What's the rush?

 Hi Natty honey!  How are you feeling today?  How's life over there in SoCal?  Is it still raining?  I hope you are healthy and keeping safe.  I'm blogging a little early today.  Oh there's no rush, the sky is really gloomy outside so I'm not doing any yard work.  I did have to go spend some money at the night market.  Even though it's dark with rain clouds at 5 pm, the hawkers are still there facing the odds.  Sometimes it's dark without rain.  Maybe.  I bought some small curry pups and some sweet cakes.

The cake above is called "tepung talam".  It's sweet, it's made of flour, sugar and coconut milk.  I also have some leftover shepherd's pie that my Mom gave me last night, I'm going to heat that up and eat that as well.  So It looks like I'm not just going to be lazing around this evening, I'm also going to be stuffing myself silly while watching YouTube.

Mushrooms

 Hi Natty!  What are you up to?  Shopping around?  I didn't spend much money today, I didn't plan to.  All I bought was some takeout rice because I didn't to cook lunch.  Sunday mornings I clean my mother's bedroom, so I just can't be bothered with cooking lunch.  I did cook dinner, though.  I made fries with mushroom and scrambled egg sandwiches.  My Mom gave me some mushrooms today.  You're probably used to those button or champignon mushrooms which you normally see sliced on pizza.  Over here oyster mushrooms are the most common.  They range in quality depending on the weather, since it's been raining a lot lately the quality of oyster mushrooms is incredibly high.  Nothing like this sample photo: the ones I got were huge, plump, juicy and sparkling white.

I decided I wanted to cook the moisture out of the mushrooms for my sandwiches.  With the moisture out, mushrooms become brown and chewy, kind of like steak.  I added the rest of the Enoki mushrooms I had into the mix.  I had a lot of stuff left over from the last time I made sandwiches.  In the end, my sandwiches had mayo, lettuce, black pepper, onions, fried mushrooms, scrambled eggs, cheese and ketchup.  I was expecting simple sandwiches to go with my fries, but dinner turned out to be kind of complex.  Kind of like my life.

Fries

 Hi Natty!  Are you back in Venice Beach?  I'm sure you are all set to get back to getting your masters.  I'm so proud of you!  Please don't forget that you are MY girl, and that puts you in Hollywood.  And what Hollywood is interested in is your chastity.  That is your reality my darling, so don't let people mess with your head.  Please just try to avoid them, get your masters and get out of there.  I love you with all of my heart.

There are so many different opinions on perfect fries on YouTube!  They can't all be perfect, right?  I just took the top most video in the search results to post here, to me they're all they same.  I'm sure they can make better home fries than me, but can they make better home fries than me with limited and mediocre ingredients?  I bought cheap potatoes, peeled cut and stewed them until you can poke a fork in them, drained them, and stuck them in the cooler.  When it's time to fry them up, I coat them with flour.  Crispy outside, soft inside.  Some people may argue that it's not fries since I coat them with flour, but it sure tastes like fries to me.  Looks like fries, too.  Those frozen fries are good, but when I compare a kilo of frozen fries at RM7 to a kilo of cheap potatoes at RM1.80, I'm going to find a way to make the cheap potatoes work.  And they do, so alhamdulillah.  Today's batch of fries is special, though.  I stewed them with a big old beef knuckle.  Extra flavor!

Happy New Year

 Hi Natty!  Happy New Year!  I hope all is well with you, and you are healthy and confident.  I suppose it's time for you to head back to SoCal.  I don't really like what's going on over there, so please be careful and try to avoid people.  2020 turned out to be a drag, but I believe the law of balance that things have to get worse before they get better.  Thus 2020 wasn't all that bad for me.  Imagine the people who get richer and more powerful every year.  Death is going to really suck for them.

I finally used up all the soybeans I bought, was it 2 months ago?  A lot of failures, but I have 4 types of miso and soy meat as successes.  So the New Year's dinner is veggie burgers!  I went to the burger specialty store in the morning to get burger buns, but they were closed.  For some reason, around here you can only buy burger buns from burger stores.  It wasn't always like that, only ever since McDonald's came into town I estimate.  No big deal, I like sliced bread better for making burgers.  Something about soy meat makes great burgers.  It's not the same as real beef, but it's not worse either.  With mayo, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and ketchup, my veggie burgers were a success.  I think I'll have the same thing for dinner tomorrow.  You want a veggie burger?

Them bones

 Hi Natty!  Are you excited?  Well, it's the New Year!  You are so beautiful, you are MY girl, and I love you!  2020 was a big change for sociology, don't you agree?  Don't you worry about a thing, my beautiful darling.  Everything will work out absolutely great for us inshaAllah.

When I was the supermarket yesterday, I saw some beef marrow bones going for cheap so I bought a pack.  Australian beef.  Usually you would season and bake this stuff, then spoon out the soft gelatinous marrow with a tiny spoon as a delicate treat.  I used it as a soup base for my noodles.  It was successful, as you may expect beef stock would be.  Plus there was still a good amount of meat sticking to the bones.  I guess I would be wasting the marrow this way, but my noodles in soup was good so it wasn't a waste to me.

Busy day

 Hi Natty!  How are you today, my love?  I hope all is well with you, and you are having a good time.  It's been a busy day for me today.  I had to get up early and do my laundry.  While waiting for that, I did my usual chores like cleaning up after the cats, collecting water etc.  After my laundry was done, I took my motorcycle to the repair shop to replace the chain and sprocket set.  Then I went to the bank and to the water utility to pay the bill.  After that, I went to the supermarket.  I got home barely in time for Mary Unknown7's vocal session.  After that was done, I went out again to a different supermarket then to the hardware shop to get a new tube for the wheelbarrow.   Yeah, I blew the tire again.  I get so tempted to put more air in that tire, when I know I shouldn't.  I just got home, and am waiting for them to call the sunset prayer.  Nothing going on in the kitchen today, I ate out for lunch and bought takeout noodles for dinner.  Next after the prayer, I need a nap so I can do computer work until midnight.  Whew!

I don't particularly like too much glossiness on the avatar skin because I think it makes her look like a plastic doll, but other people really seem to like that.  What do you think?

Beautiful girl

 Hi Natty!  How are you, beautiful girl?  You know that I love you with all of my heart, right?  I hope you do.  I'm going to marry you inshaAllah.  I hope you are healthy and having a wonderful time over there.

After cutting the grass this evening, I planned to try making a fake steak out of soy beef.  I bought some Enoki  mushrooms yesterday, thinking I could duplicate the grain of the steak.  Unfortunately, it was a failure.  No, I'm not serving any of my experiments to you!  You only get the perfected stuff, because you are my Princess!  Oh, you want to taste?  It's gross!  The inside was a gooey mush of mushroom goo.  Perhaps if I deep fried the mushrooms first to dry them up, it might work better.  But no, not with soy beef.  Soy beef is only good for making burgers.  But maybe I might be able to make chili with soy beef...