Trying to cook and eat foreign food bu tnot buy too many foreign items

Recently i've been experiment with bready things and milky things, kind of thinking about if we live out of town one day, and kind of to make eating what's normal to me cheaper. At this stage of life we don't have an oven. It would probably be better to be learning how to cook and eat Khmer food, but at the moment I'm thinking about how to cook "Aussie" food in Cambodia.

After thinking about campfire damper, and reading a bit about Dutch oven and preppers I cooked some bread on the stove in a saucepan. I used a yeast dough, our heavy bottom saucepan, I put sesame seeds on top, so it would have at least some texture- no crispy top! Soeun really liked it, so I made it again. Both times I lined the pan with foil as I didn't want to have to wash it- both times the bottom was really balck and burned even though we put the gas a low as possble, must try it on /in fire (we have just started grilling meat near the front door, I just need to have the dough ready at the same time the fire is ready).

Another way I could cut down on buying imported products is by making sourdough, using that I won't need to buy yeast from the supermarket. I've been reading about making starters using al sorts of things, I already tried a flour and water one. It didn't work - after that week I read a bit more and I think it was cos I used the wrong flour. The easiest cheapest flour for me to get is made from cassava, i think we call it tapioca flour/starch. I use it for cakes, breads etc, but i don't think it works for a sd starter unless you use something else as well. So this week I have some wheat flour from the supermarket and I'm trying again. Kind of defeats the purpose (i have to go to the supermarket to get the wheat flour, i was hoping to just use things I can buy in a normal khmer market).

There is no dairy industry here in Cambodia, so milk and all milk prducts are imported. If I had my own source of milk it would be even better (can we get a goat?) , but recently we've been eating yogurt so I've been making some in the esky overnight and trying to make cottage cheese (first time it didn't work, but this time seems ok). ANd as a result of that also been learning about whey and what to do with it.

I didn't make yogurt until recently as I read up on it and it sounded complicated and I don't ahve a thermometre. Also i had tried making cottage cheese awhile ago in the sun but it was gross and it make me sick. But over the last week I just started experimenting using the esky for yogurt and the stove top for cc and they are both working, I'm not following any exact instrucitons but I got the general vibe from youtube, blogs etc.