The Sugar Bar

I have a disease and it’s not curable. And when it worsens, my financial health goes plummeting as well. This sticky situation one may be familiar with and call it the Shoppers’ Syndrome. I believe the release of the film ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ is an overt sign from the heavens to me. In other words, flippin’ sort my life out. Cut up all credit cards, debit cards, throw away VIP shoppers accounts, leave your Kate Spade wallet at home, ban yourself from getting on the train into town, ignore magazine adverts (this is going to be hard since my language paper focuses on beauty adverts) and so forth. Generally, practice self-restraint!

What a bummer.

Just when I was having fun, I now have to be very careful with my awful spending habits. And therefore, cooking becomes a little more exciting too. The task of the month? 1) Using ingredients to the max, i.e. cooking dishes that can last me forever. Right, I do exaggerate. But last me long enough so that I can delay the next trip to the supermarket. 2) Cooking dishes that I can keep for the next day. Given, I am a lazy arse. But this time that isn’t my excuse. Staying in the library working on my paper for 7 hours straight can really take it out of me. Living away from my parents, specifically from my mum, makes me miss home-cooking very much. Makes me miss coming back to mum’s dinner and eating with the rest of the family. A little tired, a little dizzy, cooking dinner for 1 is something I’m starting to feel a little restless and annoyed about. So it’s an easy way out when I can take out a pre-prepared meal (by myself, not by Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s or M&S), whack it in the microwave or oven and then tuck in.

Pre-prepared meals, especially if storebought, are usually rather boring. And in my dictionary of cooking/food, dishes can be as quirky, weird, special, and most importantly as fun as possible. This curry was created in a rather haphazard way, the process sort of like a try and error. A little special, not very aesthetically appealing. Very different from the usual Chicken Korma, Lamb Jalfrezi, etc. However, this was tasty as! And with the spices, it kept me nice and warm in front of the telly for Comic Relief, warming me-self well and good.

From now on, when I’m feeling a little dead inside, a little in need of comfort food, my advise? Eat curry!

What sort of curry? Get creative. Be special.

This makes about 2 large servings.

Tuna, Apple & Raisin Curry
Ingredients

1 can tuna, in springwater
about 3/4 cup water
1/2 can chopped tomatoes, with juices
1/2 a red onion, chopped
2 tbs balti curry paste
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 a Pink Lady apple, chopped
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp hot chili powder
pinch of ground cinnamon

Heat some oil in a deep pan or wok. Add the onions and sauté. Now add the apples and sauté. Add the paprika and cumin and fry. Add the tuna followed by the balti curry paste and cook for about a minute. Add the chopped tomatoes, water and ground cinnamon, turning the heat down and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Taste curry a little in between the cooking process and should it need more spices, add a little by little to taste.

Serve with naan bread or rice. If kept til the next day, I suggest frying this with rice for an amazing curry fried rice!

On campus, we have a limited choice of greasy, boring places to eat. I’m not really complaining since there’s a place we usually stop by on Mondays after our lecture for yummy jackpots, aka jacket potatoes or pots. Whatever weird combo you fancy (eg. tuna and cheese, sweet thai chicken and beetroot, etc.) they are more than willing to cater to your odds and ends for a jackpot topping. In terms of healthy eating, we’ve even got a little healthy snack bar under the University Centre that offers gluten free soup, salads, a range of vegan and organic sandwiches, drinks, fresh fruit and a range of rice & corn crisps and snacks. Thing is, to get your money’s worth, you’d order a Salad & Protein which offers you 5 salad choices and 1 protein from £2.45. Your choice of protein can be anything from feta cheese & sundried tomatoes to a chicken breast to shrimp to marinated chicken breast to poached salmon. If you’re the type who can’t go without a salad dressing, the lady behind the salad counter is more than happy to squirt a ridiculous amount of mayo, vinaigrette, soy sauce and other weird sorts of liquids on your salad. Fresh salad, tasty, generous portions, affordable.

Sounds good so far, don’t you think? The downside of this is the long queues, the slow service, the lack-lustre expressions of the salad people. You’d think healthy eating could be made more ‘healthy’ with healthy, chirpy people offering the food. No. You’ve got druggee-types, grumpy types, dazed types, clueless types. Honestly! Also, if you happen to go into the snack bar with a 10 pound note, about 90% of the time you’ll have the salad lady fretting about chatting with her mate about not having enough change, etc. etc. It can get très annoying if you’re a pretty impatient-from-hunger type of person.

It’s cold. I’m hungry. Don’t piss me off. Now, give me my food dammit.

So anyhow, ranting done. I have realized that the saying ‘If you wanna get it right, do it yourself’ rings true. Salads are dead easy. Salads are quick to make. Prepare a massive bowl in the morning and you’ve got a satisfying lunch to bring with you to work, to a picnic – it’s great! You can throw anything in it so use up that almost-rotting vegetable at the back of the fridge quick! This said, why am I getting frustrated in a healthy snack bar when I can whip up something even better for less, minus the frustration and the queueing?

Diva has been silly. From now on, I’ll be taking a packed lunch with me to university. Probably will start getting up early and bento it up as well. Oh, I’m getting little eager shivers just thinking about how the others will watch and envy my adorable little lunch sets. Haha!

Clementine Salad Bowl with Wild Crayfish Tails, Fresh Basil, Raisins & Walnuts
Ingredients

1 serving your favourite mix of salad leaves
1/3 cup wild crayfish tails, ready to eat
5 large fresh basil leaves, roughly shredded and broken up
2 tbs raisins
2 tbs walnuts
drizzle on your favourite vinaigrette, or some lemon/orange juice

Salads are easy. Put it all in a large bowl. Mix together. Drizzle on your dressing. You don’t need much dressing for this as sweet clementines make up for all the flavour! Now toss wildly. Serve.

I’ve served mine in a lousy glass casserole dish out in the cold on ice or melting snow…Eccentric huh?

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins and should be unthinkable within the walls of a kitchen.

I must apologize firstly, for not posting at all; second, for not posting anything exciting; lastly, for being so damn boring and lazy! Life seems to be getting a little in the way, what with all the applications I have to prepare for, three massive essays and the random bursts of inspiration that hit me, which means having to go off somewhere with my laptop (nope, not to watch porn) to let it rip (I mean writing, chucking, rewriting) for hours. I can’t say that the future posts will be brilliant but I promise to post, in all honesty, quick lunch or sugar fixes that I prepare when I find time from my essays. It is partly true that I munch on junk now and again when I’m writing, or sometimes, forget to eat at all in the ‘heat of the moment’. But when I am ready and able to whip up something worthy of putting on a plate, I promise to photograph it and blog it! I’ve been awfully sad to have been apart from The Sugar Bar for such a long while now. It’s unforgivable.

Instead of resorting to lazy food, I hope to come up with clever quick dishes that are tasty, good to look at and not requiring ridiculous amounts of effort and time. Also, I’m feeling Christmas. The tree is arriving in a few days. And I’m thinking, Christmas cookies anyone?

So. Before I bugger off back to this monster of a thesis, let me just say that this recipe is pretty straightforward. Salt the mackerel for a few hours before grilling. Come back to it later and chuck it under the grill whilst you prepare the vegetables. It’s so quick, I can honestly say it’s a good student meal and healthy too! And if you’re in a bad way needing a salt-fix, this is great. Just remember, you gotta leave it to salt for a while or you ain’t gonna get any taste on the mackerel.

Wondering about servings? Split the mackerel down the bone and then half both portions. 1 mackerel fish should then serve up about 4 small portions, unless you’re hungry for more. The following recipe is good for 1.

Salt-Grilled Mackerel with Fried Shallots & Mentaiko on Long-stemmed Broccoli, Rocket & Baby Red Chards
Ingredients

1/4 of a mackerel fish
1 tbs crushed sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 shallot, sliced
1 tbs mentaiko of choice
2 tsp salted butter
handful of long-stemmed broccoli
handful of favourite salad leaves
black & white sesame seeds, for garnishing

Wash the mackerel and pat dry with a paper towel. Rub salt all over the fish and leave for about an hour.
Preheat grill to about 185d Celsius.
Season fish with pepper. Place mackerel on a grill tray under the grill for about 5 minutes or until just beginning to crisp up and brown.
In a frying pan with hot oil, fry the shallots till golden brown. Cook the broccoli in boiling water until al dente and then toss in butter. Layer out on a plate the salad leaves and broccoli. Then place fish on top and serve with mentaiko of choice. Finally, garnish with fried shallots and sesame seeds.