Are you the LUCKY one!!!

A week has past and today we are going to reveal the winner(s) of the Giveaway event. The purpose of this event is to share my joy as well as some Seah's spices premix that I have received from Seah's Spices Food Industries Pte Ltd as a token of appreciation to reward me on using and sharing their products in my posts.

At the Giveaway post (HERE) I have promised to give away 5 packets of the premix spices to a lucky reader who wishes to try out the Seah's Spices. So here we go.........The Lucky reader who can have a chance to pick her choice of 5 packets of Seah's premix spices is:-



And there is another good news here! Since there are so many of you interested in this Seah's premix spices I decided to add on another 2 lucky readers who will be able to receive 2 packets of their desire choice of Seah's spices. Here there are:-

Dear Readers,

Thanks everyone for taking time to participate in this event. Even though some of you might not get away with your desire items this round but I do hope you have fun in this little event with us. And do stay around for more upcoming giveaway event soon.

As for the 3 lucky readers mentioned above, do Email me your list of choice for the Seah's Premix Spices from the post (HERE or email me for details if you are not sure) and I will get back to you as soon as I received your email. Thanks!

Seah's Singapore Chicken Curry

Singapore Chicken Curry is always one of the dishes that most Singaporean craves for when they are oversea for work purpose or studies. Like myself when I was away from Singapore, I always stock up more than a dozen pack with me during my visit home so that I can easily whipped up this all time favourite during special occasions or as when we feel like having some home cook dishes.

Inside my recent gift pack from Seah’s Spices (click HERE to read more), I have found a pack of the Singapore Chicken Curry Spices that I have not tried before. And since mum is craving for some Chicken Curry, we decided to give this new spice a try.

We bought some chicken wings, potato, tomato, onion and coconut cream to cook this dish. But as you notice from the photo above, there is a pack of coconut powder that comes with the curry spices which makes it easier for those who is overseas where coconut cream/milk is not easily found. But in Singapore we do prefer to add in either fresh or ready packed coconut milk/cream to enhance the flavour of the curry.

The method used here is slight different from the method shown on the package as mum preferred to stir-fry the ingredients a while to release the aroma of the onion and spices before adding water. So here goes our modify version of the Chicken Curry:-

Ingredients: (serves 4)
1 Packet of Seah’s Singapore Chicken Curry Spices
8 Chicken Wings
3 Medium Size Potato, cut into chunks
3 Medium Size Tomato, cut into wedges
2 Medium Onion, cut into wedges
800ml Boiling Water
100ml Coconut Cream

Method:
1.Wash and trim the fat off from the chicken wings and set aside.
2. Preheat a soup pot with 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil, add in the onion and sauté till fragrant (about 30 seconds) then add in the chicken pieces and potato then continue to stir on and off for another 30 seconds or so.
3. Next slowly add in the curry spices and stir the mixture till well combined.
4. Add in 800ml or more boiling water to cover the chicken pieces when the curry comes to boil, add in the tomato wedges and slowly simmer over low heat for about 15 – 20 minutes till the potato soften and meat is cooked through.
5. Lastly, slowly stir in the coconut cream and turn off the heat when the mixture comes to boil.
6. You can served warm with steam rice or baguette.

Note:
~ If you prefer something more spicy or that nice red chilli oil colour on your curry, you can add in 1 teaspoon of Sambal Blachan together with the spices to make it extra spicy.


Although some of the pre-mix spices cannot whipped out the authentic flavour compare to those freshly grind spices but I am sure with all these ready made spices it actually helps to shorten cooking time for working mum like me or overseas friends who missed having those wonderful local dishes.

So if you wish to try out some of these spices, do come and join us on the Giveaway event HERE whereby you can win some Seah’s spices of your choice.

Watermelon Pie for the Feast of St. Anne

Last year Charlotte shared a great post with recipes for Watermelon Cookies and Lemonade in honor of the traditional colors of St. Anne.   According to My nameday--come for dessert (You can find the whole book online here),  St. Anne "is often shown in art teaching Our Lady to read the Scriptures. Through the ages she has been depicted wearing a green mantle and a red dress, colors symbolic of immortality and divine love. Rev. Edgar Schmiedler in "Your Home: A Church in Miniature" mentions the custom in Louisiana of children of French extraction named Anne wearing red and green ribbons in her honor. These are colors to bear in mind for party decorations on her feast. There is no need to look "Christmasy" by using equal amounts; rather, use cool green for the main color scheme with accents of red."

So, inspired by Charlotte and a recipe I ran across last year at Make and Takes, we just finished preparing a "Watermelon Pie" to celebrate the feast of St. Anne tomorrow!    I am still currently without a kitchen, and probably will be for another month or so, but this recipe didn't require any baking and was quite easy to make.   Not to mention in turned out super cute.  Here's the recipe:

Watermelon Pie

Ingredients:

•  Key Lime Sherbet

•  Vanilla ice cream or Pineapple sherbet

•  Red/Pink-colored sherbet

•  Mini chocolate chips

Note:  Let the sherbet/ice cream soften for a few minutes before preparing the pie.  

Directions:

1.  Using a round springform pan (You may want to line the bottom of the pan with wax paper or parchment paper if you plan to transfer the entire “pie” to another dish before serving),  start with the lime, spread a ring of sherbet around the edge of the springform pan – about 2 inches high and about 1-2 inches wide from the outside edge of the pan.  Put pan in freezer to harden lime layer.

Mine was a good two inches and next time I plan to make it closer to 1" wide... I guess I was leaning towards using "cool green for the main color scheme with accents of red." ;)  

2.   Spread a ring of Vanilla Ice Cream inside the lime ring, but make the layer much thinner – maybe 1/2 inch. Use a butter knife to flatten the top, even-ing out the lime with the vanilla. Put pan in freezer to harden again.

3.  Mix the mini chocolate chips into the red sherbet.  (I wasn't able to find red/raspberry sherbet so I bought a berry rainbow and added a bit more red food coloring along with the mini chocolate chips.)

4. Fill the center of the pie with the red/chocolate chip sherbet.

5. Flatten the top of the pie with a butter knife and then freeze.

6. When it’s time to eat, run a knife around the edge of the pan before popping off the outside of the springform pan. Use a nice thin-blade knife to slice.

You can find more ideas for celebrating the feast of St. Anne in the archives!

Transportation Shaped Candy in honor of St. Christopher

The following post was submitted by Erin Yerian. Thank you Erin!

St. Christopher’s feast day is no longer on the calendar, but can still be celebrated as a memorial on July 25. That is especially good to know if you have a child named Christopher or just about any 2 year old boy who loves transportation. St. Christopher is the patron saint of all kinds of transportation, thus inspiring this super simple dessert for his memorial day. I went with just a quick simple filling in of the candy mold so my son could help me, but as the candy mold wrap suggests, it could be done with much more detail. Cookie cut-outs could work too!

Melting chocolates or candy discs
Candy flavoring
Transportation candy molds

Melt chocolates or candy discs in microwave, 30 seconds at a time, stirring each time until melted (or according to package directions). Add a drop of flavoring (I used maple extract), pour into molds, and let set.

St. Christopher, holy patron of travellers, pray for us!

Seah's Premix Spices Gift Pack & Giveaway

Recently I have received an email from the marketing department of Seah's Spices Food Industries Pte Ltd mentioning that they are sending a gift pack in appreciation to me on sharing some of their products in my blog post recipes. Upon hearing that, I was too shock and overjoy to believe that their team actually take the time and effort to go around sourcing and reading recipes blogs such as mine.

After about two weeks from their email, I have received their gift pack yesterday, which consists of a box of their makeover premix spices, oyster sauce and a recipes book on how to use their products.

Their "Roasted & Steamed & Braised food" range consists of my favourite Emperor Herbs Chicken Spices which I used to ask my mum to send it to me while I was in overseas. And now I spotted that they actually have Salt-roasted Chicken Spices and Stewed Fragant Spices too which I am curious to try it out soon.

So far I have tried only two of their "Broth & Soup" products which are "Singapore Bak Kuet Teh"(click HERE) and "Herbal Chicken Soup"(click HERE) that I have shared in my previous posts.

But they do have other products under this range are:- Scallop Shark's Fin Soup, Buddha Jump Over the Wall Soup and Seafood Hotpot which acts as a great helper for festive season meal. Or you might prefer something healthier to build up the family members immune system such as trying their "Nutritious Black Chicken Soup".

Seah's spices also have a range of "Deep-fried food" spices which can be use either as a batter or seasoning for deep-fried stuffs. The sample that I have over here are:- Five-Spices Fried Chicken Spices, Spicy Fried Chicken Spices, Prawn-Flavoured Fried Chicken Spices and Fried Crispy Prawn Spices.

If you prefer some hot and spicy flavour from their products, then these "Stir-Fried Food" range will be great for a choice. Honestly speaking, I have not try any of these before and I am surprised to see some of these spices too. Here you can find:- Pepper Salt Prawn Spices, Black Pepper Crab Spices, Black Pepper Spices(Beef/Chicken) and Curry Chicken Spices.

Until I found these in the gift pack, I didn't know that Seah's also have their very own "Desserts & Beverages" products such as Red Beans Dessert with Orange Peel, Ginseng Chrysanthemum Powder and Creamy Corn Coconut Dessert Powder.

Dear Readers,

I would like to share my joy on some of these special Seah's Spices that I have received with those who is interested in trying these prodcuts. So in this "Giveaway" a lucky reader will have a chance to pick any 5 packets of the above spices that I have shared in the above-mentioned post.

If you are interested to participate in this "Giveaway", what you need to do is just leave your NAME and a comment tag of "I'll love to try these Seah's Spices!" before 2359 hours, 31 July 2010 and I will pick a lucky reader on 01st August 2010 using an online randomiser.

Till then, have fun and join in the Giveaway!!!!! Who know you might be the next "person" like me to be spotted by SEAH's SPICES on using/sharing their products and be rewarded with some of their freebies too :p

p/s: Overseas readers are also welcome to join in this Giveaway too!

Cuisine Paradise - 美食天堂 @ OMY Blog

Together with another 11 invited Singapore Blog Awards Bloggers from OMY such as Silver Ang - Modeling , Zhou Yiwei - Food, Leonny Atmadja - photographing and etc. We are all so excited to start another new blogging journey with this big family. And all these 12 new blogs have being officially launched on last Friday, 16 July 2010 with some news of it published on local media such as MyPaper, Straits Times, and etc.

In my OMY blog, I will be sharing some of the “random” posts I published over here at my main blog and sometime I do look out for “Special” post that it only available at my OMY blog too. Here is the link @ http://blog.omy.sg/ellenaguan/ do drop by and take a look.

"莲藕花生鸡脚汤 - Lotus, Peanut & Chicken Feet Soup" is my 1st Chinese written post ever since in my 5½ years of blogging journey which I would like to delicate to the Chinese Readers from my main blog or as well as the new OMY domain.

St. Bridget of Sweden

St. Bridget (Birgitta) of Sweden (1303-1373)
Feast Day: July 23rd

Like so many saints that we are privileged to learn about, St. Bridget of Sweden has a fascinating story.  When she was only seven years old, Bridget had a vision of the Virgin Mary~The first of a lifetime of mystical visions and revelations. She was the mother of eight children, later widowed and devoted her life to Christian charity.  She started the Brigittine order for monks and nuns that still exists today.  You may read more about her revelations here or here and her fifteen prayers here.


One of my dear brother-in-laws is from Sweden so I consulted him for an authentic Swedish dish and dessert to contribute here.  He offered this recipe for Swedish Meatballs and Swedish Chocolate Cookies for dessert! This is Mark's mother's recipe for Swedish Meatballs that he gave me permission to share:

Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
Qtr of a yellow onion (finely chopped)
Heavy whipping cream (3-4 Tbsp- half a cup)
1/2 C bread crumbs
2 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of Allspice
Butter (1/2 stick real Euro butter if you can find it) If not, any butter will suffice

Note: Butter is used for frying the meatballs

_____________________________________________________________________________
To serve with Swedish Meatballs:
Boiled potatoes or Egg Noodles
Lingonberries (Optional)

Mix all ingredients together (minus butter) in large bowl. Lightly wet hands(to prevent sticking) and roll meat balls into desired shape. Place meatballs on parchment paper or plate. If the meat is too dry, add more heavy whipping cream. If it is too wet, add more bread crumbs.

Melt butter in frying pan under medium heat and place meatballs in the pan.  Mark suggests frying the meatballs "slow and low with generous amounts of butter."  The estimated time is 15-20 minutes.  The meat should not be red or pink when they are done but have a bit of a crust to them.

Once meatballs are done, take them out of the pan. (Do not drain!)

Gravy or Sauce:
To make the gravy, add 2-3 Tbsp. heavy whipping cream to the brothy, buttery pan drippings.  Cook to boil and the sauce should thicken to a brownish color.  Remove from heat and add the meatballs back to the pan to cover with the sauce.

Mark mentioned that Swedes serve this with boiled potatoes (with fresh dill if possible) or mashed potatoes.  You may also use egg noodles.  Many Swedes also add Lingonberries, spooned a long with this dish.

Important Note: If you are lacking time, your local grocery store carries a packet to help!  We have used this one in our home and it is quite easy and tasty!

Then try these No Bake Swedish Chocloate Cookies for Dessert!

Swedish Chocolate Cookies (Chokladbollar)

~Serves 15~

1 1/2 C quick-cooking oatmeal
1/4 C sugar
6 Tbsp butter, softened
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp strong coffee, cooled (may substitute with chocolate milk)
coconut, sprinkles, pearl sugar for decorating

Combine butter, sugar, oats, cocoa powder, vanilla, and coffee. Roll into balls about the size of a meatball. Roll balls in coconut or desired sprinkles to decorate. Eat right away or refrigerate. Freeze the cookies if you prefer a harder consistency. Enjoy!

Lord God, You revealed heavenly secrets to St. Bridget as she meditated on the Passion of Your Son. Grant that we, Your servants, may attain the joyful contemplation of Your glory. Amen.

~St. Bridget, please pray for us!~

Magdalenas for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen

The following recipes in honor of the upcoming feast of St. Mary Magdalen, which is celebrated on July 22nd, were submitted by Amy Eastman from Tampa, Florida. Thank you Amy!

"Magdalenas” are small sweet cakes that are rich-tasting, but light and fluffy. The Spanish traditionally eat them at breakfast with "café con leche," and they are said to have originated in Aragón. "Magdalenas" are not often prepared in homes today, but are sold in supermarkets and bakeries everywhere. These little cakes would be a great addition to any breakfast or a Sunday champagne brunch.

Magdalenas

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 4 oz. stick unsalted butter
1 2/3 cups unbleached white flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
zest from 1 lemon
1 Tbsp milk
Preparation:

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Centigrade). Measure 1/4 cup sugar into small bowl and set aside.

In a medium-size mixing bowl, beat the eggs with 3/4 cup sugar. Beat until the mixture is light.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter on medium on the stove top. Or, melt it in the microwave. Make sure that the butter cools slightly and is not bubbling. As you continue to beat the egg mixture, slowly pour in the melted butter, making sure to mix thoroughly. Stir in the lemon zest and milk.

Measure out the flour into a separate bowl. Add the baking powder to the flour and mix thoroughly.

While stirring the egg mixture, add in the flour mixture. Continue to stir until all ingredients are mixed well. The batter will be very thick.

Place paper liners in to cupcake pan. Use a large serving spoon to spoon batter into pan, filling each one half full. Batter will more than double in size when baked. Use a teaspoon to sprinkle each magdalena with a bit of the reserved sugar.

Place pans on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until magdalenas have turned a golden color. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before taking out of the pan to cool further.

Serves 9. Yield is 18 magdalenas.


The following is a more authentic recipe for the Magdalenas...it's the olive oil that makes this recipe more authentic, but the taste is a little different. My tastebuds like butter better! This recipe is also from the Poor Clares of Santa Ana convent, thus even more authentic!

Magdalena Sponge-Cakes

Ingredients:

2 eggs
3 cups extra fine sugar
2 cups of milk
2 cups of mild extra virgin olive oil
6 scant cups of flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Arrange 2 dozen cupcake paper liners on baking trays.

Beat the eggs and sugar together in a food processor to give a pale yellow batter that leaves ribbon trails.

Stir in the other ingredients, alternating the milk and oil with the flour to avoid curdling, and beat well again.

Spoon into the paper cups, but no more than two-thirds full to leave space for rising. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden and risen.

Servings: Makes about 2 dozen magdalenas

Other ideas for the feast of St. Mary Magdalen can be found here! 

Carmelite Sundaes

Yesterday my family celebrated the lives of sixteen Carmelite sisters who died as martyrs during the French Revolution, in Compiegne, France.

Sixteen Carmelite sisters were taken from their convent in Compiegne in northeastern France when their convent was seized by the government. Eventually they were imprisoned and on July 17, the day after the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, they were taken to their death, by guillotine. It is said, they rode in carts to the place where they would be put to death, singing: the "Miserer," "Salve Regina," and "Te Deum," and as they stood at the foot of the guillotine they sang "Veni Creator Spiritus." (You can read the complete story here.)

They turned the bitter, hideous, unjust death by guillotine into sweet martyrdom with their beautiful faith in God. In their honor I made caramel sauce for ice cream sundaes with nothing but heat and white sugar. Just a few moments before the heat turns the sugar into a bitter, acrid substance, it turns it into sweet, molten caramel, just as the Carmelite martyrs turned their bitter death into something joyful and glorious.

This recipe for caramel sauce is most amazing. It is nothing but sugar and water and heat. You can certainly used jarred caramel sauce to make your sundaes, but I love the magic of taking burned sugar and turning into something sweet and decadent.

This recipe for caramel sauce can be used for any Carmelite feast day, like Our Lady of Mt. Carmel...St. Teresa of Avila...St. Therese of Lisieux...St. Mary Magdalen di Pazzi...St. John of the Cross. There are many and a list can be found here.







Use this Caramel Sauce over chocolate or vanilla ice cream -- or go all caramel and use caramel swirl. Top with whipped cream, cherries and chopped nuts, if desired.

Caramel Sauce

1 cup sugar
water

In a small saucepan, combine sugar and 1/4 cup water and place over medium-high heat. Without stirring, very gently swirl the pan until a clear syrup forms. It is important that the syrup clarify before it boils, so move the pan off and back on the heat if necessary. After the sugar dissolves, raise the heat to high and bring the syrup to a rolling boil; cover the pan tightly and boil for 2 minutes. Uncover the pan and cook the syrup until it begins to darken around the edges. Gently swirl the pan by the handle and cook the syrup until it turns a deep amber and begins to smoke -- stop before it becomes red or mahogany. Remove from the heat. Standing back (take one giant step backward and cover your hand with a towel or hot pad -- it's going to spatter) add 1/3 cup water, then stir until smooth. If the caramel remains lumpy, stir briefly over low heat. Cool for 5 to 10 minutes, then serve over ice cream.

Source: modified from The Joy of Cooking

Scapular Cookies for Our Lady of Mt Carmel

This is my fourth year of making scapular cakes for the feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel and I have in turn been greatly inspired by other ladies creations in the last couple of years, so that my creation for each year, changes slightly with the continued inspiration I receive with ladies sharing their edible scapulars.

I was greatly impressed with Jackie Rosario's Children's Scapular Cake this year and I love Ruth's Scapular Brownies from last year. So this year I wanted to mix the two ideas together as well as keeping it simple for myself with very busy days at present. So my scapular cookies are made from store bought chocolate chip cookies and are particularly for mothers who want to whip up something quickly and on the run, rather than putting in the extra time of personal cooking. (Of course you could bake chocolate cookies if you wanted to.)

It was easy and quick to cut a rectangle out of each cookie.

The other nice thing with using cookies, they are nice and flat, very much like the thickness of a good, strong scapular!

I used store bought blue and white icing sugar tubes and black licorice straps. I used a stanly knife, with a very sharp blade for cutting the black straps of licorice into long scapular straps.

This is the image of the Children's Scapular that Jackie Rosario had used, it is a really lovely image for a brown scapular.

I used the blue icing sugar first and drew the 'M' ~ then I used the white icing to place in the 'A' between the M. I found this really easy and not terribly time consuming, I ended up making 12 scapulars and the icing work was not tedious.

...and they tasted fantastic!!

Singapore Blog Awards 2010

Finally the long waiting time has past after months of rallying and almost a month of voting for all nominated categories. This year the Singapore Blog Awards 2010 by Omy finally took place at Movida, St. James Power Station.

The event held on last Saturday, 10 July 2010 from around 4:00pm to 6.30pm. Although the weather was pretty cloudy but it doesn't seems to affect all the finalists and their guests. Look everyone is busying at the reception counter doing registration, photographing and accept interviews.

As a food blogger, "Food" is always the first thing I look for before exploring around the surrounding. This year, there is two buffet lines provided by "Orange Clove".

Look at these yummy finger food such as:- Cottage Pie, Ebi Fry, Sausage, Sushi, Mussels, Mango & Prawn cocktail and etc. For desserts, there are full of varieties from different kind of cheesecakes and chocolate mousse.

My first time seeing "绝对Superstar" Silver Ang in real person singing "美丽笨女人". She is also one of the 10 finalist in "Best Modeling" and during the event, she won the most "Likes" from the audience and won the "Modeling Showcase" competition.

"The Ultimate Bling" is another event that needs the audience participation. The one who has the most number of "I Like" stickers win a trip to Phuket resort.

The Guest-of-Honour for today's event is Mr Teo Ser Luck whom is a Member of Parliament (MP) for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC. He is also the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and Ministry of Transport, as well as the Mayor, North East Community Development Council.

These are the winners for the 10 nominated categories. More details of the winner can be found at Omy official website HERE.

Look at these "I Like" stickers, each of us are give 3 of this stickers to vote for the participants for "Modeling Showcase", "Head Turner" and "The Ultimate Bling".

Another game that we played during the Blog Awards is this "BLOGO" game where we need to match a straight line on card base on the given name shown on the TV screen.

Although this year "Cuisine Paradise" did not win the "Best Food Blog" award but I am really very grateful to everyone of you who has voted me daily on this events and I hope to do my best in the future to share with everyone more recipes and posts. And this year "Best Food Blog" goes to Catherine from www.camemberu.com, you can take a look at her very informative blog on those yummy food reviews and interesting posts. Once again, congratulation Catherine!!!! You deserved this award :)