Ready Steady Cook
So, with just over a year to go before the off we are starting to step up our preparation. We have always said that we would feel the trip was real when the countdown got to less than a year. Because of some the countries we are visiting we need to plan well in advance. This is particularly the case for China, where we have been advised by some to make our preparations six months in advance.
And where better to start than feeding Ollie?
So for the past 3 weekends we have had a bonfire, come wind or high water (more often both) and tried out various recipes. Because most of these bonfires were accompanied by large amounts of alcohol we don't have many pictures of the produce, but above is a bone fide picture of Jenny and Vicky's Beer Bread. This is Vicky of Langebaan Sunset fame, who was over visiting with her fella Nick and Dassie their Landie.
| Ollie, Dino, Nick, Dassie and Vicky after some very junior greenlaning |
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So, anyway, back to the cooking! The main thing we wanted to figure out was some simple bread, which we could cook without having to plug our brains in after a long days drive. We firstly followed some threads on The HUBB, which had some original sounding ways to cook bread. Unfortunately Ollie was in charge dough production and hence there were issues. But we did figure out that a chapatti type bread is easy to both simple produce and cook, and yet beautiful versatile. This led us to find this great chapatti recipe:
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Chapattis Recipe |
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Ingredients : |
3 cups
1 1/2 teaspoon
1 tablespoon
1 cup |
Fine wholemeal flour or roti flour
Salt or to taste
Ghee or oil, optional
Lukewarm water |
Method :
- Put flour in mixing bowl, reserving about half cup for rolling chapattis.
Mix salt through the flour in the bowl, then rub in ghee or oil, if used.
Add water all at once and mix to a firm but not stiff dough.
Knead dough for at least 10 minutes (the more it is kneaded, the lighter the bread will be).
Form dough into a ball, cover with clear plastic wrap and stand for 1 hour or longer (if left overnight, the chapattis will be very light and tender).
Shape dough into balls about the size of a large walnut.
Roll out each one on a lightly floured board (using reserved flour) to a circular shape as thin as a French crepe.
After rolling out chapattis, heat a griddle plate or heavy-based frying pan until very hot, and cook the chapattis, starting with those that were rolled first.
Put chapatti on griddle and leave for about 1 minute.
Turn and cook other side a further minute, pressing lightly around the edges of the chapatti with a folded tea towel or an egg slice.
This encourages bubble to form and make the chapattis light.
As each one is cooked, wrap in a clean tea towel until all are read.
Serve immediately with butter, dry curries or vegetable dishes.
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These chapattis were perfect to wrap around a barbecued sausage and we would guess great for a curry or stew. They take minutes to prepare, are almost impossible to mess up and taste superb. What could beat these? Well the beer bread! Again this recipe was found on the web , and was very simple. Essentially some self raising flour, a beer and a few herbs and nuts. Mix up and then put inside the potje and cook over and open fire. The one thing to remember is to either grease the potje well, or put the dough inside grease proof paper or greased tin foil. Anyhow, the end result was great and would cheer up any damp camp fire. It certainly cheered ours up!
On one of the previous rainy evenings we also cooked a quite superb lamb stew in the potje. The best thing about this was it was made with very little thought, just chop up some lamb, add whatever veg was lying around, add some chilies, and cook on the camp fire. Without doubt, cooking simply on the camp fire adds to the flavor of any meal.
Dino's New Bits
The last blog told of how Dino was going in to see the nice men at Foley's again. Well he's back, and this time he super charged. Foley's did lots of work, including straightening out the dents that were added recently. The main cost and improvement was putting in a new gearbox, from Ashcroft Transmissions. The gearbox is a donated, reconditioned R380, which comes from the 300tdi model, which still has parts made for it by Land Rover.
Much more exciting to the Folliers was the mounting of the spade on Dino's bonnet. Now going for a freestyle poo in the woods will be helped by the easy access of the disposal tool, the spade.
We now only have one more major visit to Foley's, to get our suspension checked out, and also,most probably a new fuel diesel tank. In the mean time we will be finishing off the interior design, such as adding some addition 12v wiring, tidying up our appliances and generally making our day to day life more comfortable.
Website
The observant amongst you will have noticed some gradual changes to the website, including added a new menu structure to the left, the diary system moving to generic Jolly Follies look, and changing out gallery. Most of this was done with a view to making the site more editable on the road, but also making changes to take into account some of the lessons we have learnt such as CSS style sheets and templates, both important things to use when designing and creating your own website.
Wales
As you may have guessed, the title of this blog update is a nod towards Wales superb performance in the 6 nations. A 'big up' to them and their style of attacking Rugby. Let hope England can learn a lesson from them.
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