Showing posts with label Christmas Menu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Menu. Show all posts

Monday 8 December 2014

[recipes] Perfect Italiano Food Fixes in 15 Festive Menu

Perfect Italiano Food Fixes in 15 Festive Menu
Arriving in the last month of the year meaning Christmas is around the corner where we could slow down our pace and spend some quality time with family and loved ones. Although this year we are away for a long vacation to USA in December but the atmosphere and urge for preparing festive dishes are still within us. So with this scheduled post we hope to share some quick fix festive dishes that can be easily done in 15 minutes so that you don't have to avoid restaurants or worry about preparing festive menus.

Thursday 5 December 2013

Festive Brunch Menu Using Perfect Italiano Cheese

Christmas is just another three weeks down the road and I am sure most of you are busy with the Christmas menu planning. Here with some complimentary cheese that we received from Perfect Italiano, we decided to whip up some dishes from their “Food Fixes in 15 Seconds” festive menu which features tasty and simple dishes that you can learn in just 15 seconds.

Using the cheese we prepared a 5 Course Brunch Menu shown above with Cheesy Corn Chowder, Parmesan Toast, Cheese Baked Christmas Casserole, Sausage And Mushroom Baked Rice plus Parmesan Pancakes for dessert.

Friday 29 November 2013

Our Thanksgiving Feast - Roast Chicken With Cranberry And Macadamia Stuffing plus Pumpkin Pie

Thanksgiving is a time of the year where everyone in the family to get together to have meal and give grateful for things like family, friends, food and etc. To be frank this is my first year preparing Thanksgiving feast for the family and instead of the usual baked “turkey” I decided to swap with something smaller. So for this year, I prepared Roast Chicken with Cranberry and Macadamia Stuffing together with medley of colourful vegetables. And I also made our all-time favourite Pumpkin Pie with buttery crust for dessert.

I am thankful that this feast was able to complete and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner as planned. It was because during the preparation (if you have read about the mishap (here) on my Instagram (@cuisineparadise)) my old build-in oven (12 years) actually fused off while I was preheating it for the bakes. But thanks God with my Samsung microwave convection oven I am still able to prepare the dishes with slight changes or else I won't be able to know what to do. 

Tuesday 25 December 2012

{Fishy Dinner} Chinese Baked Fish Fillet And Baked Cheesy Salmon With Wasabi

Festive season is a great time to feast together with family and friends plus a bit of catch up and updates on each others progress. This Christmas season other than festive bakes I also have some quick dishes which you might be interested with.

In this post I am sharing two different "fish" dishes which you could cater for everyone in the family such as Chinese Baked Fish Fillet with oyster sauce and Baked Cheesy Salmon using Japanese mayonnaise and wasabi.


CHINESE BAKED FISH FILLET


For something more Asian taste, this Chinese Baked Fish Fillet would be something easy that you could prepare and get ready in less than 30 minutes for an evening dinner to impress your guests. For the fillet you can use any firm white fish such as cod, haddock, or grouper which work well on this recipe.


(Serves: 1 | Preparation: 5 minutes | Cooking: 15 - 20 minutes)

Ingredients:
  • 1 Piece Grouper Fish Fillet (200g), skin intact
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
  • 1 Teaspoon Chinese Cooking Wine
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
  • 2 Slices Ginger, thinly sliced
  • 1 Stalk of Spring Onion, cut into sections
  • 1 Red Chilli(optional), sliced
  • Served with Steamed Rice and Asian Greens

Method:-
1. Preheat oven to 200 °C (degree Celsius). Arrange spring onion and some julienne ginger on a disposal baking tray and top with fish fillet.

2. Combine oyster sauce, cooking wine, sugar and sesame oil in a bowl and mix well.

3. Spoon sauce mixture over fish fillet, top with remaining ginger and chilli, cover with foil and bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until fish is just cooked through.

4. Sprinkle some extra chopped spring onion and serve hot with steamed rice and Asian green.

Note:
~ Stir-fry baby bok choy and fresh shiitake mushrooms with some garlic and ginger then lightly season it with salt.



BAKED CHEESY SALMON WITH WASABI


Whereas for a western treat, you might wish to consider this Baked Cheesy Salmon with Wasabi. For me, I am a salmon lover and I love to eat it either raw, grilled or baked. And my favourite way of cooking salmon is to top it with lots of shredded cheese and Japanese mayonnaise because after baking it would have a tasty cheesy crust on top plus a moist and juicy fillet below.


(Serves: 1  | Preparation: 5 minutes   | Cooking: 15 - 20 minutes)

Ingredients:
  • 1 Salmon Fillet (200g), bones removed
  • 2 Tablespoons Japanese Mayonnaise
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Wasabi Paste
  • Rind of 1 Lemon
  • 1/4 Cup of Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
  • Some Freshly Ground Black Pepper
  • Serve with French Beans and Cherry Tomato

Method:-
1. Preheat oven to 200 °C (degree Celsius). Arrange salmon on a disposal baking tray, top with generous amount of mayonnaise mixture (combine Japanese mayonnaise, wasabi and lemon rind till well-mixed).

2. Evenly top it with shredded mozzarella cheese and sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper on it.

3. Bake prepared salmon in an preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes or till salmon is cooked to your preference.

4. Serve hot with some french bean, cherry tomato and steamed rice.


With dishes like this you can play around with the ingredients and side dishes to cater for everyone's preference and the best thing is you can bake these two dishes together in the oven but just keep an easy on the salmon as you don't wish to over baked it. And as for the sides, you could add in some Cream Soup (recipes) or Salad (recipes) to make it a complete meal too.

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Roast Chicken with Portuguese Seasoning for Christmas

Christmas is just 5 days down the road and everyone is busying preparing Christmas menu and bakes for the coming festive gatherings. This year Christmas is early for us as I have prepared a hearty Roast Chicken with Portuguese Seasoning together with some roasted vegetables for a hearty family meal.

My mum was excited while preparing this dish together with me in the kitchen as this is her first hands-on roasting dish. And she was surprised that it was actually so easy to get everything done within less than 10 minutes and just pop it into the oven and we could enjoy the yummy roast after 2 hours time.

Last two week my brother has bought back some of my favourite MasterFood Herbs and Spices during his holiday trip to Sydney. And these will come in handy for me to prepare some quick and hearty meal within short time. For this post I would be using Portuguese Chicken Seasoning which brings together the flavours of lemon and chillies to create traditional Portuguese Chicken at home and this sure come perfect during Christmas season.


ROAST CHICKEN WITH PORTUGUESE SEASONING


Nothing beats a Hearty Roast like this during Christmas season while you could enjoy quality time with family and friends and at the same time do away with a fuss free cooking hassle in the kitchen.

These are the 3 types of MasterFoods seasoning and herbs using in this recipe but you could always choice to use your desire brand of similar products.


(serves: 4 | Preparation: 10 minutes | Cooking: 1 Hour 30 minutes)
Ingredients:
1.2 - 1.4kg Whole Chicken
1 Tablespoon MasterFoods Portuguese Seasoning
1/2 Teaspoon of Sea Salt
1/2 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Side Dish:
2 Medium Potato, peeled and cubes
300g Pumpkin, washed and cubes
1/2 Teaspoon MasterFoods Chilli Flakes
1 Teaspoon MasterFoods Italian Herbs
1/2 Teaspoon Olive Oil
1 Teaspoon of Soft Butter

Method:-
1. Trim the extra fats, emptied and cleaned the cavity, removed the head, neck and feet. Rinse and pat dry using kitchen paper towel.

2. Place chicken in a big bowl, brush olive oil evenly around the chicken before rubbing the Portuguese Seasoning all over the chicken include the cavity of the chicken and under the skin layers.

3. Sprinkle with salt and set aside in the roasting tray while preparing the side dish.

4. Mixed potato cubes and pumpkin together with the remaining ingredients(except butter) in a bowl and toss till well combined.

5. Stuffed some pumpkin cubes into the cavity and tie both kegs together with unwaxed kitchen string(can be found in Daiso outlets) and arrange the remaining vegetable mix at the side of the baking dish and top with dots of butter.(refer to the 6th photo above)

6. Place the chicken in preheated 180°C fan-forced oven and roast for about 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours or until juice run clear when thickest part of chicken is pierced with a skewer.

7. To get an nice even colour for the roast, turn the chicken around after 30 minuets interval during the baking time or basting chicken frequently with pan juice.

8. When done remove chicken from oven, cover it loosely with foil and stand for 10 minutes before serving it with steamed rice, pasta, or salad green.

This is my boy's portion of the roast chicken drumstick together with some roasted vegetables and steamed rice. Although we had added chilli flakes to the roasted vegetable but the taste was still mild as the sweetness of the pumpkin have yet blend in well with the seasonings.

Indeed this is a very simple and hearty meal which you could prepared anytime of the year even if it is not during Christmas. Here is another link of the roast chicken which I have prepared during last year's Christmas, Roasted Chicken With Brown Rice And Chestnut Stuffing.


YULE CHOCOLATE LOG



This year Christmas I have baked a Yule Chocolate Log which is something different from the previous years whereby we only had Gingerbread man, Christmas Cupcake and Fruit Cakes. This Yule Log is made with simple chocolate swiss roll recipe which used only flour, egg and sugar.

Do stay tune for the upcoming recipe soon. Cheers and enjoy the Christmas Roast!!!!

Saturday 25 December 2010

Roasted Chicken With Brown Rice And Chestnut Stuffing

  Today is Christmas and as a Christian we do value this special and meaning day in December Calender. For the past two years, our church has planned outdoor Christmas Party in the neighbourhood area so that more residents can join us to celebrate this special occasion at the eve of Christmas. So since today is a rest day for family gathering, I decided to try my hand on preparing my very 1st Christmas Lunch.

To be honest, I seldom prepared western dishes because I do not own many of those spices or herbs which we hardly used in our daily Asian cooking. And this Roasted Chicken Lunch that I prepared is also not a fully western dishes too. As when you read the rest of the post, you would notice that I replaced the usual herbs stuffing with brown rice and etc.

Here are some collage photos to show the ingredients and steps on preparing the Brown Rice Stuffing which is quite similar to what I did a few years back on the Baked Pumpkin with Rice Stuffing (link HERE).

Ingredients: (for 1 quantity)
1 Cup of Uncooked Brown Rice Mixture
2 Tablespoons of Frozen Green Peas
6 - 8 Whole Ready to Eat Roasted Chestnuts
1 Tablespoon of Mixed Fried Fruit/Golden Raisin
1 Teaspoon of Minced Garlic
1/2 Teaspoon of Minced Ginger
1/2 Tablespoon of Oil
Seasonings:
Dash of Pepper and Sesame Oil
1/2 Teaspoon Light Soya Sauce

Method:
1. Rinse the rice mixture two to three time then soak in water for about 30 minutes before cooking.(soaking the brown rice prior cooking can decrease the cooking time)
2. Cook the brown rice in rice cooker with the usual method and once it is cooked through stand it rice cooker for another 10 minutes.
3. Next scoop the cooked rice to a place and let it cool off to room temperature while preparing the ingredients for the fried rice and get ready the chicken.
4. When done, preheat a non-stick pan with 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil, saute the minced garlic and ginger till fragrant then drop in green peas and give it a quick stir before adding the cooked brown rice.
5. Use the back of the spatula, loosen all the lumps of the cooked rice till grains are formed.
6. Stir-fry the rest of the ingredients such as chestnut and mixed dried fruits then follow by the seasoning till well mixed.
7. Transfer the rice mixture to a plate while handling the chicken.

Note:-
~ Mix 1/2 cup each of Brown Rice with normal Long Grain Jasmin Rice. (I do encourage you to try brown rice as it will give this dish a very nutty fragrant and taste)

This is the final Brown Rice Stuffing with Chestnut, green peas and dried mixed fruit mixture which is ready to be used. Since this is used as a Christmas theme stuffing you could realise that the colour that I used seems t be circling with green, red, golden and etc. I am sure this would be something new to you as to add dried mixed fruits into rice stuffing.

Here is another set of collage photos showing the ingredients of the roasted vegetables and steps on stuffing the chicken.

Ingredients For Roasted Vegetables: (Serves 4)
1 Medium Carrot, cut into 2cm thick chunks
2 Medium Potato, removed skin and cut into 6 chunks each
300g of Pumpkin, removed skin and cut into chunks
1 Fresh Sweetcorn, cut into 2cm thick ring, halves
Seasonings:
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1/2 Teaspoon Freshly Ground Black Peppercorns
1/2 Teaspoon of Dried Chilli Flakes
1/2 Tablespoon roughly chopped Coriander

Method:
1. Mixed all the vegetables together with the seasonings in a bowl and set aside while preparing the chicken.


Since I still have some Seah's Spices available from their complimentary gift (link HERE) set, I decided to use one of this "Seah's Salt-Roasted Chicken Spices" for our Christmas Roast Chicken Lunch. There are two small 20g sachets of spices in each packet where you can roast up to 2 chicken of 600g each.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)
1 20g Sachet of Spices(Seah's Salt-Roasted Chicken Spices)
1 Sakura Chicken, around 1kg size
1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
1 Quantity of Prepared Brown Rice Stuffing
Prepared Vegetables Chunks for roasting

Method:
1. Before stuffing the chicken, trim the extra fats, emptied and cleaned the cavity, removed the head, neck and feet. Rinse and pat dry using kitchen paper towel.
2.Next brush the olive oil evenly around the chicken before rubbing the powder spices all over the chicken include the cavity of the chicken and under the skin layers.
3. Scoop the rice stuffing into the cavity and pressed tightly using the back of the spoon until all all or most of the stuffing are used up.
4. Place the stuffed chicken in a baking dish, secure the chicken thighs and wings to its body by using some kitchen string.
5. Arrange the prepared vegetables chunks around the sides of the baking dish and roast in a pre-heat 220 degree roast for about 20 minutes.
6. Remove the baking dish from the oven, quickly brush over another layer of olive oil all around the chicken and also give the veggies a quick toss before putting back to the oven to roast for another 20 minutes.
7. To get that nice and crispy outer skin, you can switch the oven function to fan-force mode on the last 7 - 10 minutes of cooking time.



In about 1 hour time, we could enjoy a hearty Christmas Roasted Chicken Lunch with rice stuffing and mixed veggies at our comfort home without need to eat in rush and wait for the festive season queues in the eateries. You can also re-heat some ready served chicken gravy pack or festive cranberry sauce from the supermarket to go with the roasted chicken.

This photo shows the inner cut of the roasted chicken where you can see the colourful brown rice stuffing in the cavity. The rice is so yummy and fragrant by the spices and juice from the roasted chicken too.

Roasted Chicken will be great to serve with Caesar Salad that consists of the crispy romaine lettuce and croutons which dressed with Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil and etc.You can easily prepared this by getting some fresh romaine lettuce and ready salad dressing pack from local supermarket such as Cold Storage.

This is the 1 person serving portion of our Christmas Lunch. Everyone enjoys this simple and wonderful meal with accompany of white wine and sparking drinks.

Although this year Christmas has almost come to an end in another few hours time but I would still like to wish everyone of my blog readers a wonder and blessed Christmas. Hope you have enjoy this festive season with your loved to ones and Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

And also I am submitting this post to "Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010)", hosted by Passionate About Baking at this link HERE.


Tuesday 14 December 2010

[Guest Post] Baked Zucchini and Mix Vegetables

Hi everyone I am back from Holiday!!!!! This year was indeed a fruitful year for us; in April we went to Taiwan(read more here), June we went for a short getaway to Carmon Highland(read more here) and in early December we indulge ourselves at the freezing winter in Seoul, Korea.

After the fun filled and tiring holidays, now we are back to the upcoming Christmas posts again. If you have being following the blogposts over here, you would have read about the Guest Post by Lobsterpaints on “Roasted Salmon with Dill”. Below is another guest post by her on Baked Zucchini and Mix Vegetables.

But before we head over to her blog and read more about this post, let's take a look at the ingredients for this dish which you might want to try it out during this coming festive season.

Ingredients:
(makes an approx. 25cm length x 23cm width x 2.5cm depth tray size.)

1 Zucchini (aprrox. 300g)
8-10 mini potatoes (approx. 750g)
10-15 baby carrots (approx. 125g)
5-7 Shitake mushrooms (approx. 125g)
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp oil
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp black peppercorn
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp rosemary and oregano mix (or to taste)


For more details, click here for the full post @ http://lobsterpaints.blogspot.com/2010/12/recipe-baked-zucchini-with-mix.html



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