All Season Solar Cooker
Disclaimer: I was provided with an All Season Solar Cooker to review; however, all opinions are my own.
All Season Solar Cooker
The All Season Solar Cooker, I know you’ve seen it. Whether you are a seasoned solar chef, or if you are just starting to look at solar cookers, you have seen the small ad on Amazon for the All Season Solar Cooker (ASSC for short). It is the bright yellow, corrugated plastic panel cooker that seems like a cross between a Cook-It and a Transformer. Yes, you know the one. It uses two large bowls – one turned up on the other – as the heat trap. It is the one that supposedly adjusts to all angles and uses clothespins to keep it from sliding. Perhaps you were intrigued enough to click the ad. Perhaps you wondered how well it could really cook. After all, it is just a panel cooker with a couple of bowls on the inside. Well, I’ve been curious about this cooker for a long time and so I was quite excited to have an opportunity to review the newly designed ASSC 2.0
The All Season Solar Cooker was developed by Jim La Joie in San Diego, California, USA. It is designed to be a light weight, portable solar cooker. So when it arrived in the mail, the cooker was completely folded up and unassembled. The kit comes with the cooker and all of the hardware needed to put it together.
What was in the box?
- 1 unassembled ASSC
- 1 trivet
- 2 clothes pins
- 6 sets of nuts & bolts
- wooden sun guide
- 2 cooking bags
When laid out, the ASSC looked like a giant origami bird. But it is really quite easy to put together. The wings and folds are all scored and easy to bend. Following the directions that come in the box, it took only a few minutes to fold it into cooking position. And the best part, is that it can easily be taken apart for storage.
But Does It Cook?
Yes, it cooks and cooks very well. To cook, you can either enclose your pot in the cooking bags or use something like the double bowl set up, which you will need to purchase separately. I used the Pyrex Prepware 4-Quart Rimmed Mixing Bowl. An 8inch pan will fit into the bowls. A trivet is included on which to set the bowls. This allows the sun rays to bounce off of the bottom reflector to heat up the bottom of the bowl. (Don’t forget to use the trivet!!) And remember too, the bowls will get very hot, so you will need to use pot holders to handle the bowl.
The front panel of the ASSC adjusts from 0° to 90° so that the front can easily be dropped as low as needed to capture the sun rays. The panel is held in place by two clothes pins (which are included),
As with all solar cookers, bright sunshine provides the fuel to heat and cook in the ASSC. To that end, the ASSC, and all other solar cookers, must be kept turned and focused into the sun. The ASSC provides a nice wooden sun dial on the top to help with that chore. Just look for the little shadow.
For its first test, I threw in a pan of brownies which pleased Mr. B that I was baking brownies. The brownies baked as expected in a solar cooker. 
To read more about how well the All Season Solar Cooker cooked, please continue to Meatball Sub Casserole—>
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Tell me your thoughts on this cooker. Do you have one? What have you cooked?
UPDATE: The inventor of the All Season Solar Cooker has recently made some updates and improvements to the ASSC. Take a look at the new and improved version.
Hi Merry,
Thanks for this review – what temperature do you typically get on a good sun day? And do you still like the All Season Cooker?
Thanks,
Jim
Hello Jim, Thanks for your interest in the All Season Solar Cooker. That review is several years old and, in that time, the inventor has made many nice improvements so it is even better than it was back then. This cooker is also known now the SolCook.
Yes, I still love this cooker. It is lightweight, portable, and fully adjustable to capture every possible ray of sunlight from early morning to dusk. On a good day, I can reach between 300F – 325F, but the average temperature is closer to 275F-300F, plenty hot enough to cook almost anything.
Happy Solar Cooking. Thanks for stopping by,
I heard from a user today that he had not used his cooker because there had been little sun. Most solar cookers work great on clear sunny days. But they also work well on partly cloudy or even days that have a slight overcast.
The rule-of-thumb is: if you can see your own shadow, you can get a useful product from your solar cooker.
I have actually measured a temperature increase in the rain. Not much of course, but the point is that any amount of light will provide heating.
Bright and sunny is best. But if you can see your shadow, give it a try and plan on waiting a little longer.
Thanks for the information Jim. I agree that if you can see your shadow, solar cooking is possible. In general, the darker the shadow, the higher the temperature in the solar cooker and therefore, the food will cook faster. Conversely, the lighter the shadow, the less temperature in the solar cooker, and therefore the food will cook slower. That is why it is so difficult to put a cooking time on a recipe. Judging the time needed to cook, and the patience to let it cook as long as needed, comes from experience. The All Season Solar Cooker is one of the best cookers for coaxing a little bit of extra cooking time on a partly sunny day. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Merry
I’ve had this for a few years now and I haven’t tried it. Eeek!
Well what are waiting for? You will love it. So pull it out and dust it off and get cooking! I know it seems a little bit scary at first, but try something easy like heating up a can of chili and some hot dogs, or making an easy stew. If you don’t usually cook from scratch, the grocery store is full of food that can be put out in the solar oven and just reheated, like frozen pizza or pot pies. Give it a try and let me know how it went. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for leaving the comment. Merry