What to do with a sunny day in Arlington -- solar cook and....

Wed. was a sunny day, with predictions for several days of rain to follow.  Perfect for solar cooking and a bike ride.  All this fits within the stay home, but go out to exercise guidelines. 

Old-timey steamed brown bread is perfect in a solar cooker -- any temperature over 200 degrees works.  Renamed in our house:  Solar Brown Bread (or Corona Bread).  It is the right balance of healthy, sweet and rich-tasting (and vegan to boot).  The recipe is mostly from my 1964 rebound Joy of Cooking (which will also tell you how to cook a squirrel).  My Mom made it sometimes in tomato soup cans covered in aluminum foil tied with a string.  Nick and I tasted this made in a volcanic steam vent in Iceland.

1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup spelt or whole wheat
1 teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup soy yogurt (regular yogurt works fine), or buttermilk, or milk with vinegar
1/2 cup yellow raisins (or regular raisins, or dried cranberries)

(Not traditional, but sliced almonds were a good addition too.)

After that was cooked, there was a lot of the sunny day left, so I put assorted vegetables in to

cook, and later turned them into a "potato" salad.  The vegetables cooked while we took a bike ride. 

After finding this wild azalea in bloom, I ordered two for the back yard (native to this part of VA).