Roasted Turkey in the solar oven is an easy way to cook your holiday bird any day of the year.

We gave our new GSO a try one Thanksgiving day several years ago. Here is what happened.

Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect day to try out my new GSO. I wanted to roast my Thanksgiving turkey.  However, the sun just didn’t want to play right, plus we were going to dinner at the home of the parents of our son-in-law, John.  John was frying the turkey, and we love fried turkey.  (By the way, it was excellent, as always!)

Today was a gorgeous fall day, cool and crisp, with a bright fall sun hanging low in the sky.  High temperature today was about 55 degrees. We decided to give it a try.

Rod prepared the 12.5 lb  turkey using a home-made rub that he has used many times — for roasting in the oven, for deep frying, for smoking, for roasting on the grill.  Name any way to cook a turkey and we have done it.  We placed the turkey in an oven cooking bag, to catch the juices and keep the oven clean.

We put the turkey into the solar oven at 10:00 a.m. We checked on the turkey at 11:00 a.m., at 12 noon, and at 1:30 p.m.  It seemed that the oven was only slowly heating up.  The temperature not even up to 300 degrees  by 1:30 p.m. and the turkey was just barely getting started.  We knew that the sun wouldn’t last all afternoon and didn’t have a lot of hope that it would actually get done.  But we had a errand to run and wouldn’t be back for several hours, so we just turned the GSO to catch the afternoon sun, and left.

We arrived home at 4:30 p.m.  Amazingly enough, the GSO reflectors were still catching the last rays from a slowly sinking sun.  And a very happy surprise awaited us.  That turkey was roasted to perfection — moist and tender,  juices overflowing the pan, the little red “pop-out” timer standing high and proud over a golden brown breast.  (Although it wasn’t as brown all over as in other cooking methods, the turkey was quite moist and pulling off of the bones. )  The aroma when the glass door was opened was so wonderful that we couldn’t wait to get that bird out of the bag.

GSO – I think I love you!

The old GSO has been replaced by the new All-American Sun Oven. Click the box to see my review of the new oven.

All American Sun Oven Review

Turkey is delicious all year long and is perfect for large parties. So no matter what day of the year it is, grab a turkey and get cooking. Let the sun do the work while you relax on the patio with friends.

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