Minefield

Today, I asked Enfant Terrible what I now realise was a loaded question:

"Do you think you and your mum will ever be able to have a normal conversation?"

And he shot back with:

"What makes you think you and your mum have such normal conversations?"

Touché!

I guess what I meant was: is it possible for adult children chat with their mums without becoming agitated? And why is there agitation in the first place?

Instructions

How to get that hotel room smell* in your own room (I know...):

1. Get a cup of coffee with a little milk in it
2. Set the air-conditioning at full blast.
3. Bring the coffee in and let it hang out for a while. You're allowed to sip.
4. Start work.
5. Be transported out of your current surroundings!
6. Realise it's not real and snap out of it, befuddled.
7. Realise what just happened. Carry on.

*Courtesy of suspect hygiene and cleaning practices, and questionable ventilation.

Breakfast oatmeal cookie: bleh

I made a breakfast cookie today. It was nice but not something I'd rave about. I suspect that's why the recipe and other similar recipes call for toppings like nut butters and jam and fruit and whatnot: it's to hide the fact that anything made with oatmeal and a scant (stingy, some might say) half tablespoon of honey (I still can't believe it, tbh) will be quite bland. And dry. But it filled the stomach and there are worse things to have for breakfast, so.

(I wound up drizzling honey on top of it because I don't have any nut butters.)

(I mean, one can't have nasi lemak or masala tosei every day, or else one would begin to resemble a masala tosei lemak.)

(Nor can one have toast because we have to throw off the shackles of colonialism starting with the little things.)

Decluttering snag

I bought into the whole minimalism thing and have been psyching myself up to clear clutter from my house. Although I might not have 20+ years' worth of junk, I'm still loathe to let go of all the clothes I haven't worn in years and will never wear again (because they are ugly or don't fit).

(Keeping the clothes is really stupid because, realistically, I only wear 5-6 pieces a week, and that's if I go out. I cycle between 3 sets of house clothes and pyjamas to boot. I don't need a wardrobe, just a drawer! The perks of not being a socialite, I guess.)

I did manage to assemble the menagerie of glass and plastic jars I've accumulated though, and I fully intend to give them away or recycle them. The only problem is, looking at their cleaned and shiny selves, the vague ideas I had of using them for some craft project or other have come creeping back like a bad habit.

I see why people favour the fast and furious approach to decluttering now.

Easy-ass apple butter

I made an apple butter thing and it's pretty nice, so I'm feeling very pleased with myself. It goes like this:

1. Apples: peeled (if the skin tastes bad*), cored, and quartered.
2. Enough water to just cover them after you've placed them in a pot.
3. Bring the apples to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer until they're soft enough to mash.**
4. Return to a simmer, add cinnamon, cloves, and/or nutmeg, if using (to taste).
5. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until most, if not all, of the liquid has evaporated.***
6. Add a sweetener**** if needed (to taste).
7. Place in sterilised glass containers and cool before storing in the fridge.

Notes:
*The Red Delicious apples we'd bought were anything but, hence this attempt.
**You can use a food processor for a smoother result, but I just used a fork because I used only 2 apples.
***For me, it took about 45 minutes.
****I used a half teaspoon of honey, although the recipes I found called for brown sugar or maple syrup.

Usage:
Spread on buttered toast.
Drizzled on oatmeal, yogurt, ice cream, what-have-you.
Condiment for savoury items.
Whatever tastes good to you.
Eat it neat by the spoonful (easiest).

The apple butter I made is a light gold-brown, like solid cider, I suppose. The pictures in the recipes are all dark brown, which could either be due to the longer-ass cooking time (up to overnight if you use a slow cooker!), or the use of the abovementioned spices. It tastes like concentrated apples and is unbelievably sweet, but not cloyingly so. Also, it's a dream on buttered toast or with (cream) cheese spread. Alas, I am out of bread (although I have a quick recipe for that...).

Pregnancy unexpected: Perioral dermatitis

Perioral dermatitis is a thing that can happen in pregnancy. It's an itchy red rash around your mouth area and it makes you look like a damn slob. Not everyone gets it, and treatment varies from antibiotics to dermatological medications. In my case, it appeared to have been triggered by spending some time in bright sunshine.

Anyway, I had Betnovate cream, which had been prescribed for dermatitis elsewhere (I actually do take care of myself, ok, but this was one of those mysterious things that can happen to you pre-pregnancy), and I figured it would help. Here's the thing:

DO NOT PUT BETNOVATE ON YOUR PERIORAL DERMATITIS. (It even says so on the contraindications!)

My itchy, red, unsightly rash became an itchy, red, unsightly weepy rash.

I have a master's in medical science and I did that.

Some frenzied Googling later, it looked like calendula and vitamin E would help (nothing could make the rash worse than it already was). Mothercare sells a calendula balm (in stick form); yes, it's meant for babies, and Watson's or Guardian sell a generic vitamin E cream.

And hurrah, they worked. The balm stopped the burning itchiness and dissipated the redness, and the cream prevented scarring. However, I still had to endure about 2 weeks of (bright pink) skin regrowth and flaking. Thankfully, that has all faded, and I now use the balm and cream on my other dermatitis, as the Betnovate doesn't seem to work anymore (and you're not supposed to use it for very long anyway), and this combo does.

PS: I am not a doctor. Your mileage may vary.

Not chickening out

I recall saying something about blotting meats with a kitchen towel made from fabric, not paper, before frying to prevent splattering. That still works, but counter space is at a premium in MIL's kitchen, and I don't think she'd take it very well if she discovered blood stains on her kitchen towels.

Aside from the minimal kitchen space, MIL has a large range of cooking pans. Most have a nice heft to them (bringing 2010's Tangled to mind, eheheh) and probably cost a lot. Anyway, one of these pans has a deep bowl shape and a lip for pouring, and it's nonstick, which was perfect for this Jacque Pepin recipe. (Pepin is probably the only chef in the world whose instructions I'd follow to the letter.)

Results:
The skin is virtually paper-thin after all that rendering.
The meat is moist and juicy.
Enfant Terrible went back for seconds. I caught him staring hungrily at my share. Maybe he was very hungry.

Notes:
I used 2 chicken thighs and drumsticks, bone in.
As for salting and peppering, I'd put that in the dry pan first, press the chicken pieces, skin side up, on them lightly to coat, and then place them skin side down on the remaining seasoning, and begin cooking.
I turned them over after 7 minutes (they can probably go another 1-2 minutes if your flame is low enough).
I cooked them for closer to 20 minutes in total.
Altogether, it produced a little less than a 1/4 measuring cup of rendered chicken fat (!), which can be used in place of cooking oil.

Alternafood

Say you want a snack but not chocolate, and you can't be arsed to walk out to get bread for a sandwich, and you've had enough fruit for the day.

You spy a box of leftover lemang in the fridge, the individual pieces still wrapped in their banana leaves. Alas, you've run out of chicken curry.

Casting a disconsolate eye on the paltry contents of your fridge (because who's been putting off the grocery run, eh?), you see the remaining processed cheese slices from a long-ago sandwich-loving phase.

Naturally, you microwave the unwrapped lemang until slightly too warm for your fingers, then carefully wrap a slice of cheese around it, folding and molding the plasticky layer around the rice. The heat from the rice melts the cheese slightly, allowing it to stick and complete your sad reverse parody of an onigiri.

You can wrap it in a piece of dried seaweed if you're feeling fancy, because this is your life now.

Not impastable: N00b home economics

I'm thoroughly enamored by that thing where you switch off the heat after stirring for 2 minutes when cooking pasta (you leave it in the water for the remaining cooking time). Of course, I started wondering what other irregular thing you can do regarding pasta that doesn't necessitate reading a Serious Eats article.*

My pasta bugbear is cream sauces. Doing a cream pasta sauce is rarely my thing because I'm a cheapskate. A 200 ml container of cream costs about RM8.50 and the resulting sauce is always too thin for my taste, so why bother?

I guessed coconut milk could be used in place of cream, and some half-hearted Googling confirmed this, so I borrowed a pack of coconut milk from MIL's fridge and went about making a creamy beef sauce.

The pack said to shake throughly before using, so I did. I should've seen it coming when I felt only the barest movement inside. Upon cutting it open to stir in to the cooked sauce, snowy white blobs of coconut cream came oozing out.

It did the job though, thickening and enriching the sauce. It also lent the sauce a refreshing coconut aftertaste, which was not a bad thing, though unexpected.

I used about a quarter of the 200-ml pack, which Tesco tells me costs about RM3 (depends on the brand and whether you get liquid or powdered [!?]), so the entire batch of sauce (about 5 servings) cost about RM3.50 per serving. The pasta cost RM4 (I think), and is about 9 servings, which is pretty great if you don't eat a lot.

Seriously though, when you call something "milk", I expect it to be liquid and pourable.

*I love reading them, but they're so long.