Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
This morning, I received a large hamper from Warburtons which was supposed to arrive last Saturday for our Blogger Night In. Unfortunately, they arrived too late and none of the bloggers could try them or bring them home. So I have given some away to my neighbours and friends as they now have short expiry dates.
Believe it or not! I am hosting a Blogger Night In with 9 other bloggers who I have been chatting with for over a year! For one weekend, I am housing 9 bloggers in my house! Back in August, I wrote a blog post dedicated to all of them. There are 13 of us in this group and unfortunately, there are three of them who are unable to come.
Organix is a well know brand for baby food and snacks. They have built a 40 strong team to make delicious, nutritious baby and toddler food. They have a huge range of food suitable from 4 months onward.
Farmers from Africa joined the team at the Eden Project in Cornwall. A mutually beneficial scheme, it is designed to help farmers in Africa achieve a sustainable future, whilst educating people how to use the increasing demand for the baobab fruit to change lives for the better. The baobab fruit powder is available in the shop at the Eden Project and online.
It comes in a powder form and has more vitamin C than six oranges, more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk and gives you 50% of your RDA of dietary fibre. Due to the high levels of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants baobab is said to be a natural boost to health and may also aid the absorption of iron from food, which is really important for children when their bones are growing. It is also believed that it can ward off winter colds, combat fevers, stomach upsets and can help as a general pick me up.
Early May, I had asked advice from Bright Grey about how to protect our financial future. We were lucky to get picked to have a personal chef cook a meal for us while my husband and I could have the time to chat about our financial future. We would like to thank Bright Grey for this fantastic experience! They sent Sophie Wright to cook a meal for us while we discussed our finances. It has been a long time since my husband and I have had the opportunity to sit down and chat about it. It is not something we do very often as I normally don’t handle it.
Food prices are always on the rise. Have you thought how to make your budget stretch? I love to cook for my family as you can be sure of what’s in there. There won’t be any nasty ingredients nor too much of the unhealthy ones. Sainsbury’s Live Well For Less have challenged a few parenting bloggers to share advice and savvy suggestions for using basics to create everyday food, without compromising on quality.
Last month, I received an email to invite me for a dinner with Chobani. I was wondering who or what is Chobani as I had not heard or seen them before. So I went to Google them and found out that they make strained yoghurt. Their yoghurt are made with only naturally-sourced ingredients, free of preservatives and artificial flavours. It is also fat free, it includes 5 live & active cultures and have twice the protein of regular yoghurt. They are safe for those with nut and soy allergies and suitable for vegetarians.
Some of you might know that I was not brought up in this country. When I first heard about Bonfire Night, I wondered if it is like how Little Britain did it in the show where people just burnt their old furniture. Of course, Bonfire is not about burning furniture but it is a celebration.
Each week, my son has been asking me to make mantou as his fellow Chinese students are eating it for their tea during our weekly Chinese lesson. So I followed the Food Network website to make this but I have altered the recipe.
Mr K is a very creative boy and I had asked him what would he like me to carve. So I let him design his pumpkin using a permanent maker. This is his crazy teething pumpkin which I used the pumpkin seeds as his teeth. As for the ears, I used the leftover pumpkin skin with toothpick to poke it into the pumpkin itself. So I decided to carve a Pac Man to eat his crazy teething pumpkin. Planting the pumpkin seeds into the flesh of the pumpkin is not easy as it kept popping out. Hope you all like it!
Last week, I was asked to go down to London for a very special mission! I had no clue what it was about until I received a very well packaged box. I told myself do not open the box until I am home. Somehow I managed to resist opening it, but it was probably just as well as they may have been gone by the time I got home and the family would not have been happy with me! I am very excited to introduce you to the Pringles Limited Edition flavours: Mint Choc and Sweet Cinnamon!
>Christmas is coming soon and these two flavours have just come in time to celebrate the season! They both come in their usual size tubes. If you have tried Pringles before, you will know each chip is nicely stack in the tin. The unique new flavours lightly consistently cover each chip.
Halloween is approaching and I have been thinking up things to do with my children. Ms C’s teacher has given her a workbook to share what she did over the weekend or things she could do. So I remembered a very simple recipe to make a witch’s hat using an ice cream cone. Ice cream cones are one of Ms C’s favourite snacks. She only likes to eat the cone and not the ice cream. Having said that, last week, she finally tried ice cream and managed to finish one whole ice cream.
Ever since I tried a Pork Floss Bun from Breadtalk, I always wanted to find out how they make it. Pork Floss Buns are Breadtalk’s signature product in Singapore! If you ever visit Singapore, do give it a try. I absolutely love it. I am not sure if they still taste the same to what I had 10 years ago though!
Both of my children were in full time school today which gave me plenty of time to do my favourite hobby – cooking! One food I always like to cook is roast chicken as it is fairly straightforward. I am so excited that I am able to participate in the Great British Food Fortnight blogger challenge with OXO again. This week, instead of cooking traditional British food, I replaced potatoes with rice. I added the Hainanese sauce that I bought from the Chinese supermarket into the rice and cooked it in a rice cooker.
So while waiting for the chicken to cook, I had used the OXO Good Grips Julienne Peeler with some carrots and stir fried with Chinese leaf and runner beans.
The intrepid Ms C loves to go exploring. However, short on time today and without the benefit of daddy C chauffeuring her around, she had to make do with exploring the garden. She was on the hunt for garden wildlife and before long, she spotted some sparrows hiding in the trees through her binoculars. Then a few brazen pigeons swooped in and sat on the fence, probably looking for a free lunch.
