The Sugar Bar

I’m a fruit junkie. The 5 a day deal doesn’t work for me because it’s more like 7-8 a day. Fruit is simply too amazing to have anything else. Now that the sun’s come out from it’s shitty home from behind a grey cloud more often than it used to (although it bloody seems like this month’s gonna be one grey month yet again, what’s new really) – I couldn’t let that seafood-lover island girl within me stay shut in anymore. So “to market, to market” it was.

The marketplace is always my favourite place to be in. It’s just awesome. All that hustle and bustle, busy wet exchange of produce and money. The shouting, the casual greeting of ‘alrite love’ and the occasional stern look from a geez!-he’s-well-huge and very hairy butcher. It’s a beehive of hungry foodies and devoted sellers. Wet, messy and smelly or not, I adore the handwritten, marker-pen scribbled price labels as well. Something about that personal attention and careful thought gets to me more than anything else. Not even my beloved Marks&Spenser could hold a finger up to the treasure trove I believe is the food market. Reminds me a lot of the tiny market that used to be (and probably still is) situated close to my old home. The butcher, grocer, fish monger, etc. – all of them were like my family and they too, in their own closeknit group were like family. I remember the fish being thrown about from person to person, seemed like so much fun but it was really tough work. Choosing the best fish available and satisfying the customers at the same time. The large (why are they always big burly men?) but jovial butcher sold some pretty amazing meats under that red glowing light of his. The days when I was sent off by mum to pick up some char siew pork from him were one of the best days of my childhood too! With each downward slice of his butcher knife, the pool of saliva in my mouth grew a little larger and more uncontrollable. The vegetable grocer next door wasn’t too friendly with me and her vegetables often looked a little sad and muddy. But her sister did make one of the best green tea mooncakes for 50 cents each so she scored a point in my good books I suppose, and that made me score a helluva lot of points with the classmates too – what with all my goodies and truly, just my pleasant being. Jokes.

Those were indeed some good times. And thinking on that, I couldn’t help but miss good fish and seafood. Got a little carried away with my shopping today. Tore my Bag for Life (forgot to take the M&S Organic Cotton bag I have with me, it’s adorable and lime green so that means LOOK AT ME! i’m cool) with all that shopping I had. However, couldn’t be any happier with all that glorious food and specifically – fresh squid, ‘lobster’ tails (these are tails using lobster meat and not fresh lobster – I had to go for the cheap option) and some really good Wild Alaskan salmon steaks. Although I couldn’t afford real lobster this time – I no longer have the backing of my parents who once shipped fresh lobster from Australia – this salad will be amazing with the real deal. Right now I can only work with what I have unless I sell my clothes and shoes!

Recipe was adapted from Rasa Malaysia‘s Tropical Fruit Salad with Baby Shrimps and Toasted Coconut which I would really want to do in the future when I can pull together all the ingredients because it sounds absolutely gorgeous. I couldn’t get any canned mandarins or mandarins for that matter so this is going back on my list of to-dos. Here’s my cheaptrick, haha, spin on this beautiful salad. It’s great for 2.

Lobster Fruit Salad
Ingredients

1 large orange, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup fresh mango, cubed
2 lobster tails, sliced
juice of 1 lime
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs honey
1/4 tsp grated garlic flakes
good handful of basil leaves, chopped
1/4 of a small red onion, chopped
1/4 cup sultanas

Put everything in a salad bowl. Drizzle the honey over, followed by the juices. Give everything a good, energetic toss. Cover with clingwrap and leave in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. Then when ready, serve and garnish with lime wedge and some basil leaves. Quick & easy.

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And guess what came through the post this morning? My love treats. Little apron gifts for the girls, personalized according to favourite drinks and courtesy of The Sugar Bar. Indeed, my skin is thick enough to do some blatant plugging but these were just the perfect things for our upcoming Summer BBQ House Party. Although these can never replace my Laura Ashley apron, a gift from the ever-lovely Kate, I can’t help but say their simplicity and ‘The Sugar Bar’ emblazoned across the chest sure make me almost teary to see my little blog come thus far.

vodka shot, gin&tonic, snakebite, tequila sunrise

Black aprons made with quality cotton. Durable and easy to wash. The words have been printed using a Flex Print technique in white and cream.

On this (foodblog) note, Kyoto Foodie is currently holding a little survey to make its blog better. The good bit? Win Japanese treats! If you don’t already know, Japanese sweet treats or labelled ‘junk food’ by Kyoto Foodie (I would never go as far as to call them junk food because they are too amazing ) are one of the cutest and most awesome things to have around. They’re tasty, fun, some of them totally out of this world. So head on over to the survey page to help Kyoto Foodie out (you’ve only got to answer 4 simple questions) and try your luck at winning some fantastic yummies. Talking about this actually makes me wish I had a box of GALBO with me now.

Well then, y’all, diva out.

It’s a Friday and there’s barely anything left in the kitchen to eat. What’s a girl supposed to do for lunch then? I couldn’t possibly sit around and let myself starve, especially since the day i graduated from college I haven’t exactly been allowing myself to diet much or for that fact, mind how my body has been ballooning horizontally. But have you heard muffins for lunch! Golly. I’m so glad i’m living my world. Or at least living lunch my way when mom’s out.

I really liked these muffins. I’m a chocolate lover up to my toes so i really am not such a big fan of things with fruit in them, with the exception of cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and all the other berries that i can find. But these muffins tasted very REAL to me. I guess it’s cause of the low amount of sugar used and the use of orange juice and milk to make up for that lack of sweetness. I also threw in some orange pulp and nibbling on them in the muffins was quite an experience. Honestly, I never did like fresh oranges. I didn’t like the acidity of oranges, or the fact that they tended to make your nails orange and the bitter aftertaste if i bit too far into the peel. Until last year when i decided it was more worthwhile and fun (with all that juice squirting into my eyes) to eat a fresh orange than vitamin C pills.

This recipe is a Nigella Bites one. Orange Breakfast Muffins. But i’d recommend you add in some dried cranberries cause they give it an added sweetness. Remember watching Nigella on TV and she saying something like how muffins to her are a type of bread. Just break it open whether warm or cool and eat it with cream cheese or jam and that’s how i ate mine. The muffins may seem to some to be a little bland (to a chocolate lover, definitely) but i guess you really have to get used to the fact that this recipe called for freshly squeezed juice so it tastes less sweet, but tangier and of course healthier. The smell of butter and milk is still wonderfully strong from these muffins and so, it’s really yummy to eat it with strawberry cream cheese, homemade marmalade or really just simple strawberry jam. Best thing was I had this for lunch while watching Jamie Oliver dearest on Discovery Travel&Living-perfect afternoon. Makes the dreaful heat livable.

Cranberry Orange Muffins

Ingredients

75g unsalted butter

1 2/3 cup flour, sifted

1/4 cup ground almonds

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup sugar

zest of 1 orange, washed and dried

juice of one orange (abt 1/3 cup)

1/3 cup milk

1 egg

Preheat oven to 200dCelsius.

Melt butter and set aside to cool.

Combine flour,almonds,soda and baking pwder, sugar and zest in a bowl and give a little stir with a fork. Measure juice and milk into a jug and whisk in egg, followed by the cooled melted butter.

Make a well in the dried ingredients and neatly pour in the liquid ingredients into the well, mixing carefully but swiftly with a fork as you go until just incorporated and mixture starts to resemble yellow custard.

According to Nigella, if batter is too dry, add either a tbs of juice or milk. Bake for 20min and no longer. Once out of oven, transfer to wire rack to cool and while still slightly warm, crack open muffin and serve with jam! Voila!