Baking
has been another thing I've been doing more of. Since most things
have to be made from scratch, I'm learning how to bake bread and
other things. I could actually buy bread from the local bakery but
its a 10 minute walk there and I can just as easily make it here and
fresh warm bread straight from the oven tastes amazing. Instead of
making an actual loaf of bread I've been making buns which cook
amazingly well in our toaster oven. I've also made tortillas, pilau
(kenyan dish), french fries (last night), cookies (turned into a
sheet of them instead of nice separate ones), potato chips, and a few
other things.
One
of the challenges of baking is that many recipies call for things
that simply aren't available here. I've enjoyed the More With Less
cookbook but also have found some pretty good recipies on
allrecipes.com that I've had to do minor alterations to. My biggest
challenge so far was making scalloped potatoes for the Thanksgiving
dinner that one of our US team mates invited us to. Most of the
recipies I found called for cheese, something that I haven't seen
here in a long while and when I do find it, its expensive. I found
this recipe online
(http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Old-Irish-Scalloped-Potatoes/Detail.aspx?evt19=1)
but some of the comments indicated there wasn't much flavor/spice in
it. After a bit more searching I found another recipe that did call
for cheese but had a variety of spices (garlic, onions, paprika, and
thyme) I had for the most part. I added the spices(except the thyme
which I didn't have) from the 2nd recipe and it turned out
amazing.
Toaster oven with hotplates on top and induction hotplate beside.
Recipe called for 1/2hr, this is the result after about 15minutes.
Using the toaster oven really speeds up the process.
I learned the toaster oven isn't the best to make loaves.
Although it was cooked on the inside it was burnt on the top/bottom
and since I don't have tin foil to reflect the heat, I've gone with buns ever since.
(tin foil is available but very expensive)
A much better result. They don't look fancy but E (a 3yr old that from another family)
is always asking for more "bed" (bread) every time he visits so it must be good.
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