Toddler roast chickpeas potato and carrot

Bran muffins

Gingerbread in the toaster oven

Balls this size took about 10 min

flour 1 cup

quater teaspponn bi carb

half table spoon ground ginger

then add half cup firmly packed brown cane sugar 

and then about 75g butter

and then half a beaten egg (i put the other half in the pancake batter)

i put it in glad wrap in the fridge for about half hour, then cooked one lot, then another lot, that was yesterday, will probs cook the last bit today

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.

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.

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 

honeycomb made with palm sugar

about 110 grams of palm sugar (comes in liquor form at the market) with about 55 grams of sugar (castor/super fine would be better but i just had normal white)
- boil until it makes hard toffee (drop a bit in some water)
then mix in 2 teaspoons of bicarb

tipped/spooned onto some greased foil on a plate, and into the fridge out of the hot humid weather we have here, later i took it out and smashed it up and put into some air tight containters

The recipe actually used golden syrup but palm sugar is easier to get here, 110 grams cost 500 riel at the market, about 25 us cents.

aka hokey pokey/ seafoam toffee / cinder toffee

pork meat balls

today i made these, i didn't have lemongrass though, and used saw herb instead of coriander
thai meat balls