I am a daughter of God, a wife to a great husband, and a stay home mommy. I spend most of my time chasing after the squirt, but when I am not preoccupied with him, I like to be in the kitchen and making something delicious to share with the family.
SO why ovenles meals? WEll let me tell you.
My husband and I decided to check out this "teaching abroad" opportunity by applying to teach english in South Korea. We thoguht it would be a great opportunity to experience another culture as well as see if we are cut out for the mission field without having to raise funds. We definitely would like to be self-support missionaries if that is the field we are called to, so this was going to be a good sample of what that kind of life might look like. Okay... now back to the ovenless thing...
Turns out, Koreans don't really use ovens. Go figure. My kitchen here consists of a two burner gas stove top, a microwave, a 2X2 foot countertop space, and a deep sink without a garbage disposal.
Korean bakeries and pastry shops leave your mouth dry and confused as to what was "baked" into your product of choice... no joke. You find yourself thinking... did they really just ruin that loaf of bread by putting Korean sweet potato chunks in it (which Korean sweet potatoes are in no way similar to StateSide Sweet Taters.) Or.... you find yourself spitting out what appeared to be a jelly filled donut only to be horrified by the fact that it was red bean paste instead. (After about the second or third time, you stop eating what appears to be filled donuts... or donuts all together)
Anyways, all this to say that I was homesick for my "American" foods. More importantly, my Texas foods.
In a desperate attempt to make us bread, I decided to experimnet with various cooking techniques and wound up with a batch of fresh dinner rolls via my steaming tray inside my big stock pot. BINGO! Steaming became a way of life for a while there. I was obsessed with trying to figure out what all I could create in the steamer that I would otherwise be baking back in the States.
This is the recipe that started it all... the dinner rolls.
I made a video of how to use your stock pot and steamer tray to make those long lost bread type foods and decided to start posting all my ovenless recipes for other people who might not have the joy of owning an oven.
While I am not a professionally trained chef, I have been in the kitchen for the better part of my adulthood and am always learning... as we all are. So I may have pumped up the blog name a bit, but perhaps one day I can add Chef to my resume! :)
I hope this site helps you out a bit and if you know of someone in an ovenless jam, send them my way. ;)