Cuisine Paradise Turns 7!

Today, 30 April 2012 marks my 2,555 days (7th years) in blogging where Cuisine Paradise turns seven(7). Indeed time flies and it had being 7 years since I started with my 1st recipe post on "Steam Mini Pandan Kueh" with an aim just to share my tried and tested recipes and homecook dishes with friends.

Along the years, I have learn to cook and bake different kind of cuisines, food styling as well as into food photographing.  Despite of the ups and downs during my blogging days, I have get to know many new friends who share the same interest either from cooking, baking or photographing.

And to all readers of Cuisine Paradise, I hope I am enable to enlighten you with more improvements from my post and style of preparing the food(cooking/baking) through different stages of my project themes. Here I would like to sincerely voice out my appreciations and thoughts for those who has supported Cuisine Paradise during all these years. Thanks for all your feedback, comments and thoughts which enable Cuisine Paradise to achieve what it has today. Without all your supports and spread of words, Cuisine Paradise would not able to achieve up to 1.8 million page view (since June 2011 till date) and currently having about 150,000+ visitors per month.

Below are some of the flashbacks from Cuisine Paradise over the years:-

MOST POPULAR RECIPE

Avocado Chicken Parmigiana

With over 110,000 pins via from "Pinterest" and a total of 150,000+ Pageviews till date, this is one of the most popular recipe among readers of Cuisine Paradise. It is so easy to prepare that you only need an oven toaster instead of an oven to handle this recipe. And moreover this dish can be pair with either salad or pasta to end with a complete hearty meal.

If you want to prepare something simple and yet flavorsome to impress your loved ones, here is the recipe.

MOST POPULAR KITCHEN GADGET

Happy Call Double-sided Pressure Pan

It's only a few months back that this "Happy Call Double-Sided Pressure Pan" has finally makes it way into many kitchens in Singapore and Malaysia after a year or so in Singapore. This happens from a Happy Call group known as Munch Ministry which set up by 2 ladies who share their interests and recipes on cooking quick and simply healthy food using  HCP.

Even though I have one of this Happy Call Pan (HCP) for more than a year plus, I did not really fully utilize it until I was influence by this HCP group in facebook. After which I have develop interest in trying different recipes using HCP from dishes to bake. Below are some example of my HCP cooking/baking project. For the full HCP recipes menu, please refer HERE.

Baked Sweet Potato	Sizzling Tofu	Claypot Rice
Pineapple Upside-down Cake	Muah Chee	Pandan Chiffon Cake

OUR FAVOURITE BENTO

Making Bento is one of our weekly or at least twice a month mother and kid bonding activities whereby my boy and I will agreed on a theme to work together to assemble his bento.  Up till date I have about 30 quick and easy kid's bento featured in Cuisine Paradise and inSing.com, below are some of our favourite among the rest.

Easter Chicky Bento	Penguins Bento	Red Angry Birds Bento

PRODUCT REVIEWS

As a homemake and someone who loves to explore new kitchen products, I love to try new food or kitchen products whenever I spot something interesting during our weekly marketing trip. And from time to time I would also received product samples from media to be featured in Cuisine Paradise. Below are some of the product review posts and you could also read up more on this link HERE.

VOGEL's mueslis	Easy Thai Cooking(cookbook)	Zespri Kiwifruit Recipes

CURRENT PROJECT

Korean Cooking

It has never come across my mind to learn how to prepare Korean cuisines at home. And it's only due to my recent interest in Korea drama that I am starting to love how to appreciate Korea dishes in another view. Before starting on this cooking project, friendly speaking I am not a fan of even their well-known appetizer; Kimchi(김치) nor Korean Rice Cake (Tteok - 떡) which can be used to cook soup, stewed or noodles. But now with their easy to prepare and delicious dishes I am keen in exploring more Korean cuisines with the help of my new Korean friend. Thanks Daphne!

Below are some samples of my Korean Cooking Project post. If you are keen to read up more on this project you can click on the link HERE.

Kimchi Tofu Soup	Korean Rice Cakes with Ramen Noodles	Sangyetang (recipe coming soon)

Lastly I hope my passion for "food" on this blog would be able to commit for another 7 years or more but till then I really needs all your supports and feedback in order to maintain this blog and continue to strike for better improvements. And if you are new to cooking/baking, I would like to welcome you on board and sincerely hope that my recipes collection would be able to help you cookout some quick and easy dishes for your loved ones.

{Photo Friday} Our Bento Dinner

Making Bento is one of our weekly or at least twice a month mother and kid bonding activities whereby my boy and I will agreed on a theme to work together to assemble his bento.  Up till date I have featured about 30 quick and easy kid's bento in Cuisine Paradise and here I would like to share with you two sets of our Bento Dinner which we have made recently.

A bowl of simple steamed rice topped with some Winnie the Pooh shaped roasted pumpkin adds some extra flavour to the plain rice.

A little bit of here and there make up a nicely presented kid's portion of our dinner. Instead of piling all the side dishes on the plate itself, I have divided them into small portion using colourful container to make the food look more appetising.

Here is another simple Bento Dinner which consists of Chicken Nuggets and Popcorn Chickens plus Hard-boiled Egg and some fish floss and baked whitebait on steamed rice. Till then have a great weekend everyone! Cheers!

{Lunchbox} Easter Chicky Bento

Happy Easter Sunday! I hope you would like this Easter Bento post that I have prepared you. Since our family would be attending Sunday church service plus a house warming event, I won't have enough time to prepare something special for my boy on Easter, therefore I decided to make this Easter Chicky Bento for him yesterday.

For this bento I have used 3 cleaned empty egg shells to act as food containers instead of the usual bento paper/silicon case. And with these shells, I have created some Easter theme such as "3D Pumpkin Rice Chick", "Hard-boiled Egg Chick" and "Artificial Egg".

{Lunchbox} Aglio e Olio and Homemade Teriyaki Chicken

Since this week is the March School Holiday break, I have more control over the timing and presentation while preparing our lunch menu. Here we have something different from our usual school day lunch where I spent an extra 15 minutes plating up the dish in cute lunchbox with appealing decorations.

I think most of the kids might not like green vegetables, sweetcorn or even root vegetables such as carrot or onion. So in order to get kid's enjoy their meal, as a parent we can make something appealing for their eyes using simple tools and decorations. With a flower food cutter and cute food picks I managed to come out with this quick and simple lunchbox which I am sure even the adults can't resists having some for themselves too.

{Photo Friday} Garden Theme Bento

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It's not everyday that I would prepared nicely decorated Bento for my boy. But since this week is his school exam week, I decided to make something special for his lunch in order to cheer and reward him for the stressful week.

Since it is for lunch, I have prepared something more filling and yet quick to serve up when my boy gets home. Here with his favourite fishball and sausage I managed to re-create them into "mouse", "caterpillar" and "friends".

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Sweetcorn, potato and carrot porridge that is decorated with sausage to form a little "mouse" in the garden with "carrot" flowers. I am sure this presentation would win the heart of kids who dislike having vegetables in their meal.

SOME OF MY BOY'S FAVOURITE BENTO

Penguins Bento	Angry Birds Bento	Pooh Pancake Bento
Mother's Day Bento	Bear Bread and Hamroll	My Buddy

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

[My 1st Kids' Workshop] Pizza Toast plus Red Angry Bird Bento

Yesterday we have a fun-filled day with all the wonderful kids and their parents who attended our very 1st Kids' Pizza and Bento Workshop. This workshop has being in my wishing list for so long because I always hope to be able to conduct a hands-on workshop for kids and their parents. For me I think hands-on workshop are a great way to show bonding between parents and their kids as most of the kids enjoy the time where mummy or daddy will be able to hold their hands and work together to complete an assigned task. And during the workshop I am so happy to see some heart-warming bonding time between parents and their kids.

Mickey Bento Sets - From Breakfast to Dinner

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A few weeks back I received an email from Bee together with invitation to do a Bento related guest post at Rasa Malaysia. I was so surprise after reading her email because for so many years I have being one of her silent readers whom always drool over her mouthwatering photos and recipes which our family enjoys. And today I am so honor to be one of the invited guests to share my bento post with all her readers.

For this post, instead of Angry Birds I will be sharing two Mickey Bento which I have discussed with Bee. First bento set can be used for either Lunch/Dinner as it comes with soup, rice, veggie, prawn and fresh fruit. While the second set will be more suitable for breakfast, tea-snack or field trip outing.

Different Mickey shapes cutout from pumpkin, carrot, Chinese yam(huai shan) and assorted colour of capsicums for making the soup and stir-fry.

MICKEY LUNCH OR DINNER SET

Ingredients For Soup:

300g Spare Ribs
1 Medium Carrot, cut into thick chunks
200g Chinese Yam, cut into thick chunks
200g Pumpkin, cut into 3 portions
1 Sweetcorn, cut into 4 sections and halves
1.2 Litres of Water

Method:-

1. Blanched spare ribs in boiling water for 1 minute remove rinse and set aside.

2. Before cutting the root vegetables into chunk, reserve a small portion and use small assorted Mickey food cutters to cutout mickey face shaped from Chinese yam, carrot and pumpkin. (about 5 pieces from each item)

3. Bring 1.2 litres of water to boil, add in all ingredients except the reserved “Mickey” shaped cutouts.

4. Lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, next place the mickey cutouts on a metal soup ladler lower into the simmering soup and cook for 15 seconds. Remove and set aside in serving bowl.

5. Ladle warm soup into the bowl before serving.

Ingredients For Onigiri And Veggies:

3 Tablespoons Cooked Rice
1 Slice of Sandwich Cheese
1 Thin Slice of Carrot
Nori Sheet
1/4 Bunch of Baby Choy Sum
1 Teaspoon Wolfberries
1/4 Teaspoon Minced Garlic, optional

Method:-

1. Place a sheet of cling wrap on one hand and scoop about 2 tablespoons of cooked rice on it. Shape the rice into a ball.

2. Remove the cling wrap and place it on a paper cup liner while working on the two ears on the side.

3. Using the same cling wrap scoop 1 teaspoon of cooked rice on it and shaped into semi-circle. Open the cling wrap and cover the rice ball with a 4cm diameter round nori sheet to form the ear.

4. Repeat step 3 again. Next place the 1st round rice ball onto a cling wrap, using 2cm long thin spaghetti to attach the ears on the side of rice ball.

5. Shaped these three parts of the mickey features tightly using the cling wrap and your hands.

6. When done remove the wrapper and place it on the paper cup liner into the assigned box and start adding the facial expression using mickey shape cutter, cheese and carrot shown above.

7. To make the eye balls and nose, use a craft puncher on a nori sheet to get small oval shapes and paste it on the cutout cheese.

8. For the vegetables; preheat a small saucepan with 1 teaspoon of cooking oil sauté the garlic till fragrant before adding vegetable. Give a quick stir and cook for 30 second, toss in wolfberries and cook for another 5 seconds. Remove and arrange in another paper cup liner at the side of the Mickey onigiri.

Ingredients For Tomato Prawn:

1/4 Red, Yellow And Green Capsicum
5 Slices of Carrot
5 Medium Shrimps, shells removed
3/4 Tablespoon Ketchup
1/4 Teaspoon Minced Garlic, optional
1/4 Brown Onion, optional

Method:-

1. Using small assorted Mickey food cutters to cutout mickey shaped from the assorted capsicum and carrot. (about 3 cutouts from each items, remaining cut into long strips )

2. Next preheat saucepan with drizzle of oil, sauté garlic till fragrant add in assorted capsicum and onion cook for 30 seconds before adding in the shrimps.

3. Give the mixture a quick stir, add in ketchup mix well cook until prawn changed colour.

4. Turn off the heat, dish up and assemble it on bento container.

Ingredients For Fruit Platter:

3 Slices of Dragon Fruits/Melons
4 Lychee/Cherry, seeds removed

Method:-

1. Using a big Mickey food cutter, cutout mickey head shaped from the dragon fruit and set aside

2. Arrange the serving bento with mickey head dragon fruits and some seedless fresh lychee of any fruits of your choice.

MICKEY BREAKFAST SET

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Apart from the full set of Mickey Dinner Bento shown above, I have also made another Quick and Easy Mickey Breakfast Set using some of the "Bamboo Charcoal Bread" that comes in just in time to shape the face of Mickey. But if you cannot find any Black Charcoal Bread you can always replace it with chocolate bread too.

ARRAY OF MICKEY SHAPES FOOD CUTTER

These are the Mickey Shapes Food Cutter that I used used in making these two bento shown above. If you are interested to get hold of these cutters, you can either purchase them from online bento shop or for those living in Singapore, you can get it from Kai Kai Gift at level 2 of Chinatown Point. Lastly, I hope you would like these two set of Mickey Bento which perhaps could bring back some of your Disneyland trip or childhood memories.

For the FULL Recipes of these Mickey Bento, you can refer to my Guest Post @ Rasa Malaysia HERE.