The Sugar Bar

Rhubarb Sultana Grunt

diva — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:09:53 +0000

This is the long-awaited pudding which according to the opinion of many has beaten Alex’s bread & butter pudding (which he made last night for dinner, yea you bet) hands down. Made this today to pair with a meal for Sam & I (which I will post about tomorrow because I’m too knackered now). Was really tired from shopping in town after my paper but there’s nothing like making pudding to calm the nerves and relax from a hard day at work, etc.

According to Nigella, a grunt is a different take on the cobbler which is an American take on the crumble. A cobbler has either a biscuit-y or cakey texture. A grunt has instead a scone-like texture and because of the double cream it uses, it’s absolutely gorgeous, creamy and warming. Think warm scones on warm sugared rhubarb with a healthy serving of lovely heavy cream. There! That’s it.

The sultanas are a great add as well and add a little more sweetness to the tartness of the rhubarb. I do not recommend going any more than 200g of sugar as you want to keep the general flavour of the fruit and not some intensely sweet cooked fruit.

This little doodle was done in the library during our 7hour revision session. Indeed Hans and I were reaching near breaking point and so a little entertainment break was needed.

To all who have wished me luck for my exams - thank you! It went well. One left to go before party time.

To sum this up, the meal and pudding was lovely and a great way to unwind. Great way to start the weekend and recuperate before revision for the last paper.

On insistence of Sam, here’s a little quote that he’d love to see on here…

Sam, rubbing his furry belly, says: “Fantastic!”

Rhubarb Sultana Grunt
Ingredients

Preheat oven to 190d Celsius.
Spread out the fruit and sultana over the bottom of the overproof dish and sprinkle the sugar all over. Drop the butter pieces over the fruit.
For the topping, sift flours, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Make sure the double cream is whipped till just before it is too stiff. Gently stir in the cream into the flour mixture until it forms a sticky dough. Spread the mixture over the fruit and cover the top in an even layer.
Bake for 45min or until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden.

Serve with the best vanilla ice cream you’ve got.

Oyakodon - a Bowl of Rice for Luck

diva — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:29:28 +0000

I have an exam in the morning tomorrow and I am on the verge of freaking out. Not my favourite module so my usual confident self is mentally shattered and a little panicky about everything. But by half twelve tomorrow, I’ll be able to say “2 down, 1 left!” so a little patience and perseverance should put me through our darned spring term exams. After which massive barbeque parties and lying in the sun are in order.

A little step at a time I say.

To give myself a boost of confidence (and luck!) and to get my mind off cramming of critics and quotations, I had to feed myself well. Oyakodon is one of the best comfort foods ever. It must be something about the egginess of it all and the sweet savoury sauce. It’s a pretty warming dish too - perfect for today when the sky is grey as heck and the house is a little chilly.

This is a very popular and easily found dish in restaurants but it’s so easy to make, you don’t need to make a trip out to the restaurant to have it. And the ingredients are all very basic things you should always have in your fridge, with maybe the exception of spring onions if you don’t use them too often, but that in itself isn’t like searching for a needle in a haystack. So thank the Lord, I was so relieved to have everything around and whipped this up in like 20min. Now that it’s all been gobbled them and nicely settled in my stomach, it’s back to work for me and an early night.

For anyone else who’s cramming for papers, struggling to meet a research deadline, bored with work or just pretty much stressed out with daily life — take a chill pill and have a bowl of Oyakodon. Nothing beats the comfort of having a bowl of hot, tasty, fragrant rice.

With no tricks up my sleeve, this makes a generous portion for 1 so make sure you’ve got an empty tummy for this!

Oyakodon
Ingredients

Timing here is quite essential so be sure to have a watch on you or a clock in the kitchen.
In a saucepan, cook the rice. Depending on the type of rice used, you should start work on the chicken about 7-10min (depending on whether or not you’ve prepared the vegetables and chicken beforehand) to the end of cooking time.
Heat a wok with some olive oil. Add the chicken and sautee. Add the onions and let them cook a little.
In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, sugar, sake, mirin and water.
You won’t be needing all of it. Pour 3/4 of this into the wok and let it cook on medium heat. As it starts to reduce a little, lower the heat and let simmer until the onions become translucent.
When there’s about half of the sauce left in the wok, pour about 3/4 of the beaten eggs and the long slices of spring onion into the pan. Give it a a little mix, cover. Remove the pan from heat and let it sit like that for a few minutes.
Remove cover and pour the rest of the beaten eggs over the mixture. Cover for another minute.

Place hot cooked rice in a bowl. Pour the chicken and egg mixture all over the top of the rice. Garnish with the spring onion rings, cooked beans and sesame seeds. Breathe in all that yummy steaming smell of the oyakodon. Now tuck in like a real girl (or guy).

15 MAY SHOUT-OUT

The deadline for Beauty & The Feast Challenge is just around the corner on 2 June 08 Monday. There’s still loads of time to take part and join in the fun of seeing what others are going to whip up with their beauty/cosmetic/skin-body-haircare products as inspiration. For more details & challenge requirements, click here.

Till the next post, Diva out!

xxx

Cold Vietnamese King Prawns & Spinach Noodle Salad

diva — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:04:46 +0000

I can with great ease wax poetic about prawns: king prawns, tiger prawns and littler shrimps (in fact, anything of distant relation like the crab and lobster all pretty much are seafood I adore), but if I did I might be accused of bordering on psychopathic/obsessive/taking on a pseudo-romantic stance about and on (respectively) shellfish. Maybe even compared to the likes of Grenouille of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer on the level of a perturbing and deeply frightening obsessiveness. Not one to ever fear for being eccentric (I doubt I really am, or am I?), that’s not a reason to stop me but more like the fact that I don’t think people will understand insanity — my insanity to be specific and some might even call me mock heroic if I would devote the language to the adoration of something like prawns. So, let’s chuck that ambitious side of me away for a bit and focus less on the main ingredient of the day but the overall outcome of the salad of yours truly.

I was slightly disappointed with the king prawns I’d purchased from Sainsbury’s. Suppose I should’ve gone somewhere else if I wanted massive king prawns but these were alright for a student budget and not too tiny (I’m just greedy and over-demanding). Flavours were great together and once again, very light and citrusy. The herbs all work great together for a Vietnamese tastebud journey. When I was preparing this, I suddenly thought of my uncle’s wife who is Vietnamese and they have the cutest daughter! She has an American accent too (she gets slightly confused when I speak to her since I ramble on in Brit speak) and is ‘in love’ with my nephew. They are the best of pals and I think she secretly likes him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she proposed to him at, hang on how old is she?, 7? Kids these days. I would like to let out a theatrical sigh right now but I’m no one to talk since I’m a young adult myself.

I haven’t been getting too bored with whipping up Japanese-inspired dishes but I realized I’d somehow had way too much coriander and spring onions in the fridge. To use as much as I can of it in an omelette seemed a right shame to me so it was great to veer off into something refreshingly new. I’ve had Vietnamese food before but I’ve never prepared it myself since I really like hanging about in my comfort zone of Japanese, English, Italian and Chinese dishes.

This dish is more Southern Vietnamese than Northern as again, it’s quite a fusion one. Cuisine of Southern origins are usually influenced a little by Chinese cuisine due to the Chinese immigrants in the region and so things like wrapped food and dried salted fish is quite popular. If you want to find out more about Vietnamese cuisine and the differences between the regions, check out this link for more info. I quite like my salads a little sweet most of the time. The sugar and sultanas help bring out a lot of flavour, and in this case the flavour of the prawns. I reckon I deserve a good pat on the back because this was delicious, if I can say so myself.

If you’re a light-eater or on a diet (which I know, makes everything dreadfully stressful ain’t it?), this might seem a little big a portion for 1 person. I was hungry and it really isn’t so much a light salad but a cold noodle dish that’s great as a salad so you can adjust the recipe as to however you like it just try not to cut anything out because I swear these flavours were pretty SPOT ON! Also, it’s not really a great big of a deal to use green spinach noodles. I thought it worked well with spinach leaves and the colours were a great green combo so it was hard to resist. If you are finding it difficult to source it, use any other noodle you have around - pad thai noodles or preferably white rice vermicelli. I do not recommend egg noodles or spaghetti as it might border on the heavy side. If you’re willing to up this baby and not too worried about calories and all that shizzle, try garnishing this with toasted bashed peanuts. Gives it a great Southeast Asian twist.

Cold Vietnamese King Prawns & Spinach Noodle Salad
Ingredients

Place the cooked prawns in a bowl. Add the fish sauce, 3/4 of the chopped spring onions, coriander, vinegar, oil and sugar. Give it a good mix. Squeeze one lime wedge into the bowl. Mix. Add the tiniest bit of fresh ground black pepper and taste. If more lime juice is needed, do go ahead and adjust this to your taste. Cover in clingwrap and leave in fridge to marinate about 30min.
Heat a saucepan filled with water till it boils. Add the noodles and let it cook. When done, drain and return to saucepan. Leave a little of the water in the pan so the noodles do not dry out as they cool.
When it’s cool enough, remove the bowl of marinating prawns from the fridge and mix into the noodles with the fresh spinach leaves. Add the sultanas and give this a good stir. Place in a bowl and leave it to keep chill in the fridge. It should be ready for eating in about 20min.

Serve with the reserved wedge of lime and some coriander leaves. Just before tucking in, squeeze that lime wedge all over then slurp it up.

Tuna on Grape & Peppers Salad with Japanese Sake Dressing

diva — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:55:57 +0000

Whoever thinks salads are for Ms. Skinny-Wannabes is partially right and also a dooch-bag. Pardon my French but salads are amazing appetizers and tastebud-teasers. They’re easy to put together and always very flavourful no matter what you use. You hardly need to think about the prep work either because you can use just about everything that you’ve got in the fridge, with dressing or no. Lately, we’re all really big on salads. The weather has been calling for a salad meltdown and there’s nothing like clean, crisp flavours that’s cooling and comforting enough for spring.

It’s hot, like unbelievably warm that you are in tanks and bikini (or shirts and shorts for the lads) all week (indeed that’s summer clothes for you - everyone gets so darned flashy). You crave something cool and light because something heavy and cooked weighs you down a lot. Also, a summer body is in order so everyone’s pretty much watching what they eat. But honestly, all I really want is a great big jug of iced tea with lots of lemon. Maybe a touch of Pimm’s would do that iced tea a bit of good too. Pair that with this salad and you’re set for a nice evening meal, possibly out in a well-groomed garden. I have neither of that, so this salad is pretty lonely and looks rather sad as well. Not the best presentation I agree, but this dressing is very good and dirt easy. So it’s definitely going to made again and again.

The dressing doesn’t require too much effort and is a great base for warm seafood like squid and prawns or a light sauce base for noodles. Never assume that salad dressings are only meant for salad dressings! They’re brilliant with loads of other stuff too. This is quite similar to one that’s found in Jamie’s Cook with Jamie but I’ve tweaked that a little. If you’re worried this is alcoholic, don’t worry - it only contains 1 tsp of sake in 1 serving. And if you’re still worried about that, you can use cooking sake instead which has a lower alcohol content that normal drinking sake. Although it’s quite warm lately, I want to try this dressing again with the addition of chilli oil. I think that might ruin the sake but I don’t know. I think it’ll be worth a try. Who knows?

Also, if you’re thinking to cut out the grapes because you don’t do sweet and savoury then that’s fair enough. But if you aren’t too fussy about sweet and savoury combinations, please please I beg you do give this a try. The grapes go very well with the slightly biting taste of the dressing. It’s just lovely and I was mildly surprised at how well it went. The grapes were simply an afterthought. I usually have my fruit after my meal and I was too lazy to make 2 trips into the kitchen for the meal then my fruit. So I just combined both. By golly, I’m one lazy chipmunk now aren’t I?

Alright then. Before I forget, a thank you to those who’ve sent me little messages of ‘good luck’ and ‘all the best’ for my exam today. It went alright and I’ve done my best. Did consume quite a lot of Starbust sour sweets during that three hours of writing though. Hopefully, all that ‘intelligent bullcrap’ I spilled out onto 2 exam booklets will yield great rewards. So phew, that’s done. One down, two to go. In between these two exams, I hope to post as much as I can because not posting and not making something cool to eat that I can put up on me blog makes me feel slightly empty.

So till the next post, here’s a salad serving for 1!

Tuna on Grape & Peppers Salad with Japanese Sake Dressing
Ingredients

For the sake dressing:
1 spring onion, chopped
1 tbs teriyaki sauce
2 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp grapeseed oil (optional)
1 tsp sake
1/4 tsp sugar
pepper for seasoning

To prepare the dressing, combine everything together and give it a stir with a whisk or fork. Or you can multiply the amount according to the number of servings you’re preparing in a jar, cap it and give it a good shake.
Prepare your salad in a bowl, top it with tuna. I’ve used tuna from springwater to reduce any interferences of flavours from olive oil or brine. Pour dressing all over from the top. Throw the grapes on and serve.

Green Tea Rice (chameshi) with Almonds

diva — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:01:36 +0000

Have a really great dish to serve and yet don’t want to leave it too boring with plain white rice? Or even if plain white rice is all that you need but you’re thinking of spicing it up just a tiny bit anyway? That sort of thinking always leads you to trod down another path, to veer off the main motorway. I really wanted to make something new and pretty unique so I had a little look online, just to make sure my idea was kinda like ‘oh-I’m-such-a-genius-cool’. But sometimes that path (which I was chatting on about earlier) is pretty well-trodden since loads of people might have done it before you. (I look on enviously when others make these amazing things like Jasmine Tea Rice and Green Tea Broth,etc.) So what happened was I told myself to shut my jealous trap and just try this. It never hurt anyone to trod down a paved out pathway anyway so really, what was I on about?

Really. The stress of my exams which begin on Monday is getting to me.

My Mum used to mix a raw egg into hot steamed rice for added flavour to serve with the spread of Chinese dishes she made. The egg just mixes in once you break the yoke, slowly cooking as you go and the smell that wafts up as you mix the rice is simply gorgeous. When she goes Japanese, she makes sure to flavour the rice with black sesames or something else that’s pretty damn good too. I’m a plain white rice girl that needs her rice cooked just al dente. Not too soft and yet not too hard and dry. Mostly because I love saving this gorgeous naked rice for soaking up all the gravy off the plates of oriental glory or I dunk them (this gets very messy and my parents hate it when I do this because I just look like a right twat and nothing like the elegant eater I usually am — which they have spent ages training their daughters to be) in soup and slurp it all up. I love the smell of cooked rice but there’s also nothing quite like the smell of flavoured rice or rice fried with loads of other goodies.

For a quick lunch, I never think to have rice because it feels wrong to not pair rice with a hearty dish. And that would be too heavy a meal for the day. An onigiri or temarizushi would be a good idea too but I’ll save that for some cool Japanese guy to prepare it for me someday. On the other hand, plain white rice with a fried egg also seems pretty sad to me. So this was a great recipe to have around and it takes less than 20minutes to prepare. Woop for joy, guys. This recipe gives you a very fragrant and lightly flavoured rice that borders on the sweet side of things and the almonds give it another dimension of nuttiness and near buttery taste. It’s so light and yet is flavourful enough to have on its own. I paired this with a fried egg for greater ease in preparation and simply because I’m saving my awesome Wild Alaskan salmon steaks (which BLIMEY, cost me a fortune and are right now, sitting quietly in the freezer like good dogs) for an awesome meal I’ve got all planned out.

This recipe has been inspired by one I found on the net. It doesn’t use green tea sprinkles or nuts but I thought the addition would make it more flavourful. For a prettier bowl of rice, Mum likes to add shredded seaweed and sesame seeds. It’s definitely a good touch. I’ve served this pretty much naked with almonds as the golden touch and cooking sprinkles to deepen the green tea flavour.

Here is my version of chameshi. For more information on traditional flavoured rice in Japan, click here. This makes 2 servings of green tea laced sweet rice and will go very well with marinated fish or seafood in my opinion.

Green Tea Rice (chameshi) with Almonds
Ingredients

Rice and tea go in the pan to boil. After it reaches the boil, lower heat and let it simmer till all the water is absorbed. Then add the vinegar, sugar and salt. Stir well. Add the green tea sprinkles and chopped toasted almonds, mixing to coat all the rice nicely with the green tea.
Garnish with whatever comes to mind and serve with your choice of meats or vegetables.

Itadakimasu!

Tofu Salad with Oriental Sesame Dressing

diva — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:31:29 +0000

If you’re Chinese, Korean or Japanese, you’ll definitely have had tofu as a kid in loads of stuff and told it was good for you. Or at least, that’s what I think. Tofu for me, since childhood, has been a roller-coaster journey — a very tricky bumpy love-hate relationship. It was only until I’d just about hit teenagehood that I started liking tofu and bean curd and soybean milk. Not only is the soybean extremely good for your bones and skin, it apparently has loads of other health benefits too. The humble soybean became one of my favourites, along with the green mung bean and red bean. Black beans were still slightly dodgy for me. Shame isn’t it? They’re such cute little things.

Anyhow, tofu is great in soup or whipped with eggs into a steamed egg dish, or fried with pork and mushrooms, and this list will just keep going on forever. My mum is a genius with tofu. Using an egg tofu which usually comes in a plastic tube, she fries it in a tomato sauce with minced pork and potatoes. It’s just about the best comfort food I’ve ever had since primary school. I remember the times after house practise, just struggling to get home with books and a heavy school bag. Sweaty and grimey. All you really needed then was food. Like awesome, hearty food best prepared by who else than your mum? A bowl of fresh steamed-to-perfection rice and among other dishes, a plate of that tofu minced pork glory and oh bless my Mum’s heart!

Here’s a quick to throw together salad that’s great as a light lunch or an appetizer. I love this because it’s so easy and you hardly need fancy pants ingredients to pull this off. One word of caution, however, if you’re not a garlic fan you can cut out the garlic clove or use garlic flakes instead. If you’re not too bothered like me, you can stick with having the world’s best garlic breath afterwards like I do now. It’s really not that bad. I merely exaggerate.

This recipe is perfect for 2 servings.

Tofu Salad with Oriental Sesame Dressing
Ingredients

This is easy as heck. In a bowl, take 3/4 of prepared salad leaves, 1/2 of spring onions, carrots, garlic and tofu. Toss it with the soy sauce and sesame oil. If you want this dish to stay firm and not go all sloshy and sloppy, make sure to use extra firm tofu. I prefer the texture of silken tofu, commonly used for steamed dishes and soups, so I chose that over an easier-to-handle firm tofu. When all of the ingredients in the bowl are nicely mixed up, serve onto plates or into bowls with the rest of the salad leaves as a base. Garnish with rest of the spring onions and a good pinch of sesame seeds.

Before I round this up, check out what I bought yesterday at Topshop (you’d be silly to think that’s all I bought)! Yes! Strawberry Sour Ribbons. Although Topshop’s had their SWEETSHOP since ages ago, the only thing I ever get from it is Mint Poppets. But at (nearly) a pound for every thing available, it’s honestly hard to resist adding a little bag of sugary treats to your overall purchase. A very sneaky marketing move seeing as most girls find it difficult to say no to sugar, especially if it’s coated in pretty, shiny sugar crystals. After deliberating between the Flying Saucers (oh these guys are as good as freak) and Strawberry Sour Ribbons, I settled on the latter. Call me sentimental but the first time I had these in a Pick & Mix was in primary school.

Sugar and spice and everything nice. That was my motto back then I reckon (might still be, who knows). I used to grab a pick&mix with the pals after school and then pop ‘em whilst catching up with everyone as we waited for our buses home at the bus stop just outside the pick&mix shop. Of course we all had our hidden agendas. The pick&mix was our weapon to look cool and cute, and to calm the nerves! Give them hands something to do! This all happened while we waited for our crushes to get to the bus stop after school. Awww. Weren’t we so cute then? The strawberry ribbons were always the first to get thrown into my pick&mix bag and the last to get eaten. Save the last for best is what I say. But honestly, it was just too much of hassle to eat them and look cute at the same time lest I get sugar all over my face in front of my crush.

It’s great to see sweets that mean so much to you now and again. Brings back some amusing and ridiculous times. The bag of ribbons is laying there on my desk. I reckon I’m going to have a guilty pick at it later tonight and have a good laugh about the olde dayes! Jokes!

Chocolate Non-Bake Cheesecake with Gingerbiscuit Crust and Raspberry Coulis

diva — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:41:37 +0000

It’s quite difficult to find that perfect cheesecake since quite a lot of people are rather anal or picky about their cheese. When it comes to cheesecake, I’m even more fussy. What I mean by that really is that I love to eat it, that’s a given. But that I always associate really good cheesecake with one that’s been made for me by someone else because I cannot be bothered to bake a cheesecake. That’s just that. It’s (in that warped head of mine) too much of a faff in my opinion to bake cheese when you can just have it as it is. Cheese, neat. Straight out of the fridge, oh yeah. Now we’re talking. But cheese cooked is so amazing too - savoury or sweet. Nevertheless, somehow I still can’t bring myself to be bothered to bake a cheesecake.

Whilst hopping through the foodblogs I usually visit, I came across Cafe Johnsonia’s Frozen Mascarpone Cheesecake, so that really got my tastebuds into craving mode. Not one to fuss around with cheesecakes, I couldn’t be bothered to work on this Chocolate Mascarpone Fruit & Nut Cheesecake shizzle from good ol’ Delia so I decided to mash-up little bits and pieces to create my very own non-bake, why-not-use-the-freezer cheesecake. Take laziness to the maximum without forfeiting the taste factor. I admit frozen/non-bake cheesecakes hardly ever look as impressive as baked cheesecakes but Hans and I were very pleased when we were tucking into our very own slices. Tasty, rich yet light. Coupled with a raspberry coulis and you’re well on your way to a sugary cloud 9 heaven. Also, I find baked ones very heavy and filling whereas this was creamy but not too overwhelming that you couldn’t fit in another healthy slice.

Thumbs up and a big pat on my back; one too on Hans’s. Cheers to Anna for doing the taste-testing of the respective bowls of ingredients. Although I now have a bright red spot of raspberry coulis on my duvet cover (looks suspiciously like blood…geeez), it was so worth it! This coulis is absolutely gorgeous. If you don’t know what that is, it simply is a posh way of saying raspberry sauce. Quick to prepare, great colour and delicious; use it for just about any other raspberry-requiring dessert. For a cheesecake? Spot on!

I was a little pretentious with the presentation. But it was a pretty day today. Very very warm. And I was surprised to see so many bluebells growing out in the garden so I picked one, washed and dried it, then popped it atop my cheesecake for added prettiness. How adorable.

Chocolate Non-bake Cheesecake with Raspberry Coulis
Ingredients

For the filling:
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup double cream
1/3 cup caster sugar
120g plain chocolate, melted (you can increase the amount, or use dark chocolate if you’re going for an uber chocolatey cake)

For the coulis:
1/3 cup caster sugar
3 tbs water
2 1/2 cups raspberries

Bash up all the biscuits. Add sugar and melted butter. Using a fork, toss and coat in butter until all of it is covered. Press into bottom of a springform pan and use the back of a spoon to flatten and even it out. Place in freezer for the crust to bind about 15min.

Using a wooden spoon, beat together the cream cheese, mascarpone and sugar. Over a bain-marie, melt the chocolate and be careful not to burn. In a separate bowl, using a metal whisk, whip the double cream until it can hold its shape. Do not overwhip. Add the chocolate once it’s cool enough to the cheese mixture. Finally, the double cream. Give it a good stir.

Remove crust from freezer. Pour the cheese mixture into the pan and smooth out. Cover with clingwrap, making sure the clingwrap touches the surface of the cheese and up the sides of the cakepan. Place in freezer 40-50min. Remove and place in fridge. Serve whenever after by using a warmed knife to slice.

The coulis is really simple. Over a medium fire, cook the sugar and water. Stir continuously for about 5min. It’ll start to thicken and caramelize but be careful not to let it burn. Add the berries and keep stirring. Lower fire if it bubbles too much. Break up the berries, leaving some relatively whole just so it looks better unless you want it to be as smooth as possible. Cook until it thickens. Leave to cool. Then serve by spooning loads over your cheesecake.

Beauty & the Feast Challenge I

diva — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:43:48 +0000

The Inspiration

I like to read, especially in the bath or even when I’m showering. I line all my shower/bath products in a line and read them all from left to right, then around them and from top to bottom. It might seem like a weird habit to me but I’m sure loads of you out there do the very same, only maybe in a slightly varied away - like the ever-favourite newspaper-on-toilet combo. The advent of Spring meant the purchase of new make-up, shower creams, hand soaps, etc. for the season and as I was doing my habitual shower-reading, I was caught by the fact that I surround myself with mountains of products made with some sort of food product, extract or essence. And the most probable reason why I’m so attracted to these products is because they sound yummy and smell yummy. Right now, you’re definitely going ‘duh’ - that’s a marketing strategy. However, with the rising popularity of products that claim the use of dubious pearl powder, satin extract and so forth, we are constantly enticed ultimately to products that gravitate towards what we love best — food.

Here are a few of my own examples: My Origins Youthopia face cream comprises (prepare yourself) bitter orange, chamomile, myrtle leaf water, apricot kernel oil, grape seed oil, castor seed oil and shea butter, rhodiola or ginseng root, cardamom, thyme, nutmeg, soy bean, wheat bran extract, sunflower seed extract, aloe vera, sweet almond seed extract among a whole long list of others. My Molton Brown Body Lotion is made with a bamboo and wild indigo extract, incorporating lemon as well. One of my hair conditioners uses jojoba oil and macadamia nut oil. A favourite face scrub of mine is famous for its use of fruit enzymes, one specific one being papaya. Even our kitchen surface cleaner uses lime, orange and coconut.

Not alone, I’m certain, am I in this plight - drawn to such products. Fact is, all beauty products somehow or another capitalize on food because it’s what is natural, has a lot of (sex) appeal and yes, food is good for you! We are never going to stop pampering ourselves. The rise of the new woman, the bourgeois woman, the modern day woman, etc. have all taught us that. On a more superficial level, we are kiwi birds with an eye for shiny things. Even if the relation of prettiness and indulgence to the female is a social construct, somehow a carefully crafted design to fence in and define the woman as the Other of the masculine, how on earth can we ever abstain from what we love best?

The Story

At some point of our lives, I’m certain we have played with our food. Turning our food into some sort of externally nourishing product (since you eat food and it provides nutrients internally) comes under that category too. I remember the times when my sister was very into homemade face masks. You should have seen those slimey, gooey concoctions she made with raw egg and fruit, etc. It was…at best, an acquired ‘taste’. I soon took after her. We are after all bonded by blood.

Wanting all my life to be tall, I drank quite a lot of milk. Hated it at first because of its acidity but OREOs made it all better. One day, that chubby little girl, after being praised by her aunt for having beautiful hands, thought to herself ‘if I have beautiful hands, I want to keep them beautiful forever and ever’. She resolved herself to that because everytime her mother picked up her hands to play with her fingers (it was a daily mother-daughter moment) she’d notice how her mother’s own hands were starting to wrinkle at the knuckles. So tiny Diva got out a wash basin, filled it up with the last of the milk in the fridge, sprinkled some ground cinnamon into the basin for added fragrance and dove both hands into the cold milk.

She let out a tiny squeal. The milk was a tad too cold for them delicate hands. But she thought, ‘if this could keep my hands beautiful forever, then I will want to soak them in it for a long long…long time to keep them that way.’ Smooth, white and milky. So she stood in front of the basin for about 5minutes, wondering how long was long enough when her father walked in on her. He stopped, stared. Then turned around, stopped. And then turned back a 180degrees and said, ‘I’m sorry. What are you doing?’ in a bemused yet slightly irritated manner (Daddy was a milk-fanatic and drank a glass every evening. Something about pffft, bones and calcium.) Now, the little girl had used up all of the milk but in the most wasteful way her father could think up - for soaking her hands?! What on earth?

I suppose really, the men simply don’t get it.

And The Point?

As you can see, the links between cosmetics/beauty products and food are intriguing. It seems almost instinctive to make that link. Women are more often that not the targeted consumer of just about anything. No wonder our favourite past-time is shopping. And because we are beginning to have such great purchasing power, all sorts of products are carefully marketed. Sneaky as it is (you know, all the shizzle about capitalism and consumerism), I am unashamed to be an almost ‘pious’ slave to the beauty industry that has taken on a temple-like magnitude - or for that matter, the food industry. All that rambling aside, I’d really like to see what everyone out there obsesses about. With thumbs up from Farida of azcookbook and Celine of Black.Salt, I’m putting this challenge out there for anyone and everyone!

The Challenge

How This Works:

1) Pick a cosmetic/beauty/body-hand-skincare,etc. product that has either a name that is food-related (eg. Vanilla Butter Dynamite, Raspberry Rhubarb Splash) or has food-related ingredients (eg. orange extract, ginger root).

2) Using the combination of flavours of the product as best as you can, create a dish inspired by the product and give it any funky name you like.

3) Post about it on your blog (why that product, how you were inspired, were the results good, etc.) with a picture of the product and your masterpiece; if possible, add the Beauty & The Feast challenge picture as well so people know what this is all about.

4) Send in your entries to diva@sugarbar.org using this format below:

Subject line: Beauty & The Feast Challenge I
Your name:
Blog:
Blog URL:
City/Country:
Event post link:
Product name:
Dish name:

*Include the picture that you’ve uploaded for your post in this email as an attachment as well. This shouldn’t be too large so we can keep my downloading time to a minimum.

5) The closing date for all entries will be 2 June 2008 (Monday); after which, all entries will be posted up on le blog. The girlies and I will then look through all entries and choose the top 3 winners of the challenge.

The Prizes:

Here comes the bit that is rather cool, in my opinion.

Top Prize: Lancôme Virtuôse Mascara in Noir sensual (2ml tube) & DIVINE Chocolate Slab (dark/milk chocolate)

2nd Prize: Rouge Dior Crème de Gloss Sample Packet (with 4 shades and lipbrush) & DIVINE Chocolate Slab (dark/milk chocolate)

3rd Prize: Haribo Sweets & DIVINE Chocolate Slab (dark/milk chocolate)

I’ve blogged about these chocolates before and if possible, I will attempt to source the more rare flavours (mint, fruit & nut, orange, hazelnut, coffee if that is what the winners want). The prizes, although not as amazing as I can usually afford, are my little thank-you-for-participating treats!

So blog about this, tell your friends and get loads of people to take part in this event. I’m quite certain it’ll be so much fun to see all the photos and what everyone comes up with. Till then, let’s get our creative juices on the roll.

And the nominees are…

diva — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:19:04 +0000

I’ve received 2 tag awards this week and I couldn’t be any more pleased! Very flattered and more determined now. There are just tonnes of wicked blogs out there I can hardly compete with and it’s a great joy to read them for tips, things you never knew and of course, the photos. Although I hardly ever have time to blog hop as much I want to (now that the exams are in a week’s time I have even less time), I’m beginning to bookmark more to expand my reading and know more about the different cuisines around the world.

From the lovely Farida of azcookbook I have been tagged You Make My Day Award. Sends me very heart aflutter thinking that my blog has made someone’s day and so I now pass this award on to 5 other fellow foodies and hope they too will share with the world 5 food blogs they constantly go back to for a little pick-me-up now and again.

Here are the 5 I loyally support. These guys come out with the best recipes, from the simple to the decadently gorgeous:

1) Kevin of Closet Cooking

2) Aran of Cannelle et Vanille

3) Indigo of Happy Love Strawberry

4) Lauren of Parsnips Aplenty

5) Hélène of La cuisine d’Hélène

Next award was from Pixie of You say Tomahto, I say Tomayto. I’m still quite a new reader at her blog but she’s got some great stuff going on there. She’s also starting on a new baking blog which will be ploughing through baking disasters, etc. Especially excited about that so do check her out! Here is how blogs are selected for this:

You select 5 blogs that you feel excel in creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

Just so many blogs are running through my head right now and I’m finding it a right problem to select only 5. Also, it’s rather daunting to put 5 down since some of these blogs I’ve hardly ever commented on. Nonetheless, I’m tagging 5 blogs that I find are absolutely wonderful blogs — pretty, creative and never a bore to read (not that there are any really but I had to choose my 5 favourite!). Thank you for constantly posting all the interesting posts that you do because I learn so much from them.

1) Medena of Café Chocolada

2) Matt of Wrightfood

3) Erin of The Skinny Gourmet

4) Elle of Elle’s New England Kitchen

5) Canarygirl of Canary Girl

Strawberry Risotto with Rosé

diva — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:41:07 +0000

Have no doubt about it, I’m not jesting.

Initially, I was quite fearful of posting this up in case I was fired back with ‘what were you thinking!’s but I’ve gone ahead because I think this dish has been quite an interesting one with such a new, amazing flavour I cannot but let this slip by and not remember it. Anna was very impressed with this dish too and wiped her plate clean after seconds so this is of course, going down in diva’s history.

The original recipe called for fresh chopped red chilli but I’d accidentally left it out and substituted it with chilli powder. Although both give a very very different flavour, the powder worked out pretty well. Less crisp & sharp than a fresh chilli, missing out on all that zang. But this wasn’t too bad and I would like to replicate this, this time with chilli to see what it’s like. What makes this dish is the basil and parmesan so please, they must not be cut out at any cost! The strawberries are lovely after being added to the risotto as they have so much flavour with the balsamic vinegar and go soft, but not too soft, with the risotto and gives it another dimension completely.

I made this after spending 6 hours in the library with Hans ploughing through Paradise Lost. A well deserved meal and yet it didn’t take too much effort to prepare. I always have a slight aversion to making risottos as I don’t like standing in front of the hob all the time stirring and watching it like a hawk. But this wasn’t too bad. I’m knackered now and will be skipping on the mash-up deal tonight at Bar Q. A good film, cup of tea and I’m gonna hit the sack like timber. So there.

This recipe has been taken from delicious magazine and serves 4.

Strawberry Risotto with Rosé
Ingredients

Prepare the strawberries and drizzle balsamic vinegar over. Leave to marinate in the fridge for 30min.

Chop the onions. Heat some olive oil in a large pan and add the onions, chilli powder and salt. Give it a good stir to coat the onions in oil and chilli, then cover and let simmer for 10min. You want the onions to sweat and go translucent.
Prepare some boiling water that’s cooled a little.
Add the rice into the pan and coat with the onions and hot oil. Raise the heat. Add the wine and let it bubble and evaporate a little to remove the alcohol. Add some boiling water just to cover the rice and let cook. Stirring a little.
Let cook for a while until all the water has been absorbed into the rice.
Then add a little more water to cover the rice. Let cook, not forgetting to stir this.
When all the water’s been absorbed into the rice, it should be al dente by now.

Lower the heat. Add the butter, cheese, basil and strawberries with all the excess juice. Give it a good stir. The smell will be amazing now and the balsamic vinegar will give the risotto a great taste. Season if needed.
Now, plate up and serve with grated parmesan. Don’t forget that extra glass of rosé on the side.