Dinner's ready! Mesa man cooks meals on his dashboard on hot days

MESA, Ariz. - You probably heard the old saying, "It's so hot you can fry an egg on the sidewalk." Well, a Mesa man can do better than that.

Tucked away in a Mesa RV resort is Ricky Bennett who cooks up dinner on his dashboard several days a week.

Bennett moved to Mesa from New Hampshire. It didn't take long to realize that Arizona summers can be as hot as an oven.

He's trained as a meteorologist, an engineer, and now we can add an adventurous amateur chef to his resume.

"Well, it was a couple of years ago I got in my truck when it was over 110° in one day, and I was burning myself, everything I touched. It was just too hot," Bennett said.

After burning his arms and legs on the interior, Ricky's brain went to work. He figured that if it was hot enough to scorch his skin, why not cook a steak?

"Back then I didn’t know what I was doing. I got the steak up to 190°, and I think the Phoenix Coyotes are still using it as a practice hockey puck today," he laughed.

There's plenty of sunshine to go around, so Rickey kept cooking. Now, he has it down to a science.

On a hot day of 110°, a steak and potato takes about two hours to cook inside a Dutch oven on his truck dashboard.

"For a regular steak I will go to 165° because I like just a little pink in it," he said.

Ricky enjoys the science and strangeness of it all. He calls it the dashboard diner.

But the best part: another perfectly cooked dinner is on the menu tonight.

"A filet mignon is cooking up tonight, so I am eating real well," Bennett said.

Ricky cooks everything from steaks and potatoes to hard-boiled eggs and more. 

All it takes is a Dutch oven, a dashboard and a blazing hot Arizona day.