Pasta salad chicken meatballs

Beans, pasta, roast pumpkin and chicken balls i made from mince

Cooking and eating with one hand

Since i got back from aus ive started buying packets of mixed frozen veg from the supermarket. Its a quick and easy way to make a meal with veg. The whole going to the market (as opposed to the supermarket) and chopping thing is harder with toddler and newborn. Ive been cooking meals i can eat with one hand, mostly involving the said veg with garlic onions meat and various seasoning. This one pictured is chicken and curry powder. Quick easy healthy and freezable.

Toddler lunch

Last few weeks ive been packing peanut butter sandwichs and cucumber in the toddlers box. Same lunch everyday and i pack it in the morning at breakfast whether we are going out or not . He often has fruit and milk as well. Its easy, fairly healthy and he eats it. Im usually tired and hungry by lunch time so its great to have his 'snack box' ready. (He started saying snack box after seeing an episode of playschool when we were in aus).

salads in hot season

Due to the heat and all the ppl coming and going, mid April I find it hard to cook and eat. This year I had salad ingredients in the fridge. It was all ready to go, quick to make a yummy healthy cool meal with amost no washing up, and the toddler could eat it before I added the nuts and dressing. I bought all salad veg i really like, including ones that are harder to find/have to get at the supermarket, plus walnuts and chic peas, and wholemeal pasta. Aso had some fresh herbs chopped up and various things for dressings including sesame oil, oive oil vin, lime juice, other dried herbs, pepper etc salt etc etc, so it turned out to be a bit different each time but always with vitamins and protein.

Pumpkin and chopstick veg with sunflower seeds and bal vin honey dressing. Pasta. Chickpeas

Pasta, egg, pumpkin, red caps., cucumber, olives, pesto (the sunflower recipe elsewhere on this blog)

Pizza in the toaster oven

Toaster Oven cooking!!

A whole new world of cooking Western food for one!! I always wish we had an oven, a big gas one like people have in Aust. But they are expensive, we could get a vbench top electric one like we had before, but electricy is so expenisve and it doesn't seem worth as I'm the only one who really likes Western food anyway, SOeuns happy to eat it but he doesn't get that excited so it doesnt seem worth it buy an oven at this stage.

Anyway the last tenant left behind a toaster oven, and I made pizza in it today!! And I have the ingredients for gingerbread, maybe just cooking a few at a time- wonder if the dough keeps?

Also i've done potatos, how I would in an oven, like wedges, i ate with natural yogurt and sweet chilli sauce.

hot food

After living out of a bag over the last month, good to finally have my own kitchen again. I made somethng today I hadn't made before and it was yummy so I'll write it down while i remember:

Chopped chicken, onion, garlic. Mixed with paprika and peppers. Fried in olive oil. Added chopped up potato (2), then eggplant (1 small), carrot (1/2) and red tomatoes (3).

Ate with rice, might try pasta next time. WOuld be nice with chick peas, broccoli, french beans, other veg and or meat.

Sourdough pancakes

Sourdough pancakes SO FLUFFY, mixing it up is like bicarb and vinegar effect

(Also been eating the cottage cheese on the whey pancakes, and straining yogurt til its like cream cheese)

Mix
1 tab spn sugar
1/2 tea spoon salt
3/4 teaspoon bicarb
1/2 tab spn water
1 cup of sd starter

then in with an egg

Whey Pancakes

Made these today from King Arhtur Flour

1 cup plain flour
1 tb sp sugar 
half teaspoon baking soda
pinch teaspoon salt
1 cup whey
1 large eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. 

In a smaller bowl, beat together the whey, eggs and vegetable oil. 

I made them with acidic whey from making making cottage cheese, even tho I read for pancakes you should use sweet whey such as from yogurt.

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.

Just remembered abou tdamper- a bread i can make without an oven, time to experiment. Also bought black beans for the first time, I think they are for desserts here, but I might try them with a mexican kind of flavour. Breadcrumbs for frying chicken! A Western ish taste I can do in a an asian kitchen.

Eclectic lunch of leftovers was yummy- breadmaker bread, hummus (made with sesame seeds for the first time, i've been using sesame oil), khmer salad (lots of herbs, cold noodle and some pork) chicken i fried in breadcrumbs with mayo.

Hummus with sesame oil

• 1 can chickpeas or garbanzo beans, drained, rinsed and towel dried
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2-3 tablespoons warm water

From here 

this blog has how to make cottage cheese and pesto with stuff that i could actually get hold of, although i still need to go to the supermarket to get it their ingredients are easier/ cheaper than other options- eg pesto made with sunflower seeds and one type of cheese

Hoping to try making golden syrup dumplings with palm sugar
http://mumsrecipes-m.blogspot.com/2012/03/golden-syrup-dumplings.html

today's kitchen experiments include steaming beef with ginger and garlic
and making a banana cake in the rice cooker but using palm sugar instead of white -which makes it extra moist but i'm also using wholemeal flour instead of white, and coconut cream instead of oil/butter

yeast cooking with no oven!

I recently tried a flat bread recipe, made of same stuff as our pizza base but done in the fry pan. ate it with the pumpkin curry, and lots ofo other things, hoping to try with some while meal flour soon

Trying out some different food on my day home alone. Nice to have the kitchen to myself.

Chicken with paprika and lime, tastes better grilled than fried. Have boiled some potatos to try frying them with cumin and curry powder, have some saw herb to sprinkle. Mashed hardboiled eggs with mayo and d mustard and some chives.