Blog Anniversary Event

Cuisine Paradise is going to be 4 years old on 30 April 2009. On this special occasion I would like to giveaway some small gifts as a token to all my blog readers irregardless of where you are from as long as you wish to take part in this giveaway :)

All you need to do are:-
1. Leave me your Name and Gift Description that you prefer on the Post Comment Link(the comments will only appear after I approved it); AND
2. Email me Your Entry Details as shown below to ellenaguan@hotmail.com : (please put eg: Gift Set #1, Gift Set #2 or etc... on your email subject, in order for me to do the sorting and luck draw list as well compare your details in case i didn't received your email. Thanks)

Example:
Gift Description:
Your Name:
Country You are From:
Blog URL (if you maintain one):
Email add for contact if you are the winner:

Please Note:
Only ONE DRAW ENTRY is allow for each visitor, please help to let others to get a chance to get their desire gift too :) There will be a limit of 40 entries per Gift for the draw and I will update each gift so that you will know which items is closed for the draw. Thanks for your support and enjoy the fun............



This Blog Birthday give away will end on 17 April 2009 (2359hr Singapore Time). I would like to thank all of you for the regular visits, comments, feedback and sharing in all my related blogs to Cuisine Paradise all these years.

Four lucky winner will stand a chance to win one of these gift set and it will be sent via registered mail to you upon the announcement of the draw on 20 April 2009. And hopefully, as a winner you will be able to receive the "gift" before 30 April 2009 in order to celebration this joyful occasion with this blog.


Gift Set #1 -Pooh Sushi Stamp Mould & Egg Mould
(30 entries as on 17.04.09)


Gift Set #2 - 2-1 Mickey Mouse Multi-Purpose Cutters
You can use this set of cutter to make something like what is shown in this Mickey Mouse Bento Set.
(36 entries as on 17.04.09)


Gift Set #3 - Assorted Wiener Cutters + Mickey Furikake Case
(11 entries as on 17.04.09)


Gift Set #4 -Ocean Picks, Baran, Fork & Spoons and Animal Sauce Bottles + Winnie The Pooh Furikake Case
(8 entries as on 17.04.09)

P/s: Dear readers, thanks you for all the support and participation on this blog event. In order to show my sincere appreciation for your draw entry, I have included another extra item for Gift Set 3 & Gift Set 4. Thank You.....

Blueberry Yoghurt & Jam Muffin

At this raining and cosy afternoon, both me and my son tends to have craving for some hot and pipping homemade muffins. So this is what we come out with after sourcing for all the ingredients we have in our kitchen pantry....... Finally we decided to make Blueberry Yoghurt & Jam Muffins for afternoon tea.

Baked Tomato With Potato & Corn

This is our Saturday Quick Lunch - Baked Tomato Cups with Mashed Potato & Corn Kernel serve with extra herbal butter toast and a cup of Camomile Honey & Vanilla Tea. What a simple and relax afternoon lunch for a sunny weekend meal.

Since I bought some potato, carrot, sweet corn and tomato to make ABC soup for dinner. I add in extra dose of potato cubes and sweet corns to make the soup so that I can use some of the potato and corn to make this Quick and Easy Lunch. If for normal day, you can just steam 1 medium size potato together with a small corn then use it to make this baked tomato cups.

Ingredients:
2 Medium Tomato
1 Medium Size Potato
1/4 Carrot(optional), cut into thick slices
1 Corn Stick
2 Slices of Sandwich Cheese
Pepper
Butter & Herbs(optional)

Method:
1. Rinse and slice the top of the tomato off and scoop out the seeds and pat dry the tomato cups and set aside.
2. Peel, and cut the potato into square chunks.
3. Remove the husk of the corn and cut it into 3 section and halves it.
4. Place the potato and corn on a plate and steam it for about 15 minutes or so until the potato are cook through and soft.
5. Mashed the potato and carrot with some pepper then add in 1 slice of cheese(tear into pieces) and 1.5 tablespoons of corn kernel and mix well.
6. Scoop the potato mixture into the tomato cups, top with some extra corn and arrange on a baking dish.
7. Add 1 teaspoon of butter and some chopped parsley(optional) or mixed dry herbs(optional) into the remaining corn kernel and mix well.
8. Scatter the corn kernel mixture around the side of the tomatoes in the baking dish and place it into the oven toaster for about 5 minutes.
9. Next the extra cheese slices on top of each tomato cups and baked in the oven for another 30 second or so..... remove and served with tea and cut fruits.

Notes:
a) You can also used the frozen or can corn kernel instead of fresh corn.
b) You can place the butter herb toast together in the oven toaster with the tomato cups at the side.

This is a very Easy and Health snack for both kids and adult. If you kids do not like tomato as what it is, you can try to stuffs it with this mixture of mashed potato and corn kernel the next round when you make ABC soup.... Tomatoes have lots of important health benefits, including reduction in risks for cardiovascular diseases, colorectal cancer, inflammation, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer and thrombosis, so you should certainly consider including a cup of tomatoes in your daily diet for the maximum benefits.

Traditional English Afternoon Tea

I have saw this Traditional English Afternoon tea from one of the food variety show in Media Cop Channel 8 series before. During my study days in London, we used to have afternoon tea at school but that was not as grand as this. But I do missed those days, when you can enjoy a cup of freshly brew English Tea and enjoy some oven baked scones with jam.

Today, my brother was free to treat us to this Traditional English Afternoon Tea @ The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Millenia "Chihuly Lounge" offers this wonderful tea special from 2.30pm - 5.00pm from Monday - Friday. You can have your choice of any Traditional English Tea to serve with these wonderful snacks.

Upcoming Mystery Event

Dear Readers and Visitors of CUISINE PARADISE blogs, there will be a Mystery Event that will be review to you before end of MARCH 2009. Till then do come back and check it out at the Main Blog @ Cuisine Paradise to find out more on this exciting upcoming event........

Don't MISS out this opportunity to be able to participate on this Mystery Event........ So from now on, stay tune and get prepared for the party ......... :)

Bento #22 - Panda Panda

Em... this weekend Bento is...... Panda theme and ... one of Reyon's favourite movie is the Kung Fu Panda which I brought him to watch during last year school holiday.... Since today he wanted rice to be include in the bento, I decided to make him this Panda Panda Bento.

As you can see from the picture below how I roughly arrange the layout of the items in such a small kiddy bento box. I used some curl lettuce to put on the base of the box for decoration as well as lining purpose. Next I secure one side of the box with two Taiwan sausage wrapped with lettuce and I put a food cup containing poached shredded chicken breast with corn kernels.

Don't worry if you do not have a mould to make the shape of the panda head. You can used a piece of cling wrap and scoop about 2.5 tablespoons of sushi rice on it then wrapped it tightly and mould it into a ball shape then shape it according in order to fix the space in the lunchbox. When you have, cut out oval shape from the Nori sheet and cheese to form the features of the panda. You can also decorate it with some cut fruits and extra accessories like panda pick or panda chocolate cookies.

Related Posts:
1. Hidden Treasure
2. Salmon Onigiri
3. Bear & Grassland

Features Of My Exclusive Recipes

Dear readers of Cuisine Paradise, thank you for your support during these years. Today I have a good news to share with you, the Author of Cuisine Paradise, who is me, Ellena, has being invited to be a featured recipes contributor for a Singapore leading kids and parents magazine name "Parents World".

I have never dream that my blogs writing hobbies can bring me so far to such a stage that my recipes can actually be published on a local magazine. All these credit to the editor, Daniel Goh who is willing to give me such an opportunity to feature and published some of my very own exclusive recipes that is not posted in my blogs. So if you happen to find this Magazine in your kids school bag or at any newsstands or bookstores do give it a flip through and you will find that it acutally contains a lot of useful information and tips on parenting and kids issue.

Furthermore, you might also find some of my exclusive recipes in the magazine too... :0



p/s: So sorry I won't be able to post the recipes from the magazine here as due to copyrights issue.

Lotus Seeds & Cod Porridge

Cooking and making sure that our kids have the best nutrition of all is always the tougher job for a mum. Although I love to cook and bake but then my son was rather a picky eater when it comes to food. He won't eat rice that is too soft or too dry. He wants his porridge to be cooked in certain standard.... As far as I know I didn't impose all these eating habits to him but I don't know why he is so particular when it comes to food so with his problem it's always hard for us to feed him with stall food. So whenever I can, I will cook porridge for him because it is the best and easier way to incorporate more items in it so as to get all the nutrition in one pot.

Today's dinner will be Lotus Seeds & Cod Porridge, in order to make the porridge come with a nature, fragrant and sweet taste I added some sweet corn, carrot slices, wolfberries and lastly some Chinese barley. As you know Lotus Seeds strengthen the Heart, Liver, Spleen and Kidneys and also energize the Qi and promote blood cell formation. So sometime is good to add it into porridge or soup to promote good health. And I always cook something like this in two person portion so that both my dear son and I will get to enjoy the same food.........and this is one of Reyon's favourite Porridge dish.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
1/2 Cup Uncooked Rice
120g Cod Fish Fillet, cut into thick slices
1/4 Section of Sweet Corn, cut into halves
6 - 8 Slices of Carrot, cut into 0.5cm thick
1/2 Tablespoon of Wolfberries
8 Dried Lotus Seed, pre-soaked in hot water
2 Tablespoons of Chinese Barley

Method:
1. Wash the rice and add enough water for making porridge then bring it to boil.
2. Add in the sweet corn, carrot, lotus seeds and barley; simmer over low heat till the rice grain is soft.
3. When the porridge is almost done, remove the barley bag and add in the cod fish slices and wolfberries.
4. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes, switch off the heat, covered and let the porridge rest for about 10 - 15 minutes before serving. (this will allow the grain to slowly absorb the fish flavour and as well expand into much softer texture, but if you prefer whole grain porridge you can serve it immediately)

Note:
1. As you can see I place the Chinese Barley inside a disposal tea-bag before putting it into the pot to cook with the rest of the ingredients so that the cooked barley will not be mixed into the porridge.(for this case, i just want the barley to make the porridge more fragrant)
2. Rinse and soak the dried lotus seeds with HOT water till soft. (DO NOT use tap water to rinse first or else it won't be soft easily)

Related Post:
1. Cod & Wolfberries Porridge

Bento #21 - At The Beach

Today's Bento theme has being a long waiting one for my dear son. As most of the reader from my blog will have read about that my dear son loves to go picnic at the seaside. And I have also tried making a few of his meals on seaside theme before. But today's challenge will be a little difficult for me because he wants the real sight of the seaside atmosphere being present in his little bento box.

I have being scratching my head for ideas on how to make this seaside bento appear real..... so after much thought and some brainstorm chat with another bento mummy, Amy(from mothering corner website) I decided to give this bento a try. Last night, I have draft out the idea of the layout and what are the animals that I would want to include in it.

For the colour layers, I have used egg white with some blue food colouring and spinach juice to make scramble eggwhite represent the sky and ocean. As for the sand, I choose multi-grain bread and tear a zigzag layer to form the beach with some cheese stars(as starfish) and since I do not know how to make a seashell, I place a small seashell on the bread. My dear son was thrill when he saw this...........

Related Post:
1. Seafood Noodles
2. Seafood Melody

Bento #20 - Mickey Mouse

Tata..... Another weekend bento using my new Multi-purpose Mickey Mouse tools which I have bought recently. With the left over ham from making yesterday Bear Hamroll. I use a slice of it to make one of the mickey mouse side face and my dear son was thrill when he saw this Mickey Mouse Bento.

This set of Mickey Mouse design multi-purpose cutter come in a pair of two different mickey mouse design which enable you to cut out the head and face features. I also have another similar Pooh Design set which I used to make the Ham & Cheese Bear Sandwiches in another bento.

Related Post:
1. Mickey Mouse Bento Tools
2. Ham & Cheese Bear Sandwiches

Osmanthus, Water Chestnut & Sea Coconut Dew

Some weeks ago, one of our church members bought some desserts to my mum and she told me that it is very special as she had not eaten something like that before. From what she mentioned, the ingredients include lotus seeds, chopped water chestnut, wolfberries, egg white and most important Osmanthus flower which gives this dessert it unique fragrant and taste.

So from what she had mentioned to me, I come out with my own version of Osmanthus, Water Chestnut & Sea Coconut Dew. Yup, for my version, I have added some shredded Sea Coconut to it. It had being long since I used fresh sea coconut to make soup or dessert. And I must admit, this is a very refreshing dessert which have a very nice tangerine taste due to the Osmanthus Flowers.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
12 Dried Lotus Seeds
2 Teaspoons of Sugar
4 - 5 Water Chestnut, peeled & finely chopped
2 Teaspoons of Dried Osmanthus Flower
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries
800ml Water
1/2 - 1 Egg White, lightly beaten
1 Medium Fresh Sea Coconut, optional
Rock Sugar to taste

Method:
1. Wash and peel off the skin of the fresh sea coconut (try to select the soft to touch type which is more suitable for making dessert) then cut into thin strips.
2. Bring half small saucepan of water to boil then add in the lotus seeds and simmer on medium low heat for about 7 - 10 minutes until the seeds are soft. Dish up, rinse and remove any germ inside the lotus seeds to prevent bitterness then marinate with the sugar and set aside.
3. Next bring the pot of 800ml water to boil, add in rock sugar, sea coconut, wolfberries and osmanthus flower and simmer for about 10 minutes.
4. Use a strainer, remove most of the cooked osmanthus flower away then add in the chopped water chestnut and marinated lotus seeds and simmer till boiled then switch off the heat.
5. Slowly add in the beaten egg white and give it a slow stir to create the swirl effect. (The heat from the content will cook the egg white and you have to add in slowly and stir so that it won't be in a lump)
6. Serve it with some extra osmanthus flower either warm or cold.

Notes:
a) You can replace dried lotus seeds with those vacuum packed fresh lotus seeds instead.
b) You can either soak the dried lotus seeds with boiling water(without washing the seeds) till soft then cooked together with the sea coconut and rock sugar.

Releated Post:
1. Osmanthus & Water Chestnut Kueh
2. Chicken & Sea Coconut Soup
3. Almond, Sea Coconut & Pumpkin Soup

Bento #19 - Bear Bread & Hamroll

My dear son had being down with flu and cough bugs for the past 2 weeks plus and just a few days ago, he was also down with high fever and bad cough. But thank God after the 3rd visit to the doctor and change of medication he is getting better today. So while he was doing his homework I secretly prepared this Bear Bread & Hamroll Bento in our new purchase Tomica Lunchbox. I hope that this artwork of mine will be able to cheer him up and as well to increase his appetite by the look.

This bento is divided into 3 parts. On the left side is a bear and heart shape cutout from two different colour tone of bread to make the contrast. Next I use the Caral Mini Craft Puncher (click here for details) to punch out the features of the bear using nori sheet. On the right side, I use the apple baked ham, lettuce and shredded carrot to make a cheese bear hamroll (click here for cutter use).

In order to make it more eye catching, I also use two tone colour cheese to make the features of the bears and also with some added cherry tomato and strawberries to make it more colourful. Lastly, I decorate it with some added parsley to make it look more like a garden with some greens.

Releated Post:
1. Weekend Breakfast Bento

Bento #18 - Picnic Day

Usually Sunday will be a picnic day for most of the family to laze around in the park and enjoy the morning/evening breeze and warm sunshine in order to have a fun and relax family getaway. Like other families, Reyon and I love to prepare some of our favourite snacks and get relax in the neighbourhood park. Although we do not have those luxury park like those western countries but we do can enjoy a bit of peace and wonderful family bond in the weekend.

Since nowsaday, we have to attend morning Church service, we can't really spent Sunday morning at the park. And since today's weather is kind of Sunny and Warm we decided to have our indoor picnic at home. We prepared some refreshing afternoon snacks for our home picnic. We made two little faces out of Reyon's favourite Mini Chocolate Chips Muffins. Reyon said the one of the left is suppose to be me while the one on the left is him :) Then we cut out some flowers out of the dragon fruits and leaves from kiwi to make it look like a little garden patch. See the way he enjoys his afternoon snack, I guess a little extra dose of Chocolate on Sunday do actually makes you feel happier...... :)

Bento #17 - Spot The Hearts

Today is Valentine's Day and since we are out in the morning for excursion, we will have our Weekend Bento as Snack today on Valentine's Theme. Em.... I have being thinking of what to make for Reyon on this special day and there are so many ideas in our discussion lists. Finally in the end, we agreed on this simple and quick theme because he is so hungry to have his snack before I can snap more pictures on it.

In today's snack bento, I have include a heart shape cheese sponge cake in the middle, following by two little cheesy bear and some extra red and green grapes. Other then grapes, cherry and tangerine, I also introduce a new fruit to Reyon call the Red Rose Apple. It's kind of crunchy and sweet in texture but Reyon doesn't seems to like it and he just had a bite to try on.

While looking at the bento, let's play a QUICK GAME! How many HEARTS can you SPOT in the BENTO SNACK? :p The answer is:...........

Trying Of Dinner Catering

Heard a lot of good comments about this International Catering Pte Ltd service, so I decided to give myself a short break from cooking dinner. I cater for a Trial Period of 10 Days meal which the delivery man will sent the dinner on every Mon-Fri Evening except Public Holiday.

These are some of the foods that we had for the past three days of trial.... The food to me is consider as average, you can't except too much on this kind of homecook catering food. It's a Hala Menu and you won't find any pork in everyday dishes.

As you can see, the stir-fry vegetables and toufu are simply cooked with sauce, not much as putting in things like, prawns, meat or any other side ingredients like garlic or ginger. So after my trail of 10 days, I don't think I will continue for this. Maybe I am those person who know how to cook so these simple dish without any presentable decoration doesn't attract me much. But overal, the food is still nice and can consider to be a light and healthy dish..... For those who are interested to try, you can either called Hotline: 6289 8369 or check out at their website at http://www.intl.com.sg/