Cooking

Thomas and Anthony, the two youngest in our family, love to cook.

Last year, Wednesday evenings were a highlight in their week - they watched the TV cooking show Beat The Chef on the ABC.

And what is more - their older brothers are friends with the son of one of the chefs!

Thomas tried a couple of the recipes from the sbow and also regularly visited the website for new cooking tips.

This year, both Thomas and Anthony are cooking all or part of our dinners, two nights per week.

Anthony made a Garden Lasagne for his older brothers during Holy Week, and Thomas served us all a delicious Chilli Con Carne.

On the 4 real message boards, there has been a discussion on bread baking. Apart from helping to knead bread, these two sons have not yet experimented with the other processes involved in bread baking.

I thought they might like to become bread bakers!

And a good place to start might be Damper - I baked two round loaves of damper to eat hot with our Easter Sunday barbeque lunch.

Aussie Damper

Use 1/2 cup self raising flour per person. I tend to use half wholemeal flour and half white flour.

Add milk to mix into a soft dough.

Knead gently on a floured board.

Place on a floured baking tray. Mould dough into a round cobb shape - one or two loaves, depending on your preference. Score the tops of the loaves with a knife, typically into six or eight sections.

Brush with beaten egg or milk.

Cook in a hot oven until dough is cooked, not soft in centre and nicely browned.

Traditionally, this was cooked in the coals of a camp fire and can still be done so today - I tend to cover it wth alfoil first!

You can make a simpler loaf with just flour and water or you can provide a richer loaf by adding -

1-2 tablespoons butter per person, rubbed into the flour.

grated cheese, herbs, chopped bacon, diced onion, sultanas or other dried fruit to the dry mixture.

Some damper links -
http://www.abc.net.au/northtas/stories/s512810.htm

http://www.roebourne.wa.edu.au/culture/picturedamper.htm

http://www.grainfoodscrc.com.au/documents/Try%20your%20hand%20at%20making%20damper.pdf