Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
“This post is an entry for #MorningWin Linky Challenge sponsored by belVita Breakfast.
Breakfast is something I always like to have and we always make sure that both children have their breakfast too. Even if they are late for school, I will bring their cereal bowls to eat in the car (without milk). Having breakfast is definitely the best way to start our day!
The summer is finally over as it is getting colder and it is back-to-school time now. I am so pleased that both children have been able to settle back into their routine quickly. But actually I struggled a bit! After I had not cooked for three weeks after a holiday in Singapore, I struggled to take up the pots and pans!
Luckily, Birds Eye knows it is not easy to get back to routine and offered us to take up this challenge via Britmums. So I went to our local supermarket and bought a lot of delicious looking Birds Eye frozen foods like fish fingers, crisps chicken, peas, potatoes waffles and others.
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.
After visiting Cadbury World with my children, I have always wanted to make my own chocolate character like a chocolate hand, chocolate house, chocolate ultra-man for my son etc. Then last week, #CollectiveBias had a #shop to work with Cadbury and it was like a dream come true. Now I have reasons to make a creative mess and make my own chocolate character! So I decided to make a chocolate banger to coincide with Cadbury’s competition to Win a Banger! Did you know that they are running a competition for you and your friend to win a chance to drive a prime banger from Lille to Barcelona in The Wacky Rally 2015? This is an amazing experience to be part of the 4-day Wacky Rally. You will join the 60 to 80 other cars in a ‘Barmy to Barcelona’! So don’t delay and enter now!
This week is the National Cupcake Week (15 – 21 September) and I am very pleased to join in to celebrate it with OXO Good Grips and Sugar and Crumbs. I have received OXO Good Grips’ new cupcake corer (RRP £6), cupcake icing knife (RRP £4.50) and baking duster’s wand (RRP £10), along with chocolate cherry powder and pistachio icing from Sugar and Crumbs.
Last weekend, we very lucky to get invited to Actimel for kids launch event at L’atelier des Chefs cookery school in Central London. We set off quite early in the morning and caught the train.
Actimel have launched a new delicious recipe with fun bottle for children. It available in three flavours: strawberry, raspberry and vanilla. They are great as a tasty accompaniment to breakfast, lunch box or as part of an after-school snack. It comes in a convenient 100g bottle that is packed with yummy yogurt, billions of L.casei live cultures, fruit puree and essential nutrients such as calcium and vitamin D. It is also free from artificial flavours, colours and preservatives and is set to be a firm favourite with mums and kids alike.
Wishing everyone a Happy Mid-Autumn festival! I had made this colourful snow skin mooncake from the leftover ingredients from the Swiss Roll Snow Skin Mooncake.
Tomorrow will be the Mid-Autumn festival where Chinese celebrate the fifteenth day of the eight lunar month – the Mooncake Festival. Last year, I explained the story behind this festival which you can read more here.
We are a big fans of Coca-Cola in our household and our fridge will always have at least a few cans of Diet Coke. Not only that! A few months ago, I even recycled the plastic bottles to make Coca-Cola fairy lights.
Last month, they asked if we would like to try out their new product Coca-Cola Life before it is available in stores in September. Needless to say I was so excited!
Last month, I went back to Singapore to visit family and at the same time, it was the hungry ghost festival which is followed by the Mooncake festival. There are a lots of stores selling different varieties and flavours of mooncake like durian flavour, ice cream mooncake, avocado flavour, mango and many more! Seeing these photos again that I took at the shopping mall is enough to make me drool right now!
Recently, I went to attend Britmums live 2014 and was very pleased to meet the representative of A2 milk. Not only did I broaden my knowledge about blogging, I also learnt that there are different types of proteins in milk including ones called A1 and A2. Regular dairy cows produce milk that contains both the A1 and A2 proteins. I never knew!
I love making my own bread as they always smell so nice. So today, Mr K and I decided to make Sundried Tomatoes Italian bread using Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Recently, OXO Good Grips had set me a new challenge to make a salad dressing using their herb mincer and little salad shaker along with a bottle each of Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar.
Since I am from Singapore, I wanted to bring in an oriental blend into Italian food. Mango is one of my favourite fruits. My granddad used to have four mango trees and two rambutan trees in his garden. We always go to his house to pick fresh mangos. Nowadays in supermarkets, it is quite hard to get fresh mangos as they more often than not sell them them pre-sliced in packets. This is my Oriental Mango Dressing recipe.
British Turkey has teamed up with Red Tractor to find the UK’s best recipe using great British fresh seasonal produce in the #TurkeyTractorChallenge competition.
The lucky blogger winner will receive a voucher worth £200 to the supermarket of their choice and be invited to receive their award at the prestigious British Turkey Awards at The Savoy, London on September 25th 2014. The two lucky runner’s up will receive £50 worth of supermarket vouchers. The closing date is 22 August 2014.
The theme for the competition is ‘Arabian Nights’. So I have asked a couple of friends for advice as I have not tried cooking Arabian food before. They suggested to cook turkey tagine using a Pyrex slow cooker.
Yesterday, I was looking at fruit tarts from the supermarket and was inspired to try to make some for myself. I have always wanted to bake bite-size fruit tarts but know that getting the pastry right would be quite challenging. So I bought ready-made short crust for this first attempt and a tin of fruit salad.
My husband’s friend had given him a bunch of home-grown rhubarb and I decided to bake him rhubarb crumble using this recipe. But I had made too much of the crumble part and decided to make ice cream crumble for myself. So I mixed in almond flakes, sunflower seeds and chocolate chips into the crumble. I then laid it flat on to the Pyrex cooking sheet and baked for 10 minutes.
