Okay end of tour. Yes that's right all I have is this single stove top. (A toaster oven is hopefully on its way, and I can not wait for it to get here!) As a girl who practically grew up in the kitchen, I have developed a love for cooking and especially baking. So how am I supposed to go a year with a single stove and a toaster oven (that still hasn't made its way into my kitchen yet)? I'm going to have to get creative I guess.
So I present to you adventures in "My Lao Kitchen". I made a fun little tab at the top of this page, where I will be documenting all my adventures in cooking here in Laos. First up, pancakes!
My roommate and I were out shopping planning to pick up some pasta and just have a night in, when we spotted the pancake mix. We immediately forgot our spaghetti filled dreams; texting our friends inviting them over to join us for dinner. After picking up the rest of the ingredients we headed back home ready to whip up some delicious flapjacks. We dug through the pots and pans that the teachers before us left behind, and found a huge frying pan. Perfect! or so you would think. Remember we were working with a single stove top that was maybe half the size of this pan, but we didn't have much of a choice. We had to work with what we had. So we heated up the stove and whisked together the pancake mix, milk, eggs. Once the batter was ready we poured a little into the pan, starting out with making three pancakes at a time.
I wish I could say it went smoothly. That we played Frank Sinatra (which we really did) and each of our pancakes came out perfectly golden and fluffy. Instead our first round cooked so unevenly due to the fact that only half the pan fit over the stove, but we didn't give up hope. We ate the pancakes, hiding all evidence of failure, and continued on this time making one pancake at a time. Success! It took us a little over an hour, but we had enough pancakes to feed us and our friends.
Next up was syrup. Syrup doesn't exist in Laos as far as my roommate and I know, so we decided to take a chance in making our own. I found a recipe and began boiling the water. Later pouring and mixing in the sugar until it dissolved. How can you go wrong with sugar and water? I'm glad you asked. Soon after taking the concoction off the stove the syrup cooled and hardened, not exactly ideal for pouring over pancakes. I attempted melting it again, and left it on the stove top so it would stay warm. Unfortunately it didn't turn out quite like it did the first time, but my friends swore to me that it was still good.
Despite the syrup setback, we all stuffed ourselves full with pancakes and fruit. Enjoying a taste from home after a long week. And having to make enough pancakes for five people one at a time must not have been to much of a hassle for us, because my roommate and I volunteered to do it again the next night for some of our students.
1 comments:
...... as you can guess from my blog, baking is in my blood and this would pose a SERIOUS challenge for me! x
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