With two toddlers at home, and one more baby to come, time (and strength especially) is really precious to me. I have long started ordering my groceries online. It is so convenient, with just a few clicks on my handphone, the groceries get delivered to me the next day. Searching for an item would simply means typing out the word and click 'search'. I can do it while lying on the bed, soothing my toddlers to sleep, instead of roaming around physically looking for the items. And of course, no more lugging the items back home after the purchase.

Now, buying fruits online is a new venture for me. Unlike groceries, I like to visually examine my fruits, touch them, and sometimes even smell them before I buy.

When I learnt about Lazyfruits- online fresh fruits shopping & delivery, I was skeptical at first but at the same time tempted to try it out. After all, despite my love for giant-sized fruits like watermelon and honeydew, I seldom buy them due to their size and weight. Now they can all be delivered to my doorstep, so why not?

I find ordering fruits from Lazyfruits really simple, although there is no apps available, I have no problem placing my order using simply a mobile phone. In fact, I placed my order during a bus ride to a farmer's market. Payment-wise, I can choose to pay by cash or by credit card, really flexible. 

The fruits selection are great, with vast varieties ranging from seasonal/premium fruits like French melon, muskmelon, pomegranate, soursop and custard apple, to common fruits like apples, pears, oranges and bananas. There are also bundle deals and promotion available for selected fruits. Although not in wide selection, they do sell cut fruits for fruits like guava, pineapple and rose apple.

Now, look at all my loots! The fruits are packed neatly in a box with protection sleeves when delivered.

I purposely chose a few fragile fruits like blueberries, strawberries and Kiwiberies to see how it goes. Those are the fruits easily get moldy and squashed which I pay extra attention even when buying from high end supermarket. Now I must say I am impressed, because all of them are plump, fresh and really sweet. Those are one of the best blueberries that I have bought in fact. Turned out that they actually double checked the condition of the fruits before delivery to ensure that the customers receive their fruits at its best.

Although they might be relatively new in the online shopping platform, but do not mistaken them for a new player in fruits industry. Lazyfruits is in fact, a sister company of the more-than-30-years-old family-run fruit supply and retail businesses Chop Chin Yong and Lim Tean Lye.         

The minimum purchase is $40 and if you wish to get your fruits delivered for free, a minimum order of $68 is required. While it sounds like a lot of fruits, there are many creative ways to eat your fruits, e.g. juice them or make them into other delicacies like fruit tarts and Hokkaido cupcakes!

Some more photos of my loots. I was hoping to get soursop but too bad it was out of stock during the time of order. Bought custard apple instead. Sweet!

It has been a while since I last tasted a melon this sweet. The French melon (the honey dew look-alike fruit that has green stripes on it) tasted simply awesome, almost like the honeydew I had in Japan which I missed so much. And look, there is a giant heart shape watermelon!

Really love the yellowish-orange hue on the watermelon!

I thought this look really interesting, single  mixture that separates into 2 layers after left standing, and that artistic looking pattern that appear naturally in the coconut (white) layer. So, I assume the kids will surely jump up and down in excitement when they see this. Well, too bad, could it be the brownish color? They doesn't seem to be excited at all!

Anyway, less for them means more agar-agar for me. It may not look appealing to young toddlers but it sure taste great, especially these were made using palm sugar bought all the way from Melaka. I find the palm sugar produced there has an irresistible fragrant. So far I haven't find a better source for palm sugar yet.

The agar-agar is refreshingly good, with two distinct flavours from the two layers. White layers tasted more 'milky', which I love, and the other one had more 'crunch' in it. The pandan leaves surely add a nice fragrant to the agar-agar!

Ingredients

A

• 1 litre water
• 200g gula Melaka (palm sugar)
• 2 pandan leaves, tied into knots

B

• 1 packet 10g agar-agar powder

C

• 200ml thick coconut milk
• 1 egg
• pinch of salt

Cooking Directions

1. In a pot, bring A to boil and cook for 15 minutes.
2. Remove pandan leaves and sieve the mixture.
3. Add B and stir until dissolve.
4. In a bowl, gently mix together ingredients C with a fork.
5. Pour in C to the pot, stir while pouring, let it simmer for another 5 minutes.
   
6. Pour into 7" mould (or any jelly mould) and let it cool in the fridge until firmly set.

椰糖燕菜

配料

A

• 1公升水
• 200克椰糖
• 2叶香兰叶，扎成结

B

• 1包10克燕菜粉

C

• 200毫升浓椰浆
• 1个鸡蛋
• 盐少许

做法

1. 在一个锅里，烧开A，煮15分钟。
2. 取出香兰叶，过筛混合物。
3. 添加B，和搅拌至溶解。
4. 在一个碗里，用叉子把材料C搅拌在一起。
5. 把C倒入锅，一边倒一边搅拌，再煮5分钟。
   
6. 倒入7“模（或果冻模），让它在冰箱冷却，直到凝固。

I was wondering if I should post this. 

I love sour food. When making this, I was expecting the creamy tomato sauce to be as sour as the tomato soup that I always have from The Soup Spoon. Well, it certainly fell below my expectation of sourness. I was a tad disappointed, but everyone else in the family seems to love it! DG even commented this was better than a similar spaghetti he just had in a restaurant during lunch time. 

So for the sake of others, I decided to share with you this simple spaghetti dish. It probably take less than 30 minutes to whip this up, perfect for a simple weeknight dinner.


Spaghetti in Creamy Tomato Sauce

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 300g prawn, deshelled, tail-on
• 300ml cream
• 150g tomato puree
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 220g spaghetti
• to taste salt, pepper

Cooking Directions

1. Cook spaghetti as per instruction on the packaging.
2. In a pan, heat oil and stir fry garlic till fragrant.
3. Add prawn and sautee till just cooked, remove prawn from pan and set aside.
4. Add in cream and tomato puree, salt and pepper.
5. Add cooked pasta and prawn, stir to combine.

What is the usual dish on your breakfast table? DG love to eat porridge, serving alongside porridge are pork floss, fried egg with shallot, bak kwa and pickles. He always ask me to join him eating porridge but... bread remain my favorite breakfast choice. Egg sandwich, sardine sandwich, or simply white bread smeared with fruit jam, those are on my usual menu.

However, there is an exception, that is when I am making this steamed pork with Tung Chai. This dish is on the salty side but somehow, it just complement the plain porridge perfectly! It is so appetising I ended up need to cook extra porridge. 

DG thought I made too much and wanted to keep for breakfast next day. Too late... I finished them in a gulp.

Steamed Pork with Tung Chai

Ingredients

• 200g minced pork
• 2 tbsp Tung Chai, washed 3 times
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tbsp corn starch
• 3 drops dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• few dashes pepper

Garnish

• spring onion
• fried shallot

Cooking Directions

1. Mix all ingredients together, stir around until the texture of the meat turn sticky, let it marinate for at least 3 hours.
2. Steam on high for 20 minutes.
3. Garnish with fried shallot and spring onion.

东菜蒸肉饼

配料

• 200克猪肉碎
• 2汤匙东菜，洗3次
• 1汤匙麻油
• 1/2汤匙玉米淀粉
• 3滴老抽
• 1汤匙隐汁
• 少许胡椒粉

装饰

• 青葱
• 炸葱

做法

1. 将所有材料混合在一起，搅拌至起胶，腌至少3个小时。
2. 大火蒸20分钟。
3. 撒上炸葱和青葱做装饰。

 

Do you get excited trying out new technology? As for me, I certainly do!

Vending machine I had used many times, but this fresh food self-vending fridge from Cryowerx, hmm something I couldn't wait to get my itchy hands on. It is something totally different. You can't buy fragile food  from the usual vending machine, else they will break or look unappetising the moment it drops out, or when you are frantically trying to pull it out through the small rathole. 

This fridge, however, although looking just like the usual fridge you see in convenience shop like 7-eleven, it allows you to open the fridge, hand-pick your food, examine closely until you are totally satisfied; the moment you decides on it and remove it from the fridge (and close the door of course), the fridge automatically collects payment from you. 

What is the advantage of using it then? So, imagine buying your fragile dessert like macaron or cheesecake, glass-bottled fruit juice, or even salad, bento set or sushi from the fridge, without the need to queue or traveling to the restaurant itself. A sudden craving or hunger pang at late night? No problem, the fridge is still in operation (as long as your favorite food has not ran out of stock yet). Time-saving, convenience, 24-hour availability, just to name a few. 

The potential of the fridge is unlimited. From the point of view from a restaurant, this is a great opportunity to increase revenue and expanding business. Why open another branch while you can place your food selling in this fridge? Reach out to more people at lesser cost is the way to go!

I know you must be thinking right now 'the selection of cold food is limited!'. Fret not, with a microwave, all problems solved. With a microwave oven placing adjacent to the fridge, you can easily heat up bento, noodles or even soup! 

Now enough to of the introduction, let's find out how this fridge work shall we?

1. First of all, download the Cryowerx apps.

2. Launch the apps and click on 'Profile'.

3. You will need to add a credit card before you can unlock a fridge. Click the '+' button


4. Key in the details of your credit card then click submit.



5. Now with your credit card details added, you can decide if you want to manually top-up your account balance (it is optional, simply click the 'top-up' button should you decide to do so). However, regardless whether you manually top-up your account, you will also need to choose a 'payment mode', either as 'pay-as-you-go' (default) or 'auto-reload' (anytime when your purchases cost more than your account balance has, the excess amount will be charged with your selected 'payment mode'),

• 'pay-as-you-go' (default)
  Pro  - You get charged only when you purchase something.
  Con - You get $0.5 transaction fee for purchases less than $20. 
  Tip: To avoid the transaction fee, just make sure you manually top up your account by selecting the 'top-up' button before purchasing (min top-up $10).

• 'Auto-reload' (my preferred method)
  Pro  - Get bonus point(s) on every reload
  Con - None
  Notes: Comes in $20, $35 and $50 amount

 

6. Now click the middle 'scan' button to unlock the fridge.

7. Point the middle rectangular box to the QR code on the fridge. 

8. Tadah! The fridge is unlocked and you can choose the food you like. You will only be charged if an item is removed from fridge at the moment you close the door.

After the first set-up, any purchases subsequently will simply starts from Step 6. Buying from this smart fridge is a breeze and fuss free!

This is my lunch - Saba Teriyaki, made by Isetan.

The packaging is microwave-proof. Simply pop it into the microwave oven for one and a half minute.

Digging in!

CryoWerx at ACE Ideation Centre

79 Ayer Rajah Crescent

#01-13

Singapore 139951

Email address: contact@cryowerx.com
Contact no.: +65 6602-8084