Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
I am a big fan of Japanese food and have been to Japan three times in total for holidays. I am not a stranger to Japanese rice crackers at all. I use to eat regularly when I lived in Singapore. When I came to England in 2002 to work, it was not easy to buy Japanese rice crackers in your local supermarkets and I was only able to find them in the supermarkets in Chinatown.
When I first came to England in 2002, my English ex-colleague introduced me to Walkers crisp and I never looked back. It is one of the best crisps I had since I was young. It’s a scrumptiously thin crispy crisp. It makes my mouth water whenever I see someone eating it. Every crisp is always so well-seasoned and tasty.
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Yesterday, we all went to Tesco to do our weekly shopping and to cook a nice Easter Sunday lunch. We decided to have a lazy Sunday. Rather than going out for an Easter Egg hunt, we created one at home instead.
The Greek Gods Greek-style yoghurt is teaming up with the Foodies100 to challenge you to come up with a heavenly recipe that would even tickle Aphrodite’s taste buds – Greeky! You just need to incorporate any of the four divine, honey-infused flavours of Greek Gods in an original, love-inspired recipe for two people. The luxurious and indulgent yoghurt are available in Honey, Honey & Vanilla, Honey & Clementine and Honey & Strawberry.
Greek Gods yoghurt are heavenly treats which promise to deliver ‘the yoghurt you were destined for’. The four delicious flavours are tantalisingly rich and creamy, with fewer calories than other traditional luxury dairy products – they’re a great alternative to cream or ice cream! You could create a dessert to die for or add to a divine savoury dish. Here is my entry for the Foodies100 competition.
I’m a seed and nut lover so I was happy to find out about Lizi’s Treacle & Pecan Granola. I have been sent a packet to try and for me, it is an instant hit! Pecans are one of my favourite nuts and they’ve been gently toasted in this mix and balanced with black treacle to make a truly delicious blend. Considering it is so tasty, I was interested to learn that it has a low GL (glycaemic load) of just 7.3g per 50g serving. This helps provide a slow energy release which should help keep you feel fuller for longer.
The Dōngzhì Festival or Winter Solstice Festival is one of the most important festivals celebrated by the Chinese during the Dongzhi solar term (winter solstice) on or around December 22 when sunshine is weakest and daylight shortest. This year, it occurs on 21 December 2012.
Traditionally, the Dongzhi Festival is also a time for the family to get together. I still remember every year without fail, my mum would make tangyuan (湯圓) or balls of glutinous rice. She would put red food colouring into the glutinous rice flour and mix with water. Once it was mixed, she would roll it into small flour balls and cook it in the boiling water with pandan leaves.
Last week, my sister flew in from Singapore to visit and stay with us. During her stay, she wanted to cook us her special Chinese homecooked meal. She went to our local supermarket and bought a lot of fresh scallops with shells. My sister is a brilliant cook. She cooked for all our meals and gave me a few days off cooking. Yipee! We had such a good time having her around. All the scallops were in their shells. Instead of throwing the shells, I washed, dried and saved all of them to let the children use it for art and craft – shell painting.
Philips HomeCooker is like a slow cooker but with many other functions. It is able to simmer (90ºC), boil (110ºC), steam (130ºC), fry (175ºC), keep the food warm (70ºC) and melt (40ºC). The temperature setting (max 250ºC) can also be set to turbo to heat up ingredients quickly or to roast large amounts of ingredients.
Spaghetti Alla Norma is another dish that I had made for my Philips Fresh Cooks Party on 30 September 2012 using the Philips HomeCooker. It took me 15 – 20 minutes to prepare the ingredients.
For my Philips Fresh Cooks Party, I had decided to cook crispy rosemary potatoes from Jamie’s HomeCooker recipes (Page 50) using my Philips HomeCooker.
We have been a Little Dish Fan since 2009 when Ms C came along! They are a life-saving meal for a busy mum of two! I used to cook every single meal when I only had Mr K but when Ms C came along, it was impossible to work and cook for two fussy eaters at the same time and Little Dish came to the rescue. We had tried a few brands stocked by our local Tesco but Mr K loves Little Dish Microwave food. During 2009, we did complain to them that the carrots were under cooked and within a day, they replied to my email and sent me a few goodwill vouchers. I feel they have greatly improved since then. I was very happy with their that their customer service for speed and response.
Today, I received a bag full of feeding equipment under £10 for Practical Parenting & Pregnancy 2012/13 Award Testing! I feel so fortunate to be picked to do testing for PPP again!
Most of the feeding equipment are not really suitable for my children to test as they are too old! Therefore, I have arranged to have friends with young babies to help with some of the testing! Job done! Mr K enjoying testing one of the products.
Provamel is adding a new Orange and Redbush flavour to its ‘botanical’ range of yoghurt alternatives, drawing on the flavours of southern Africa to expand the soya category. The ‘botanical’ range broke new ground when it launched last year with an Apple and Green Tea (500g) and a Lime and Lemon Balm (500g) flavour.
Brand new flavour innovation Heinz Salad Cream with Onion & Chives has been created to go especially well with cheese or chicken sandwiches and is the perfect accompaniment to a crisp spring salad.
Heinz Classic Barbecue Sauce is rich & smokey, perfect for dipping and on the label it also mentions that it is for marinade. I decided to follow the Marinated Chicken Wings recipe with a bit of an adjustment. I used about 1 kg of chicken thigh and drumsticks to marinate with 1/3 bottle of Heinz Classic Barbecue sauce. I placed the chicken into a large zip lock food bag with runny honey, ground ginger and soya sauce. I then sealed the bag and place in the fridge to marinate for at least 6 hours or overnight.
