We do a lot of our every day cooking with slow cookers, thermal cooking, pressure cooker and an outdoor ceramic BBQ cooker/smoker that uses lump charcoal and can stay hot enough for cooking for 12+ hours with a load of lump charcoal.
We have not tried solar cooking but want to do that this winter. A few days without power would be dealt with by the use of a small emergency butane stove and a few buddy burners to heat up canned foods. For a power outage of more than a few days we would like to feel competent in making use of solar heat.
There is the Sport Solar oven http://www.solarovens.org/index2.html
the Sun oven http://www.sunoven.com/sun-cooking-usa/why-use-it/emergency-preparedness
This is a map of global areas that are good for solar cooking all year round. 
This is an easy to understand comparison of different types of solar cookers http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Solar_cooker_plans
and while, not related to solar cooking this is a nifty trick to light some tinder if you have no matches but do have a flashlight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnFoAqiG2YU&feature=related
Here http://solarcooking.org/plans/
is a lot of useful information and for the easiest solar funnel cooker look no further than your reflective windshield cover http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Windshield_shade_solar_funnel_cooker
Am still working on this. Have collected a variety of materials to try and build a few different types of cookers.
Yeah, I looked at that map too, but have heard of some successful sunny winter day solar ovens working in my neck of the woods, so figured I would give it a try. Trying to find three three ways to deal with each issue.For cooking we have a way to heat food with candles, camp stove with butane; an outdoor cooker, but would like another option. WIll let you know. Got started on it tonight.
If you google Winter solar cooking you will see a few examples. Wouldn't be for every day, just another back up option 😉
Another option might be the following;
Rocket Cook Stove
Alcohol Stove, you can make your own. - Also Methyl Hydrate, sold in bulk is Alcohol as well, and cheaper than the little bottles.
If you put the solar cooker on the dash of your vehicle and face it into the sun, it can get real hot.
Hi, yes, somewhere I read about people dehydrating food on their car dashboard. I was fooling around yesterday with a simple solar cooker idea using one of those reflective windshield covers and thought about how at the very least on a cold winter day (with sun) you could warm up food on the car dashboard, just tuck it in front of the reflective cover and face the car into the sun. I imagine it would get very hot.
well. with erratic sun today I managed to warm up some food in a black pot placed in a turkey roaster bag and set on some tinfoil with an aluminium screen behind. Took 4 hours.
Car dashboard probably would have done just as well 😆
I just put on dash in winter, in a clear plastic bag! So me thinks, yes, it is just as fast actually!
Adding in the aluminium or any shiny material behind the clear plastic does make it heat up quicker as well.
Hi, yes, somewhere I read about people dehydrating food on their car dashboard. I was fooling around yesterday with a simple solar cooker idea using one of those reflective windshield covers and thought about how at the very least on a cold winter day (with sun) you could warm up food on the car dashboard, just tuck it in front of the reflective cover and face the car into the sun. I imagine it would get very hot.
hmmm this is very much nice info thanks for sharing such a very much nice info. :geek:
I made one of these ovens, it worked well in full sun and all I used for the reflectors was the MYLAR from potato chip bags on cardboard. I got tired of turning it toward the sun every hour so I geared it on a lazy Susan and an old wind up clock.
"We 'Prep.' to live after a downfall, Not just to survive."