Keeping house, naturally

When we first moved in, AK's dad got us a whole suite of cleaning fluids - spray on glass cleaner, Vim (that pasty white cream thingy), insecticide spray. Well I ditched all of that.

I read snippets of the effects of the chemicals we use in our everyday lives while trying to decide whether or not to purchase Jessica Alba's book, The Honest Life, which I stumbled on while trying to decide if I should or should not get Gwyneth Paltrow's new cookbook. I do confess, I spend too much time on Amazon.com. Anyway, I didn't get Jessica's book.

Instead I just Googled homemade cleaners, and experimented on my own. Here's what I've changed:

- Used vinegar and water to clean tiles, disinfect washing sponges and best of all, on ant trails.

- To disinfect the tile countertops in my wet kitchen, I mix in half vinegar/half hot water and wipe the tiles. I also spray vinegar on where ants like to gather, like near Boo's food dish and the waste bin.

- Replaced VIM with coarse salt. For scrubbing grout, and (nothing works better, I swear) my stainless steel sink and pots, I just scrub with coarse salt. - Used hot vinegar to clean toilets

- Used a combination of vinegar and water to clean tile floors. They do need a second round with just water, though, to ensure that the vinengar doesn't stay and possibly corrode the tiles. I see no evidence of this happenning (the site claimed that it's safe for ceramic tiles, and mine are), and tested the solution on a small area before proceeding with the full thing.

- OK, why do glass cleaners even need to exist in the first place?? All I do is spray windows with water, wipe down with scrunched up newspapers and I have gleaming windows. It's been fun experimenting, and I love the fact that I have an (almost) toxin-free home.

I used to experiment with so-called environmentally-sound cleaners, but I really don't need to anymore.

Oh, and one more thing - if you plan on doing this, buy good vinegar, not the foul-smelling, super-cheap stuff that comes in plastic containers. Those smell foul. Good white corn-derived vinegar (I like Heinz) is what I use, and the smell goes away after it dries. The cheap stuff doesn't. It's not expensive, given its versatility and is probably still way cheaper than any cleaning solution

HOME-made Greek Yoghurt

Home.

I never thought I'd be savouring this word so much.

All the bits and pieces have finally come together. We took delivery or our new sofa and my newly beloved, full stainless-steel French-door Electrolux fridge (sometimes I feel like giving it a big hug), and purchased white Ikea shelves to store and display our book collection. Now there's plenty of food (and space) in the fridge, Boo has (rather quickly, I might add) reserved his spot on the sofa, and the shelves are filled with reads colleted over the years, with some space to spare. We even have a couple of plants - a giant money tree to fill the corner next to the shelves, mint in the kitchen and rosemary in the living room (because it's so perfect I want to show it off). I'll be sharing some photos when I'm ready.

What a long way we've come.

And I made Greek Yoghurt, following this impeccable recipe to the word (the one for the Greek version, that is). Smooth, thick and luscious, and with just a hint of a tang, it came out better than I expected. We've been eating big dollops of it with honey, and I've also been blending it into our smoothies (another post on that one coming up soon).

Now to get that wedding over and done with.

Super-easy soup for the soul/sick

What I made for AK, when he caught the flu. The fella has just returned from too much sun, booze and partying in Phuket and of course, fell sick as soon as he touched down.

It's really easy - I threw everything together on a weekday night. Oh, and I think not using my hands to roll out the balls, and using an ice cream scoop to form them and drop them in the soup (with that sweeping thingy attached) yielded a very tender chicken dumpling. Not pretty for sure, but surprisingly tender.

East-West Quick-N-Easy Chicken Soup Recipe

Serves 4 persons, or 2 persons over 2 meals with rice or noodles.

1 large carrot, or 2 small
1 celery stalk
1 yellow onion
3 tbsp dried goji berries
7 - 8 pieces dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in 2 cups hot water
Chicken stock concentrate
Seasonings - salt/soy sauce, white pepper
500 g minced chicken
2 - 3 tbsp oats, ground in the food processor
1 egg
2 1" knobs of ginger White pepper


Soak the dried shiitakes in hot water for 10 - 15 minutes. 
For the chicken dumplings, mix the ground oats, minced chicken, egg, 2 tbsp soy sauce.
Grate one of the knobs of ginger into the mixture. Mix only to incorporate everything, adding more oats if the mixture is too damp.
Place the mixture in the fridge.
Finely dice carrot(s), celery and onion, and finely slice the ginger.
Heat up a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat in enameled cast-iron pot, add the sofrito of diced vegetables and a dash of salt/soy sauce. The salt element prevents the veggies from browning.
Soften the diced vegetables in the heat.
Add 2 cups of hot water and a few dashes of chicken stock concentrate.
Drain your now-rehydrated shiitakes. Strain the soaking liquid to remove any grit.
Add the shiitakes, their soaking liquid and the goji berries to the mixture.
Bring the soup up to the boil again, and drop scoops of the chicken mix in (I used an ice cream scoop).
Season to taste, and simmer for another 10 minutes. Check and see if the chicken is cooked.


 

Quesadillas, and what to do with leftovers

A great way to use leftovers.

For dinner the other day, I spread leftover guacamole I had made earlier onto onion and chive tortilla wraps, and piled on crispy bacon bits (crisped bacon rashers in the oven, drain and scissor into strips), leftover grilled chicken from a nearby Peruvian restaurant, and mozarella cheese. Heat up a nonstick pan (dry, no oil), fold the tortillas into half and grill until the cheese melts, pressing down the quesadillas to make sure you have a nice flat piece.

How a bad day became Thomas Keller's Chocolate Chunk and Chip Cookies

It all started when AK lost his keys. We were at a company event in the KL Convention Centre. We planned it all out - AK would drive me to work in the morning, then I would take the company-provided transport to the Convention Centre where the event was held, and we would go home together. It was a perfect plan.

Then he lost his car keys. At 5 pm. In the KL Convention Centre, which was crawling with more than two thousand of our colleagues, and people rushing to places after work. After about two hours of fruitless searching we gave up and took a cab home to get the spare keys. With the horrendous after-work traffic, by the time we reached KLCC again we were both starving. So we decided to have dinner there (Little Penang, where else?) before going home. Of course, Little Penang just happens to be one lot away from Kinokuniya. Given that I seldom venture in the city nowadays, so why not??? Might as well make the most of it.

My intention was to check out Jamie Oliver's Cook With Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook. I had been eyeing it for the longest time.But Kinokuniya had the big, bountiful Bouchon Bakery displayed (conveniently) on its "promotions" table. I didn't even have to bring it to the front counter for the staff to remove the annoying plastic covers. The books were just lying there, waiting to be picked up. So naturally, before AK could ask if I was buying anything I grabbed one and paid the obscene amount of money (for a book anyway), and made AK lug this behemoth home.

Now, I own Bouchon, and have never cooked from it. The recipes just seemed too daunting - I mean, who has the time to make sure all the onion slices for French Onion Soup are all uniform in sized and shape? Maybe one day, when I quit my day job and go freelance :).

But back to the book. As soon as I got home and did all the things one must do before bedtime, I plopped into bed with my new best friend and read. Lovely little anecdotes from Thomas Keller's childhood about Oreos and his mum's pecan sandies, gorgeous photos of the food and even nicer, inside Bouchon Bakery. Really precise instructions (eggs are strained then measured or weighed, not counted in one or two, for example).

I decided to break in the book (and my spanking new Teka oven in my spanking new dry kitchen - love) in with these chocolate chunk and chip cookies. The recipe surprisingly doesn't contain any vanilla, but does make use of unsulfured blackstrap molasses. I added half a teaspoon of vanilla concentrate, because I think there is nothing better in this world than vanilla and chocolate, otherwise followed the recipe to the word. They came out with a lovely deep caramelized flavour, sophisticated almost. AK wolfed down 3 cookies as soon as he got home from work - always a good sign. What's more, my new oven, while a little fiddly at first, didn't let me down, and I really enjoyed having all that space on my new breakfast/work counter. A girl could ask for little else. Joy indeed!

Faves from the VMA's

Long radio silence, I know. I bumped into a friend who was in Miri and also moved to KL, and we agreed, there just isn't enough time. There's always someplace to go, some movie or live performance to catch, something on.

I recently managed to watch a repeat of the MTV VMA's. Award shows are kinda my guilty pleasure, along with reality cooking shows, chocolate, instant noodles...you get the rift. No nourishment and all guilty pleasure. I think enough has been said about Ms. Cyrus's twerking. Hey, she'll go down in showbusiness history. I always manage to see one or two performances that I can't forget in this type of show, and this year, my favourites are Macklemore's Same Love and Katy Perry's Roar, sung live under the Brooklyn Bridge.

I loved Katy's performance - man, it's not easy to dance, skip then sing your heart out onstage.

But there's another reason why this song resonated with me, at this point in time. These days, I admit, one of the main reasons I am so freakin' bogged down by work is because I just can't say no to whatever people choose to throw at me. Then there's the pockets of bullying. People who think they can get away with raised voices and by expressing outrage at the slightest issue. In the beginning I tried to be the better person, to stay calm at all times. There came a point when I felt like I was heading for a nervous breakdown - I honestly felt like I was losing control of myself. I realise now, sometimes you just gotta push back and NOT take it. Stand up for yourself, take charge.

I did, in pockets. This song, and Katy's boxing-champion performance, is going on my playlist and embedded in my brain. .

These lyrics, I could be singing them and they would all be true.

I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath

Scared to rock the boat and make a mess

So I sat quietly, agreed politely

I guess that I forgot I had a choice

I let you push me past the breaking point

I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything

You held me down, but I got up

Already brushing off the dust

You hear my voice, you hear that sound

Like thunder gonna shake the ground

You held me down, but I got up

Get ready cause I’ve had enough

I see it all, I see it now

And Macklemore and Mary Lambert - wow, what a beautiful anthem the fight for equality now has. Hip hop and homosexuality don't exactly mix - you got your man-man Jay-Z and (psycho) Kanye, violent good-for-nothing woman-beater Chris Brown, angsty Eminem and super-smooth Drake (who is looking super hot btw - howcome I never noticed before?).

Well now we got Macklemore. Hip-hop just got a whole lot cooler. Back to the song, I find the climax was Mary and Jennifer Hudson crooning "Not crying on Sundays...Love is Patient". According to Mary, it was referencing her feelings about being gay and a church-going Christian. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't believe in my heart that God created same-sex loving people to be hated and discriminated upon.

Get More: 2013 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

 

Late night noshing

Slowly but surely, I am getting back into my cooking groove.

There's so many things I want to do! So many links I've bookmarked, so many lists I've made, so much to get done.

I haven't finished unpacking - we decided on our built-ins so late that now we have to wait until the Eid season is over for our carpenter to come and install our wardrobe and dry kitchen. So my clothes and part of my kitchen items lie in boxes still.

Also, work has been craaaazy. It's coming to the end of a 3-week slog-fest, and this is on top of the last of the reno craziness and unpacking and sorting. I've lost weight and the bags under my eyes will need some time to disappear. But we've moved in! And last week was my big workshop, and I think my efforts paid off.

Now I am in a sort of recovery mode. Taking things a little slower, a little easier.

Things I need to continue - unpacking, and putting stuff where they belong. Work, it has its highs and lows but it doesn't end.

Things I need to start doing again - exercise. It has taken a 2-month backseat and the momentum is too big. Sigh. I've been making a pathetic efforts - a bit of sun salutations but I really need to get my a** moving again.

Things I want to do: Cook! Garden! Lie in bed all day, take long morning walks. Plant herbs, make ice-cream, make my own cleaning solutions. Throw out all my unused junk. Try to live a little more simply.

Anyways, I had a good weekend for once. We stayed home mostly, and watched Zero Dark Thirty on Saturday night instead of traipsing down to some mall for dinner and a movie with friends. I made guacamole, which went down very well.

Here's my recipe, which was more than enough for two with a bag of corn chips:-

I don't use tomatoes for two reasons - I hate them, and Emily doesn't as well. Oh, and I used a bit of soy. I know it sounds weird, but I was tasting and tasting the mixture with salt and felt that it lacked something - a savoury roundness. So I tried mixing it a bit of soy sauce, and it worked a real treat. By all means omit it, but, if I may suggest, try it with a small batch and see what happens...........

Twisted Guacamole

2 ripe avocadoes (firm but slightly yielding to the touch)

1/2 cup cilantro (before chopping) stems and leaves

1/2 clove garlic

2 spring onions

1 bird's eye chilli (this is all I had), deseeded

Juice of 2 - 3 small limes, or to taste

Sea salt, and a little soy sauce (I swear this is not a typo nor hoax)

Finely chop up the cilantro stems and leaves. Scoop the avocado into a bowl large enough to mix everything in. Grate the garlic finely into the avocado mix, add chopped cilantro. Finely slice the chilli (and I mean finely, they should be threads of chilli)and spring onions into the mix. Using a fork, mash the avocado up, mixing in the other stuff as well. Squeeze in the lime juice and add the salt. Taste and adjust seasonings (add the soy last) as you see fit.