Megan's oatmeal

Well it was a pretty ordinary Saturday in my household - ordinary and extraordinary because we've had a non-stop streak of saturday weddings and so we were hopelessly out of the most basic groceries, even my instant oatmeal (!) and muesli. 

Mr Grey promptly decided to eat last night's leftovers for breakfast, I poked around, considered my options and then decided that today would The Day. 

Let me explain. 

Somewhere up in my head there is a vague list of foods that I mean to one day get around to actually making From Scratch. The list changes pretty much all the time and unfortunately, it usually gets added to without my having the time to cross anything off it. Today however, was the Day I managed to finally FINALLY cross off one of the most basic items: real deal oatmeal From Scratch. 

There's nothing special about oatmeal in particular except that I learnt to eat it and like it in Australia.  Only I kept making the instant kind because - who makes oatmeal from scratch anymore? But then I kept reading and hearing that instant oatmeal is nothing like the real deal From Scratch kind. The kind you make with oats, water and milk on a stove instead of instant oats in the microwave. 

Anyway, I don't know if it's because I picked an especially good recipe - the review on Orangette was breathless with enthusiasm - or because oatmeal from scratch really tastes better but the result was incredible. 

People, anybody reading this, if you decide to make it, please please don't skip the step where you toast the oats. It is delicious and adds this faint butter-y fragrance to oatmeal and quite changes its character from the kind of healthy breakfast you try to endure to a luxurious one that you look forward to making (and eating) again and again. 

Megan's Oatmeal via Orangette

The recipe itself is pretty simple. What it takes unfortunately, is that precious resource I don't often have much of - time. Most days, my breakfast needs to get on the table in something like 5 minutes flat and oatmeal takes at least half an hour. 

But I discovered that it's an excellent way to spend your saturday morning because it doesn't actually take a whole lot of work. Only the first five minutes when you're toasting your oats requires your full attention. The rest of the time, you can leave it on the stove over medium low heat simmering and only give it a stir every couple of minutes. 

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon (14 grams) unsalted butter
1 cup (175 grams) steel-cut oats
3 ¼ cups (780 ml) water
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
1 tablespoon (12 grams) natural cane sugar (I used muscovado)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Maple syrup, brown sugar, or honey for serving


In a heavy skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the oats, and cook, stirring occasionally, until quite fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

In a 2 ½- to 3-quart saucepan, bring the water, milk, sugar, and salt to a simmer. (Be careful: I find that this mixture goes quickly from zero to boiling and has a tendency to boil over.) Stir in the toasted oats. Adjust the heat to maintain a slow simmer, and partially cover the saucepan.  Cook, stirring occasionally to prevent clumping and scorching, until the mixture has thickened and the oats are soft, 25 to 30 minutes. The cereal will still be quite loose at this point, but don’t worry; it will continue to thicken. Remove the pan from the heat, allow it to rest for a few minutes (still partially covered), and then serve hot, with maple syrup, brown sugar, or honey.(I had mine with maple syrup but will try it with honey next time)

Serving size note: It says on Orangette that the recipe serves four but um, I think I'm either an enormous eater or it serves four very tiny people. I halved the recipe for myself and expected leftovers but ... to my surprise, it cooked down to just about one serving of oatmeal. Which was fine (see above for Mr Grey's breakfast choices) but next time I'm making the full recipe just so I can have leftovers ... or you know, should Mr Grey decide to eat oatmeal with me.

Cooking and life

I came across a 2001 NYT article on cooking yesterday that managed to really put the finger on the pulse of why and how it is cooking can be such a life affirming, comforting hobby. 

Some passages from the article below:

"Anyone who cooks even casually knows the feeling. Cooking is almost always a mood-altering experience, for good or for bad, and at its best it is do-it-yourself therapy: more calming than yoga, less risky than drugs.

*

The food is not really the thing. It's the making of it that gets you through a bad time.On Thursday, I was motivated to make stew, and not because I had any real craving for meat. I needed to go through the slow process of rendering salt pork, sautéing onions and shallots, browning the beef and simmering it for hours with Cognac and stock and two kinds of mustard. Nothing about the recipe, one I have made every winter since learning it in cooking school 18 years ago, could be rushed, which was exactly what I wanted. Sometimes cooking is its own reward.

*

And the reason you do it is very simple: cooking is the most sensual activity a human being can engage in, in polite company. My stew involved smell (onions softening, Cognac reducing), touch (the chopping, the stirring), sound (that sizzle of beef cubes hitting hot fat), sight (carrot orange against the gold-brown of mustard and beef stock) and especially taste. Making it was a way to feel alive and engaged.

Whoever said cooking should be entered into with abandon or not at all had it wrong. Going into it when you have no hope is sometimes just what you need to get to a better place."

I woke up today with the date of the article nagging at the edges of my consciousness. I looked it up again today - and of course, it was published less than 10 days after 911. For the writer, her kitchen held comfort and life in the midst of grief. 

This article and Banana Yoshimoto's novella - Kitchen - are the only two pieces of writing I've ever read that managed to elucidate the idea of how cooking - and food - can be a return from death. Food - its preparation and consumption - are so intimately linked with life itself. 

It is no secret that I learned to cook during one of the lowest and saddest seasons of my life. Cooking, constantly cooking, was one of the ways that I clung on to life; it was a reason to go on. Grasping a bag of mushrooms at the market was a way to grasp at life. 

I am not sure that it is only the making of the food that is the thing. The food itself means something. I ate well during that time and understood for the first time that good food, healthy, well prepared food, is as revivifying as the process of making it. When eventually, I emerged from the season of sadness, it was as a healthier and more stable person - thanks in no small part to the great produce I had been consuming. 

Looking back at that season of long sad days, I began to glimpse at why people fast during the season of Lent.  Perhaps it is to to remind themselves that a season of drought and weary cold ends with Christ, who is living water and the bread of life. 

Note: If you follow the link, it brings you to the NYT article which also includes a recipe for Maple Shortbread Bars and Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew. 

pasta for two

Last night I cooked pasta. I made the sauce, I boiled the pasta then mixed it. Mr Grey got home shortly thereafter and we ate.

This morning I realised that it was the first time since Mr Grey and I got married that I made pasta all by myself.

See, I cook all manner of other dishes by myself. But for some reason, in our household, pasta has always been two person job. Mr Grey boils the noodles; my job is usually the sauce. I love those moments.

I'm usually over at the stove happily stirring sauce while he's at the other corner of the kitchen boiling up the noodles at his induction cooker. We chat and buzz around each other calling out for utensils, snacking on the cheese and generally just being together. Then there always comes the climactic moment when we drain the pasta together - I hold the sieve - and it finally comes together with the sauce in the pot. Then, in a hurry, the table is set and we eat.

I can make pasta by myself. I used to when I lived alone.

Next week, I'm going to be really Busy. Busy with caps and possibly blinking lights. I won't have a whole lot of time to sit down and mull. So before I get Busy, I just wanted to note down here that one of the things in life I'm hugely, enormously grateful for is Mr Grey. I'm so glad I get to hang out with him, wake up next to him and cook with him.

I can cook pasta alone. But cooking pasta with Mr Grey is just so much better.

The One: Roasted vegetables and Chicken stock

Sometimes, in fumbling around cooking and trying out different things, you stumble across a recipe that turns out - strangely and incomprehensibly - perfect. It is The One. The one that you have subconsciously been looking for. In fact, all the other recipes you tried were but pale shadows of the One.

In the last few months, I bookmarked two separate recipes from two different blogs and only got around to trying them out recently. One was from The Wednesday Chef, titled "The Best Roasted Vegetables Ever". The other was from Smitten Kitchen - "Perfect Uncluttered Chicken Stock".  Really, the blog titles should have given it away; they both turned out to be The One in each of their categories. 

One.

The best roasted vegetables ever.

They were! And so easy too - the prep takes hardly 20 minutes and then you can pop them into the oven and walk away for a full hour. I used to make my roasted veg exactly like how Luisa Weiss described her former roasted veg style - chop the veg into small chunks, mess about with oil and toss it into the oven with the heat turned up high. This one is different. For this one, you take out your baking dish and pile the veg in willy-nilly. In layers. All messy-like. Then it goes into the oven for a long long time on slooow heat. The onions caramelize, the potatoes turn soft and sweet and the eggplant soaks up all the tomato juice and becomes this mess of flavour. 

Roasted Vegetables 
Serves 3-4 (?) as a side dish

1 medium onion
1 eggplant
1 small potato
5 small tomatoes
1 red or yellow pepper

A handful of mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary, wild fennel are all good choices - either individually or combined in some form)
5 to 6 tablespoons of olive oil, plus more to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Quarter and slice the onion thinly. Dice all the vegetables into pieces that are approximately the same size (no larger than 1/2 inch). Pile the vegetables into a baking dish so that the vegetables lie a few inches thick. Season with salt, pepper and herbs to taste and then pour the olive oil over the vegetables. Mix thoroughly but gently - you don't want to destroy the tomatoes before the dish goes into the oven. Now check the vegetables to make sure they are well-coated and glistening with oil. If need be, add more oil.

2. Put the dish in the oven and cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Halfway through the cooking process, remove the dish from the oven and very gently stir the vegetables so that the ones at the bottom come to the top. Towards the end of the cooking process, stir a second time. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Check for seasoning and serve.

Note: The original recipe had both zucchini and carrots. I omitted them because I don't like zucchini... actually I also don't really like carrots. I subbed in some mushrooms instead. I don't know how many people this recipe would feed - I made it for two and had leftovers so theoretically, it could feed up to 4 as a side dish?

Also, the leftovers are delicious. 

Two.

Deb Perelman calls it "Perfect, uncluttered chicken stock". 

I call it the easiest,  most chicken-y chicken stock - ever. Really really. And I've made my fair share of chicken stock. Including the kind that require you to stand at the stove skimming the scum off for the first hour(I really hate those).  And yet, after all that work, there would be this water-y, slightly bland tasting stock. I dutifully used those but deep inside, I always felt let down. Plus it was so much work! All the faffing about with carrots and celery. 

Until yesterday. Friends, we have a winner. This is The One. The stock I have been looking for, yearning to taste but only achieved last night. 

This is also how I would describe it. 

You know how you eat Maggi chicken flavoured instant noodles and there's this MSG laden stock that comes with it? You know how the flavour is somehow intensely chicken-y - the essence of chicken distilled into a yellow liquid? You know how home-made stock somehow never tastes like that? 

This one does. But without the icky MSG. I tell you, this is the One. 

The Best Chicken Stock Ever (The One You Have Been Looking for)

(Adapted very slightly from Smitten Kitchen)

900 g to 1kg uncooked chicken winglets and drumlets
1onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1 teaspoon table salt 

Water - enough to fill the slow cooker. 

Place all ingredients in a slow-cooker. Cook on low for about 8 hours.

Strain out chicken parts, onion and garlic. The stock is now ready to use, or, you could put it in the fridge to chill until any fat solidifies on the top. There was very little fat to strain out though so I might skip this step next time. 

When chilled, the stock becomes this gelatinous mess (I wanted to dance when I saw that - none of my other recipes have yielded this before!). The standard explanation for this is that the bones have released their natural gelatin(?), collagen (?) and so the stock will turn into a jelly like substance when chilled. 

Notes: 

Deb Perelman used only 1 garlic clove - Mr Grey and I love garlic so I upped it to 3 - which was the original recipe anyway. She also has a huge amount of helpful info on storing the chicken stock, freezing it etc so please check out the link above if you have any questions. I try to be helpful, but between me and Ms Perelman, she is obviously the "si fu", I am but an amateur.

She also uses a much larger slow cooker - I sized the recipe down a bit. Yes, I do realise that chicken wings/winglets/drumlets are rather expensive. But so are commercially made chicken stock packets and they all have MSG, so between that and just making this myself, I'll rather make this. Besides, the chicken can be shredded up and used if you stop the cooking at around the 8 hour mark as I did. You can use the chicken in chinese chicken congee or Malay mee soto. If you have a pet, you can also shred it carefully and feed it to your pet but please be careful - chicken bones might choke your dog or cat.

Final note: Children of the '80s, remember that Gardenia bread ad? The one with the chorus "so good you can eat it on its own!". Well, that line applies perfectly to this stock - it was so good, I wanted to drink it all up on its own.

white collar kingfishers

These two little guys have been hanging out at the tiny patch of green on the way to the train station. Sometimes, they sit far apart, sometimes, like in the picture above, they sit side by side.

I look out for them everyday. The last time I tried to take a photo of them sitting together, one of them got annoyed and flew off. Today, I was more cautious and kept my distance which explains the terrible quality of the photo. The iPhone camera zoom can only handle so much.

I'm always happy to see them - either of them - perched up on the fence above the grassy verge. These little green and blue moments are so ephemeral - maybe tomorrow they'll fly away to some new hunting ground, maybe tomorrow the land will be sold, the trees cut down. Maybe.

But today, they were sitting together, side by side, and I got a photo, all of which makes for a nice start to Friday.

Celebration of the Edict of Milan

1700 years since Constantine issued the Edict of Milan.

home body

Isn't the reading corner in the picture so inviting? Saw it and couldn't resist posting it up.

I have to say, I'm really loving this stage of life when I get to have my own home and I also get to hang out with friends in their homes. Hanging out with friends in the comfort of their own living rooms and kitchens is such a luxury. It's quiet, you get unlimited water to drink, there isn't awful music playing and you don't have to buy an expensive coffee/tea to justify your stay.

Last week, I went over to H's place and she fed a home cooked dinner and a home made cheese cake :) When we were sitting around in her kitchen eating the cheesecake, my only thought was: this is so much better than any old starbucks in any old mall. It makes growing up worth it.