyed my posts on Car Cookery. It's been fun. Let me know if you've ever tried cooking anything in an unusual way!

Dashboard S'mores

Hello again from the Land of Always Summer, aka Dallas, Texas.

This year is turning out to be the second-hottest summer in recorded history, trailing only the unbearable summer of 1980. (I'm glad we didn't live here then!) This month we finally ended our 40-day streak of 100-degree-plus temperatures with a day in the high 90s, meaning we came within two days of tying the 1980 streak of 42 days. Rats!

And now, as we wind up August, we've had 63 days of at least 100 degrees. Right now it's only 95 degrees, which actually feels good by this point. The record of the most 100-degree days in Dallas is 69 days in 1980. So we still have a shot at meeting that record, although I'm not sure I want to.

One of the more interesting things we've done this summer is to try our hands at dashboard cooking in our old Chevy Suburban. We've made quesadillas, garlic bread, grilled-cheese sandwiches, cinnamon toast, hot dogs, bruschetta and beef jerky. As the temperature inside the car can easily hit 120 degrees and above on a hot day, most of our experiments have turned out quite well.

By far the most popular experiment with our kids was the dashboard s'more. Easy and tasty, it came out great! Since then, I found this funny song on YouTube titled "Dashboard S'mores." It takes place -- you guessed it! -- in Texas. Where else?

I've also come across several people who've baked chocolate chip cookies in their cars! You can find out more at Discover Magazine, Baking Bites, SnarkyVegan or Completely Delicious. We'll have to try that sometime as well! I bet the smell inside your car is heavenly. :)

I've also found a surprising number of online articles about solar cookery using cardboard boxes covered in aluminum foil, or funky reflective dishes that look like giant woks. This turns out to work great in hot places such as Africa, where they don't have electricity or Suburbans. And it might be fun for a Scout project.

For now, though, we'll continue trying car cookery and hoping for our heat spell to eventually end. But maybe it would be nice if we could break that 1980 record, for bragging rights anyway.

Let's Get a Bruschetta!

 

Hello again from Dallas, where we are closing in on the dubious distinction of suffering through the longest stretch of 100-degree-plus days in recorded history! As we parents wait eagerly for the start of school (yahoo!), our heat-addled brains have come up with new ways to entertain our families in the broiling heat of the summer. One novel idea for us is car cookery, or cooking food in the solar heat built up in our 1999 Chevy Suburban. With the city's heat at all-time highs nearly every day this month, we have more than enough solar energy to cook a few things in the car.

Why cook in the car? There are several good reasons for doing so:

1. to cook when camping

2. for summer amusement

3. as scientific experimentation

4. to save energy and lower your electric bills

5. to cook during power outages, and

6. to avoid heating up the house with your indoor oven

So if you live in a hot part of the country, why not try something new?

Today's entry into the annals of car cookery is much fancier than yesterday's cinnamon toast. We've already tried car-cooking plenty of kid favorites, such as quesadillas, garlic bread, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs and that all-time classic, s'mores. But man cannot live on kid food alone, so I thought I'd branch into something more sophisticated: bruschetta. 

Bruschetta (pronounced "broosketta" in Italian) is a yummy appetizer made with baguette rounds, fresh tomatoes and basil. For my recipe I looked online and found a five-star version here on allrecipes.com. When I made the bruschetta yesterday, it was 105 F outside and 158 degrees on the car dashboard.

First I sliced the fresh baguette into 3/4" slices.

 

 I toasted the bread slices for about half an hour in the car until they were warm and slightly crunchy. In the meantime, I chopped all the tomatoes and assembled the savory topping. Then I spooned some topping onto each baguette slice and sprinkled a little bit of mozzarella cheese on each one. 

Then it was back in the "oven."

I let the bruschetta broil under the windshield about 45 minutes, until the topping was warm and the cheese had started to melt. I could have let it go longer, but it was dinnertime, and we were hungry!

After I brought them in, I garnished each round with a fresh basil leaf from our yard. They looked so cute and tasted so yummy! Sadly, our kids were too chicken to try them (they prefer cinnamon toast), but that only left more for my husband and me -- oh, darn! We even had a bunch left over for our neighbor, who gladly tasted them even though they were cooked in our Suburban.

The bruschetta turned out to be the tastiest and most elegant food we've made in the car yet ... definitely a success!!!

And it's only a few more days until we break that 1980 heat-wave record!

Next up in car cookery: sun-dried beef jerky.

Dashboard Cinnamon Toast

Cinnamon toast made in our car.

Hello, again! Here in Dallas, we're still in the middle of an extreme heat wave and extreme drought, so we're trying to entertain ourselves without using water and without being outside. One thing we're not in want of is solar power, so we've decided to use it to cook as many things as we can.

Yesterday it was 105 degrees in the sun and 181 degrees on our car dashboard, so I thought I'd try to make cinnamon toast. It was so easy that kids can do it.

(By the way, can you believe that if you Google "cinnamon toast," you'll actually see lots of recipes for basic cinnamon toast? I'm as surprised that anyone would need a recipe as I'm surprised people would actually buy little bottles of cinnamon sugar in the store. Seriously, can't people figure out how to mix cinnamon and sugar?)

Anyway, all I did was butter some sandwich bread, sprinkle it with my very own homemade cinnamon sugar and place it in a pie pan on the car's dashboard.

The bread before we put it in the car.

In about 15 minutes, the toast was done and ready to eat. It wasn't very "gourmet," but my boys ate it all.

So if you need to entertain your children cheaply in the summer, try toasting some bread in your car. If you don't like cinnamon toast, try regular buttered toast, and then add jelly when you bring it inside.

If your kids like the car toast, then they'll really like the car s'mores I made last week.

Garlic Bread "A La Car"

This is the "after" picture.

As Texas broils in a heat wave (Today is Day 35 of 100 degrees plus), what better time to make "Texas toast"?

Yesterday in our Suburban I made one of my favorite foods: garlic bread. So easy, and yet so delicious! The high temperature yesterday (which happened to be a record high) was 108, so it was more than hot enough to toast garlic bread on the dashboard of our car. (For more information on our heat wave, click here.) In fact, a reporter using a fancy laser gun measured the temperature of a car dashboard in the sun at 165 degrees. She also measured  the rubber mat on a playground at 180 degrees! (Click here for full story.) But I digress.

Anyway, I didn't have any French bread, so I used sandwich bread. First I buttered it, then sprinkled garlic powder on it, then layered some Italian cheese on top. After about 15 minutes, it was done. It turned out as well as any garlic bread I've made in our real oven, and this was energy-efficient because I didn't have to pay for the car oven. (And it's a good thing, too, since the Texas power grid has been straining all week to keep our air conditioners going, and they're asking everyone to conserve electricity.)

This is the "before" picture.

So the garlic bread was great ... yum!!! And there was a bonus, too: The inside of the car smelled really good! 

What will we try next?

Hot Dog! It's More Car Cookery!

Greetings from Texas! It's time for more car cookery!

Today for lunch we tried heating up hot dogs on our Suburban's dashboard. The hot dogs are already precooked, so they need only to be warmed up enough to eat. Luckily for us, that was no problem.

We decided to steam them a little so they'd end up moist and not shriveled. First we placed four hot dogs in a pie pan, then added a little bit of water and covered them with a damp paper towel. It was 100 degrees F outside and far hotter than that inside the car as it sat in the sun with all the windows closed.

After about 30-45 minutes, they were warm enough to eat. 

Most of the water had evaporated, and the paper towel was completely dry, but the hot dogs were moist and had that good hot dog smell. We placed them in buns and added our toppings. The testers pronounced them satisfactory and ate all of them.

Best of all: We didn't have to use any energy to make them, because all the solar energy we could ever want is provided free by our friend the Sun.

Next up: garlic bread!

Sandwiches, Suburban Style

As Dallas endures its 32nd day in a row of 100-degree-plus temperatures, we decided to make another entry for our upcoming Suburban cookbook. Today's experiment is ... grilled cheese sandwiches. No, not cooked on the car's grill, but on its dashboard.

We started by preheating a nonstick black frying pan on the car's dashboard as the car sat out in the sun with all the doors and windows closed. With today's outside temperature at 106 degrees, it was plenty hot enough inside the car. After the pan was warm, we put the buttered sandwiches in and cooked them about 15 minutes on each side.

The resulting sandwiches were hot and greasy, with melted cheese and toasted bread. Offering to serve as tasters were our two boys, both self-professed grilled-cheese experts. They pronounced the results edible but not as good as regular grilled-cheese sandwiches. The sandwiches looked OK to me, but apparently the bread turned out a little hard and didn't have quite the right texture.

Luckily the dog thought they were just fine. :)

So what should we try next?

S'more Car Cookery

Today it was over 100 degrees again (for the 29th day in a row!). Maybe the heat is baking our brains a little, but we thought it would be entertaining to try another experiment in car cookery.

This afternoon we tried cooking s'mores on the car's dashboard. First we assembled the s'mores.



Then we placed them in a cake pan atop the dash.


After about 20 minutes, they were ready to eat! We found out that if you like your chocolate a little less melty, you can start the marshmallow first.

Either way, they were delicious!


And we didn't even need a campfire. :)

Car Cookery

So it's over 100 degrees again, the kids are out of school, summer camp is over, and everyone is bored. What can you do? Car cookery!

You probably have heard the saying, "It's so hot, you can fry an egg on the sidewalk!" This is a great cliche but cannot actually be done. (For a fun look at a person who actually did this experiment, visit http://phoenix.about.com/od/arizonapicturesandphotos/ig/Fry-an-Egg/Fry-an-Egg-01.htm

People have shown that an egg must reach a temperature of at least 158 degrees before it will cook. This theoretically can be done on the metal hood of a car. (Check out http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/friedegg.html)

Here in the Dallas area, summer is always HOT. The only variables are exactly how hot it will be, how humid it will be, and whether a stray thunderstorm will drench us on any given day. But it's impossible to escape the heat for several states in every direction. This month, the whole Midwest is experiencing a severe heat wave, and the rest of the country is finding out how it feels to have Texas' weather: awful! But at least we're used to it, so we don't whine as much about it.

In these sizzling days, hot cars are a horrible fact of life. The heat sears your hands and backside in your car, the heat bakes you like an oven, and you start sweating like a basted turkey. The heat is hard on your car and hard on your body. The heat even tends to zap your car batteries in the summer. However, there is ONE advantage to a hot car: It's a free way to cook your food!

This summer we are starting a new series on car cookery featuring our old green Chevy Suburban. We are going to see what can be cooked in the car. This provides several benefits: saving electricity, providing amusement and giving us ideas for our next summer camping trip.

Almost all of Texas is currently in a state of severe drought, so most of the state is under a burn ban. So when you go camping and can't build a fire, how do you cook? The answer ... pull up your car!


Our first experiment in car cookery took place a few days ago at 5:45 p.m., when it was 102 degrees F in the sun and 152 degrees inside the car with all the doors and windows closed.



We preheated our frying pan on the dashboard of our Suburban until the pan got really hot, then created a quesadilla with a tortilla and shredded cheese.




About 15 minutes later, voila! The quesadilla was done. The taste testers agreed that it was edible and very much like a regular quesadilla, except that we forgot to fry it in butter. We'll remember that next time.

So, what do you think you can cook up? Bon appetit!


P.S. You are welcome to try this in your own car, but MAKE SURE NO ANIMALS OR CHILDREN ARE LEFT INSIDE THE VEHICLE.

Clean and Green

There's a new "green" trend these days, and like many "green" trends, it hearkens back to the past as a way to make the future more environmentally friendly.

Since my college days, I've dutifully recycled my paper, cans, boxes and used motor oil, kept my shades down in the summer, walked or biked when possible, conserved water and even tried cloth diapers and composting. But a couple of months ago, my husband challenged me to cut back on our clothes-dryer use, and he hung up a simple line in our back yard.

Now, I have memories of hanging out and bringing in clothes from our backyard line when I was a kid, but I admit I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of adding more housework to my current list. With three very busy kids (and two in football), we go through a lot of stain remover, and I wash about one (BIG) load a day. Yet I knew I had to "walk the talk" and give this a try.

After stringing up more line (so I can actually hang at least one full load) and buying more clothespins, I started hanging up all our laundry, and I've found I actually like it.

There are many good reasons to eschew the clothes dryer. Not only does hanging your clothes out save money and energy (clothes dryers account for up to 15 percent of the energy used in the United States!), but it uses fewer chemicals (no fabric-softener sheets) and is easier on your clothes (less wear on your clothes means less lint in the lint trap). It only takes a few minutes' more work, and your clothes and linens end up with a fresh, natural scent that isn't from a bottle.

Sure, there are some drawbacks. One of my children complains about his now-crunchy underwear, and the birds have left a few small "calling cards" now and then. But overall, I find my new ritual rather relaxing and enjoyable. For a few minutes, I get to escape our noisy house and think my own quiet thoughts amid the birdsong and airy breezes. And that nice, fresh scent is really soothing when you climb between your sheets.

Now you've probably heard that you should never air your dirty laundry in public, but what about your clean laundry? Throughout the world, clotheslines have been the norm for thousands of years. In many parts of the world, electric clothes dryers are still considered a luxury. Only in the United States has the once-ubiquitous clothesline now become so old-fashioned that it is actually outlawed in many locations for "aesthetic" reasons. Think about it: In how many upscale neighborhoods do you now see clean clothes blowing in the wind? It's another one of those time-honored traditions that could be in danger of being forgotten if not for its preservation by a few nostalgic and practical folks.

With all the talk now about global climate change and energy consumption, it's nice to know a simple alternative such as air drying your clothes can be an effective way to fight pollution and save energy. It is estimated that if we all hung our clothes out to dry, we'd save enough energy to shut down several power plants. Isn't that a worthwhile idea?

One movement that is trying to do just that is called Project Laundry List. Its website is a great resource for all questions relating to air drying, and its members are lobbying the public to turn off their clothes dryers as a way to help the environment.

Here in Texas, it's so easy to use a clothesline. We have more hot summer sun here than we could ever want or need, and on a dry, 100-degree day, my clothes are done in less than an hour. Luckily I have no community regulations against air-drying my clothes, and I like the fact that I'm actually using some of that dang-blasted heat for a good purpose.



I've found a darling little book that tells all about the history and use of clotheslines. Called "The Clothesline," by Irene Rawlings and Andrea Vansteenhouse, it is packed with photos, anecdotes and antique images. It's a fun read, and it recalls the days when every housewife had a weekly laundry routine, and nosy neighbors judged others by the way they hung out their clothes. Like aprons, fresh-baked bread and homemade quilts, clotheslines are a symbol of humble simplicity.

It's wonderful to know that even in these modern times of traffic, TV and electronic gizmos, it's still possible to refresh your laundry and your mind by the little task of hanging your clothes on a clothesline.

Our New Picket Fence

We live in Texas, where the wind blows almost ceaselessly and sometimes turns violent. Straight-line winds frequently rival tornadoes in their intensity, and fences around here usually die a catastrophic death before they succumb to old age.

Last year a particularly strong storm swept down our street and felled limbs and trees for half a mile. It even crumpled a giant electrical tower only a block from our house. We were lucky; the wind only knocked down one of our fences.

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

After the storm, my husband dragged the flattened fence to the curb. Lo and behold, we were surprised to see a transformation in our yard. We liked it even better than before! The old fence was boring and ugly, blocked our view and made one corner of our back yard a desolate dead-end. So instead of replacing our old fence with another just like it, we decided to do something old-fashioned, yet rather radical for our cookie-cutter neighborhood, which sadly is characterized more by nine-foot "privacy fences" than by wide open spaces.

We built a picket fence.

My engineer husband designed the fence, and all three kids helped us paint it, a la Tom Sawyer. Paint got everywhere, but they had fun. (This is not recommended for those with perfectionist tendencies.) The new fence is white, airy, and such an improvement.




When I was a girl, my great-grandparents lived in a little white house in a small town in California. I remember visiting their home and thinking it was the most adorable little house that ever was. It had a large porch with a place to visit, a giant hydrangea beside the porch, a rose garden along one side, a cool basement housing preserves, and a white picket fence with a little gate out front.

I loved visiting their house, and I always wanted a white picket fence of my own someday. Now I finally have one, and I love it! Its low profile opens up our yard so we can enjoy it more, it frames a pretty view, and it adds charm and personality to our red-brick home.

Picket fences have long been a symbol of Americana, and for good reason. Their quaint good looks dress up even the plainest front yard, and they look great with flowers peeking through the slats. Since we built our picket fence, we've enjoyed gardening, birding and just relaxing along that side of our yard. We've even seen more birds visit our backyard feeder because the increased spaciousness and visibility have made birds feel safer and more welcome. This summer we had a family of mallard ducks slide through the fence every day to forage under the feeder! We know that never would have happened if we'd still had up our tall wooden fence.

With just a little bit of initiative, we've revived a little bit of history, and we think our new fence is not only more appealing, but more practical than its predecessor.

Now if I could only get my hydrangeas to grow as big as Granny's!