peanut butter

5 interesting snacks I bought back from Sibu

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1. Marmite Rice Cakes

Marmite Rice Cakes

Marmite is something you either love or hate. It’s a very divisive yeast extract meant to be spread on toast. I went to Christchurch, New Zealand when I was 15 for my high school and fell in love with it immediately. I’ve since tried the Australian and United Kingdom version and but I’ve never seen their rice cakes before. Naturally, a got a couple of packs to bring back to KL.

2. Cadbury Roses Strawberry Dream

Cadbury Roses Strawberry Dream

This is a limited edition flavor of Cadbury Roses. I always make it a point to go to the local import specialty shop to get some snacks before I go back. They had a huge sale this time since lots of the items are close to expiry. I decided to grab a couple of packs since I can eat a lot of chocolate in a day, so it doesn’t matter to me if the use by date is next month.

3. White Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

White Reeses PB Cups

I love Reese’s PB Cups but not everyone likes them. This is the white chocolate version. I wanted to bring some back for my better half to try since this variety isn’t very common. The stuff here is all made in the country of origin too – United States, UK, Australia etc etc. It’s a real blessing that we have such a bounty of imported chocolate and snacks in such a small town.

4. Twizzlers

Twizzlers

I love licorice and would buy a big pack of plain store-brand licorice twists when I was studying in Australia. I’m partial to the aniseed taste but I know a lot of people don’t like them. It’s another love-it-or-hate-it candy. I chose licorice as one of the flavors when we went to Ladurée at Champs-Élysées during our trip to France. I adore it and this is spiked with Hershey’s chocolate to boot. My dear doesn’t like it *at all* but I plan to proselytize to her. smirk

5. Whoppers

Whoppers Malted Milk Balls

OMG! This is quite rare in Malaysia. You always see Maltesers (made by Mars) instead of Whoppers (Hershey’s). The latter was invented first and is more common in Commonwealth (or ex-British colonies, like our country). Whoppers are a United States product and honestly, I prefer Maltesers since I grew up with them. However, it’s harder to find Whoppers so I got a two boxes to bring back. 🙂

5 exotic tropical fruit sandwiches

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tropical sandwiches

I call this the Silat Buah Edition of my continuing bread story! smirk

1. Mangosteen sandwiches

mangosteens

It’s the season for mangosteens now. Mangosteens season is the end of the year and the smaller ones do not have seeds, making it perfect for sandwiches!

mangosteen sandwiches

It’s a refreshing experiment but to be honest, not all that good.

2. Starfruit sandwiches

starfruit

I saw this jar of local government FAMA produced belimbing (starfruit) jam on sale once and bought a tub of it. I then sauntered over to the fruits section and got myself 3 starfruits.

I decided to slather the starfruit jam and then cut starfruit slices on top of it to make a starfruit sandwich with real fruit.

starfruit sandwich

I had to choke it down – the jam is crappy and almost inedible, full of sugar and a weird flavoring that has little to do with starfruit. Another one of my failed experiments. I still can’t bring myself to eat the jam – it’s still sitting in the fridge after another try on it’s own. Vile stuff.

3. Jackfruit sandwiches

jackfruit

You can get the fresh ones at SS2 night market. I found it much better than the ones at the local hypermarket. It’s one of the more expensive fruits around at over RM 9 / kg. I just slid the fruit between bread since it’s quite flavorful by itself.

jackfruit sandwiches

It should probably be noted that seeds should be taken out before inserting into bread. It’s pretty good – especially when paired with cream cheese spread!

4. Durian sandwiches

durian

It might be heresy to some to use the precious durian as a sandwich filling. It’s expensive (recently bought a Holo durian for RM 33 with less than 10 seeds, costing over RM 3 each) so I used the more common D24 strain (RM 6 / kg) for this experiment.

I thought since it works so well with glutinous rice (seriously, durian and mangoes are perfect with glutinous rice) I reckon it might be okay with bread.

durian sandwiches

Nope, I still consider it a waste – I had to use about 4 seeds to gather enough flesh for a sandwich – it’s good, but durians deserve better treatment.

5. Jambu sandwiches

jambu

I saw this juicy local fruit at RM 8 / kg from a local roadside stand and it turned out to be one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever made! 🙂

fruit sandwiches

The secret is chunky peanut butter.

Jambu with chunky peanut butter has a very complex texture – the pure water squirting out of the fruit, the stickiness of peanut butter and the chewiness of bread. The flavor profile is amazing too – kinda like eating an apple with peanut butter (used to do that as a kid).

This is the tropical version – salty and buttery and sweet with refreshing bursts.

I did a lot of tongue-in-cheek sandwiches for fun but this…

jambu sandwiches

…this is the eureka moment, I discovered something I’ll really continue eating. It’s truly a great fruit sandwich! 🙂

3 affordable and essential spreads for bread

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I eat a lot of bread and this is my Top 3 list of essential bread spreads:

1. Cream cheese

cream cheese

This is a spreadable cream cheese that I’ve grown to love. It retails for about RM 7 for 200 grams – the same weight and price as those “mystery cheese” individually wrapped slices. I can’t say this is 100% real cheese either but it sure tastes a helluva lot better.

It’s creamy and savory! Made in Australia, the best thing about this small tub of cream cheese is that if you don’t consume it within 10 days it turns into sour cream – another *new* spread for your bread. smirk

I’m kidding, I don’t know what it turns into after 10 days coz I love the stuff.

2. Kaya (coconut jam)

kaya

Yup, this is a bread spread that we can count as our very own – made in Malaysia, something to be proud of. The word itself translates to English as “rich” and that’s exactly what the texture feels like. It’s a sweet concoction made of coconut and tastes like custard.

I usually get locally produced original ones (none of the pandan infused flavors for me) for RM 2.50. I also noticed that kaya goes better with softer bread e.g. the bran and wheat-germ types instead of 100% wholegrain.

3. Peanut butter

peanut butter

This is another staple of my fridge. I always go for chunky peanut butter – I’m not a huge fan of the smooth/creamy variety. I don’t like it cloyingly sweet either and I found this brand called Steffi’s Delight that’s made in the United States with no added sugar.

It really makes a lot of difference – it’s almost slightly salty and this brand also has visible chunks of peanuts. It’s cheaper than a lot of local brands too at RM 11 for over 500+ grams.

This kind of peanut butter works well with tougher breads like grain fortified 100% wholemeal/wholegrain. Lovely stuff, the only downside is the slightly disturbing use-by date of 2014…it’s gotta have a lot of preservatives inside for that kind of shelf life. 😡

I still eat bread with the stuff in 3 delicious and dirt cheap meals with bread but have bought a couple of spreads to spice things up a little. This is just a continuation of my…er, bread story after the DBKL spectacle.

What spreads do you like and are you a chunky or smooth person? 🙂

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