Hi again :).
Im feeling better now than I did last week, so im happy to sit down and write another post again. Not that I didnt enjoy myself last time, but id be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that it was harder than usual to write for a post.
So where to start? Well, before starting where I last left off (breaking down a whole chicken for the first time) how about I get *moving out* out of the way?
Its officially gonna be a houseshare :0!
Unipol ended up pulling through, the place they had was great. Its several floors, the kitchen is huge and has several fridges (which is a relief), its own kitchen equipment (which is a BLESSING, means itll be easier to keep to my stuff AND I can occasionally use the equipment the landlord provides), and has enough space for the piano in my room, which is basically all I could ever ask for, even if I were to get horrible roommates.
Which I dont think I will :).
I havent finished the dumb contract yet since its the weekend and I got flagged on their system because im lebanese >:/, but it passed that stage already. I just need to wait for tomorrow to actually finish up the rest of the student verification, and then the payment.
As for how im moving out, which is the only real hurdle now, I figured I wont need a man in a van or moving company.
Im moving it all by hand >:).
Okay, not literally WALKING THERE and carrying it by hand, of course, but im just gonna get a weekly bus pass ticket once the contract is locked in and ive got the keys, and start moving stuff using the travel bag ive still got, a cardboard box on the other hand (which I just got from an amazon package (ill explain this l8r)), and my backpack.
If it doesnt fit in any of the boxes backpacks or bags, ill just break it apart and or take it on its own, and honestly, each trip could totally include the backpack anyways. But if, for example, I need to take the shoe rack or the tall fan, I can just disassemble them and take them without anything to carry it. Even if they dont fit into anything, no problem, just ditch the box and hold it till im there.
I have 5 days minimum, assuming I get the keys on tuesday, so id probably have to do 2 trips a day (4 uses of the bus total) just to make sure things go smoothly, but its more than doable.
The only real sore spot in the plan WAS the piano, but I ordered a case for it, as well as an instant read thermometer (FINALLY:D), so ill be just fine, even if I had to walk to get there (its far, but its just one trip for the piano given it might not be appropriate in the bus, so its fine).
Thats all for moving out so far, and hopefully by the time I write the next post, itll be from the new place :).
NOW,
back to the chicken, the fat bird.
I did end up slicing a whole chicken into itty bits the day after the last post, and it went better than expected.
Dont get me wrong, I couldnt continue watching the video I was using to help with the disassembly since my hands were chicken infested with all sorts of bacteria, so I had to wing it a lot x), but still got a reasonable cut for everything that I wanted, that being the breasts, the thigh, and the wings.
In terms of safety though I gotta admit, I did HORRIBLY, I mean seriously this bird was thrown all around the kitchen in an attempt to dry it and finding a place it could fit for its disassembly, but again it was a first time so im alright with that :v. I disinfected the kitchen afterwards, but now I know to get a bigger bowl (hopefully a colander) in case it needs to be off the cutting board for a moment, and since I already mentioned it, a WAY bigger cutting board. Seriously, the chicken kept falling off with how small the board was and the board KEPT MOVING, which made things 10 times harder.
The slipping part especially needs consideration (cuz it was fucking infuriating), though I might be able to fix that with something at home like a towel underneath the board or some other neat idea that doesnt spring up to mind right now, but who knows? Will probably just buy the weird circle thing that goes under cutting boards, they seem reliable, depends on how much it costs though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Anywho, Heres the final result of the cut (minus the carcass), you can have a look.
In the bag were the wings and drumettes, and in the bowl was everything else. I split the rest of the chicken in the bowl after taking the picture, kept the chicken tenders for frying, and the breasts + thighs for some rice and veggies.
And they made for REALLY good food, but the rest of the chicken, the carcass, also made for a nice chicken stock too :0.
Basically, you just take whats left after dissasembly, along with all the bones you dont want, and throw them in a pot.
Like this
Looks gross at this point, I know, but it wont for too long. All you gotta do past this point is throw in whatever vegetable leftovers youve got (I threw in some frozen leafage I have in the fridge), maybe even mushrooms (what I did since I had leftovers), and keep it at a low simmer for 3 to 4 hours.
I know, LONG TIME, but as long as your at home to check the progress every once and a while its pretty low maintenence. Some choose to skim the impurites, I didnt since its just more nutrients and I have no reason to bother doing that given what im gonna use it for, and after a while this is what I got
Voilla, chicken stock :0.
If you dont know (trust me I didnt either), apparently its a great asset in the kitchen. You can use it for basically every soup in the world, whether its shorba or egg drop soup or hot and sour soup (which is personally what im looking to make). You can use it in place of water for cooking rice for flavor, same for beans, and is just all around a really useful ingredient to have in the kitchen for an extra hearty kick.
also, it just tastes nice…
…AND I MADE IT, MYSELF >:D.
There wasnt THAT much left after removing all the mushrooms and the carcass itself, but thats no big deal. After all, its still sitting in the freezer, and im more than capable of making another one soon, even one that combines chicken with different ingredients (apparently two different stocks would enhance the flavor and nutritional profile), so that hot and sour soup is ON ITS WAY >:)). Im excited, ive been craving it for a while.
On the topic of cravings, lets share the rest of the food I made this.
I didnt take any pictures of it honestly, since I overcooked half of the chicken I used for fried chicken and I had it for BREAKFAST (with whole grain brown bread so it wouldnt have looked that good anyways), but yea I made fried chicken for breakfast :p. It was with some pickled onions and a mixture of sauces in the fridge, and I chilled and ate fried chicken at 4 in the morning while watching philosophy tube talk about his journey with atheism. Good time :), and fun video, I really enjoy philosophy tube.
You should know btw that pickled onions are A GAMECHANGER too, and really easy to make. Literally just cut some onions, and in a container fill them halfway with vinegar (I used malt vinegar). Then refrigerate.
Thats it.
Give it 2 days to do its thing and you get the most delicious add on to TONS of food, you can add it to burgers, rice, eat them on their own, theyre AWESOME.
Anyhoot, after that I made some rice and nandos marinated chicken with veggies, and tried emulating the sauces we’d use for mandi from back home. Heres the recipe for the sauces https://youtu.be/Y645_5ikaYo?si=XokEbxoPajor1CAf and the result:
These were probably my favorite meals to eat this week, specifically the ones with chicken thigh.
I cooked two batches, one with the breasts and one with the thighs I made, and learned a lot from it, mostly relating to the juiciness of the chicken.
For one, I think I finally need to start PATTING THE CHICKEN DRY after a marinade, I havent let myself for the longest time in the hopes of keeping the flavor of the sauce but WOW is it harder to cook when the sauce is shooting at you from the pan, even when using a splatter screen since, you have to take it off every once and a while to check and flip the chicken.
That, and the food doesnt brown as well when soaked in sauce, so ive apparently been missing out on a crazy amount of flavor, which needs to change PRONTO >:/.
STIILL though, the thing that is both sort of obvious, but is also how im gonna make my chicken breasts taste way better from now on, is that the chicken thigh tasted WAY better, WAAAAAAAAAAAY better than any chicken breast ive ever cooked, and on my first try making it too. This was for a lot of reasons of course, one prominent one being the patting dry isnt as necessary for the thighs as it is ABSOLUTELY necessary for the breasts, and that the thighs are of course fattier,
but also the way ive been cooking breasts in line with temperature, and thickness, has been all wrong for a while now.
I used to thin out the breast before cooking, but stopped pretty early on when I wasnt good with the knife given how hard I found it to cut a slimy chicken breast in half. But now? Im starting to face the consequences.
The chicken breast doesnt evenly distribute heat as well as the thighs given its shape, it NEEDS to be thinner to stay juicy. On top of that, I never bothered to measure its temperature with a thermometer, so ive basically been cooking and praying the temperature is good, going off of just looks (which isnt good enough), and which I could use alongside residual heat to cook it at a lower temperature.
Why is that important?
Well, basically, when cooking, your looking to keep the chicken juicy by keeping the water inside it INSIDE IT, but balancing that with the killing of all its bacteria too, right? Chicken thighs are much easier in this department, while breasts are notoriously the hardest body part to deal with, so lets compare.
Again, breasts are thick (and unevenly so), and store a ton of water we need to keep, but arent anywhere NEAR as forgiving in terms of water retention as the thighs.
The thighs have a tona fat, making it easier to cook it juicy and distribute heat while maintaining the water in the piece being cooked, are generally much smaller (so heat is distributed better and faster), and are dark meats as opposed to light meat, which make it super easy to cook and super hard to overcook.
THEY’RE JUST BETTER TO COOK, there’s practically no hassle. You can overcook them and they’ll still have so much juice because of the fats and (apparently) their status as dark meat, and taste fucking awesome, while the breast doesn’t have that same luxury.
Its uneven, overcooks easily and leaves you with dry meat.
The solution? Well, on top of patting it dry, the main changes are two fold.
1 is to use a saltwater brine, and the other is that awesome instant read thermometer I got and some residual heat.
The saltwater brine is simple enough, keep the breast and whatever else in a water solution comprising of 6-10% water and optional sugar for a day in the fridge, then cook it. This’ll get some salt in there and is supposedly a good way to retain moisture, which ill try in place of the nandos sauce as a marinade next time I make some and season differently to compensate.
The next one, the thermometer, is a bit harder though. Basically, killing all the bacteria in a chicken works based on both temperature AND time (see the video “no wonder everyone hates chicken breasts”). So, instead of cooking it to the temperature that immediately kills all bacteria, just hold it on an equally deadly but lower temperature for a longer period, retaining the juice while getting rid of bacteria.
On top of that, due to residual heat, the chicken actually increases in temperature for a while off of the pan.
Sort of like how your hand burns EVEN HOTTER for a little after you touch something hot, but just imagine that over the course of several minutes instead of for just a moment. I find that to be a fun comparison :p.
Using that, if the earlier method of holding the temperature on the pan doesnt work (since my current digital stove has limited settings and is hard to hold), as long as I transfer the breast onto a warm or slightly hot plate and let it rest, watching the instant read thermometer’s probe for temperature, I can just wait for the temperature to reach a 7D reduction (over 99.9% of the bacteria being dead), and it could be where all the bacteria is dead instantly, or even a bit lower, to a temperature where it takes several minutes, since the residual heat holds for a while depending on the temperature you stop cooking at and decreases over a period of time.
Of course, I need to test it all extensively to make sure it works, this 2nd trick will be particularly hard since it depends on environmental factors too, but THIS, honestly just having a thermometer, is going to make things SO much easier. Im gonna have way juicer chicken breasts now :3.
That, and with ALL the adjustments listed (and 2 more) in mind, that being:
- Pat the chicken dry beforehand
- Use a saltwater brine for moisture 24 hours before cooking
- catch the oil in the pan in a spoon and repeatedly cover the chicken in low amounts of it (helps distribute heat (its basically cooking oils job anyways))
- Use a thermometer to check temp + residual heat
- cut the breast in half beforehand for even cooking
- And give the breasts small cuts against its grain on the outside on both sides to help with the cooking,
WITH THESE ADJUSTMENTS, not only am I confident I can get chicken breasts AS JUICY as chicken thighs without risking bacteria, it’ll honestly probably be MORE safe than it needs to be. I think, if I do it right, i’d actually be able to go to an EVEN lower temp than I would ever normally ever go when cooking chicken breasts to my preferred texture, and STILL have it be safe to eat, but I probably wont since i’d like it a bit more cooked than the minimum anyways.
Thats the hope :D,
and how dry my chicken breasts have come out over the past few months of cooking them >:(.
Good that its finally gonna be a thing of the past though.
But yea, even with these new changes that i’ve come to a conclusion on, that weren’t implemented in the meal I showed you like 1000 words ago, it was still great, and I enjoyed having enough of it for several days straight (around 3 or 4 days).
The next meal ive made for myself this week:
Is chili :D!
This one was DEAD simple compared to all the jargon layered on jargon that I layed on you about chicken. You just cook the veggies, throw diced tomatoes in, throw beans in, let the pressure cooker do its thing and your all set (just dont forget to season + add a little bit of sugar + vinegar).
This particular chili was modeled after adam ragusea’s chili, as shown here https://youtu.be/mb3k0wApWas?si=wARbXd6v-W1-aR6C
No meat, just beans. Admittedly, I do plan on adding meat the next time I make it (I crave it dearly), but I enjoyed this variant just as much. Not only that, but since I made it I STILL have some in the fridge, making it alongside the rice and chicken allowed me to just have either which one whenever I felt like, and I put the extra portions in the freezer and let them out just before yesterday to thaw, so yea, it was a big portion.
That, and I do have variety in the from of tuna sandwiches and the occasional 2 packs of indomie with cut veg, so its been an all around nutritious week, even if I find myself getting tired of the chili now.
Funny how the kid with the username fluffychilidogz would end up making so much chili :v.
Finally, the last meal ive made over the last couple of days that I should mention, for breakfast this time, has been egg fried rice.
Now I dont know if its actually egg fried rice, i’m not really following any recipes nor have I seen it done online so I am just winging it again, but over the 3 times ive made it i’ve got it down to a point that I really enjoy it. I make the eggs (make them at a high temp) stirring sorta (not really) slowly for a certain texture. Then take it off, add veggies, season, add rice, and add back the eggs. Then in a plate, add some greek yogurt, nuts and siracha sauce.
Yea, its NOT traditional in the slightest (I could probably do it all in one go on the pan), or follows any real conventions, I think,,, but I like it. Nutritious, filling, and also I dont have a pic of it since ive been sending then on snapchat :p.
Ill take it sometime l8r for sure tho.
And that’s all in terms of my main meals this week! So how about the rest?
Well, ive been snacking on some dark chocolate bits I have that I never used (intended for when I’d made cookies but I never bothered), I hear they’re good for satiety but I never looked into that so its just heresay. That, and i’ve had unsweetened tea every couple of mornings.
I heard from classmates in the foundation year centre that sugar can hold you back in terms of weight loss, and that we have too much of it in our diets, and as an avid sweets lover…
Yea I have a lot of suger :/.
AND IT TASTES AMAZING SO I DONT CARE >:/!
OKAY, that’s a lie. I do care. I still wont stop eating creme caramel, or muffins.
Or donuts.
Or cookies.
…BUT I DONT CARE.
Unsweetened tea is enough repentance for me. I add a teaspoon of honey on days I wont be eating anything sweet of note, and don’t when I will, and I think the tea is a nice little add-on to days where I wake up groggy :).
All this and whatever more intricacies, are mostly in service of losing some weight. Goddamn has it been a journey.
If your smart and know me at all (and or read previous posts but ik if your reading your a goddamn genius ;)) i’m sure you know why i’d go out of my way to suddenly mention this. Ive been trying to save money too of course, I need to buy whole chickens and make affordable chili so I can save up for cool stuff like the piano case and piano classes too, but i’ve also just been wanting to cut some of my fat off too.
I didn’t mention it much when it happened (I think I may have briefly), but I lost a solid chunk of weight during final exam study. The reasons are multi-faceted, but on top of savings it was mostly the cold hard acceptance of a huge reason I even overeat in the first place.
It is, in large part, to run away.
I’m a tad bit cowardly, I must admit. Overeating at points before your full feels really good, so that plays a big part no doubt, but often once I eat i’m sorta comatose, as anyone else would be.
And even if its just by a little bit compared to what an obese person must go through, I use it as an excuse. I dont do important tasks, don’t work on much of anything, don’t play on the keyboard, don’t draw, just watch long youtube video essays and play video games all day, and push stuff to a l8r date. Don’t get me wrong, the video games are awesome, but a bit too much ill admit.
Now, its not like i’m doing this exclusively BECAUSE I think that its making me lazy, I don’t think its fully to blame for my continued lethargy, saying that would be dodging reasons for tendancies that I need to understand better in their own right, but it IS a weight. On top of the many things i’ve kept on me, its a weight that’s pushed me down, even if just a little. That, and i’ve been overweight for so much of my life. Its something that I never really did away with, i’ve been like this for as long as I can remember, even if its been better as of late (even before this cut).
Besides, the excess belly flap, even if it isn’t the insecurity it used to be, even if i’m comfortable with my body as is, and i’ve come to be happy as I am :), isn’t good for me health wise. Id be better off at a lower bmi, my health would improve, and I want that for myself. I wanna look better, and I wanna feel better.
So, with the catalyst that started it pushing me forward, I started cutting.
It was unhealthy at first. I was around 86, and dropped to what I am now (80.2), and its only really been a month. I wont lie, it DIDN’T feel good, and both partly had to do WITH the exam and house stress, and fed into it equally so. I barely had energy for studying and house hunting, which made me eat less, which made me more tired.
But now, i’ve finally stabilized. No more unhealthy cutting, i’ve been eating nutritious cheap food for as good as I can make it, my moods been better, and i’m happy :). I’m happier than I was last week, and honestly happier than I was all month.
And now that i’m here, i’m happy to keep going, happy to see whats next. The goal, as crazy as it sounds, is 70 kilograms.
Insane, since it will have been a whole 16 kg reduction :0, but I have faith in it. Ive gotten to a point where I can estimate calories (honestly just using chatgpt) so I don’t have to rigorously calorie count, if I even feel the need to do so at all (I usually don’t), and even on the days I go up in weight, it’s much easier to look at the big picture. Even on days where I gain weight, ive lost much more as ive gone through all this, so practically its nothing more than small detour. I still, in effect, weigh less.
I’m better than I once was, and that’s enough for me.
Honestly, I probably only need to get close to 70 kg, not actually hit it. 70 was just the middle score of the healthy range on the bmi calculations I made, and I could definitely be more contempt earlier on, so we’ll see how it goes. Nothing hard set about this cut, i’m sort of just letting myself and my willpower and deductive reasoning in terms of portioning work its magic, and I find its served me well enough.
Hopefully, i’ll be able to get to a nice brisk healthy weight. Once that’s done, I can start going to the gym again :). It’s been a while, and with my leg just about fully recovered, I have a feeling it’ll be fun (assuming I can squeeze it into my schedule).
That’s pretty far into the future though (once i’ve settled into my uni schedule) and it’ll be much less strict than the regimen I had before.], when bodybuilding was my main focus. I wanna keep it lighter this time so I can focus on other things, more of light hobby that I do as my form of physical fitness and even sort of physical well-being. I also suspect it’ll make going to the gym easier, though again i’ve speculated a lot, this will all unfold with time.
So, that’s mostly everything i’ve had done this week. I also finished danganronpa v2 yesterday, and I WOULD talk about it and the first game, maybe with the same volume of text as slay the princess, but i’m pretty contempt with this post as is, it’s admittedly getting pretty long anyways :p.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed your time here, I did and quite a lot as a matter of fact.
As always ill be leaving you with a couple of videos I enjoyed this week, so enjoy them yourself :). The first one by mattias is quite fun, its a little deep dive into overthinking through the characters he loves to draw, and he explores all sorts of different parts of the human experience in that way. I love that about his videos, they’re quite fun.
The deltarune content is also lovely, the chapter 4 scene is really expressive, the christmas kids edit is a hell of a mood, and even moreso for the raise up your bat remix. I absolutely love it.
There’s also a fun storytime animator, and their bike stories, which I really liked hearing about. I especially loved their style and their character’s design, they liven themselves up so much with the wings and its awesome ^_^.
A krugston animation on bad foods, short and sweet,
Lastly, another tetris connoisseur. She makes tetr.io look super cool, so maybe ill switch over to that instead of the tetris.com, with all its ads and no real variety in modes.
There’s also jaiden, but everyone already loves jaiden :).
Enjoy, and have a great rest of your week :)).
https://youtu.be/LzXCvkwwVvY?si=-UJhcq5kMxYv8grc
https://youtu.be/GCrAwqXKJP4?si=M5FbFp00dVJ34ZvA
https://youtu.be/U6zMtN-eUwQ?si=5NMB-A7PRnKgiBb9
https://youtu.be/TY0g5sCozE4?si=c40-NmcvH8dU6JC-
https://youtu.be/HQYsCwm_KAQ?si=CWucfT5wDSI_kv3e
https://youtu.be/Xrzd0uhQEnk?si=ruEDArqAANvBHcR_
Wanderer, wonderer 
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