Parents World Nov - Dec 2009 Issue

Finally got my copy of Nov - Dec issue of Parents World. A few weeks ago, I heard from Daniel (the editor) that Angelina Jolie will be on the cover page and some fabulous updates will incorporate in this upcoming issue. So I was really very excited and eagerly looking forward to get my copy. If you are a Fan of Angelina Jolie, then you sure will want to grab a copy of this to read more about her and her family life :)

In this issue, they share a lot of interesting and useful information i.e. Best of the Best Enrichment & Learning Schools for busy mum like us. It actually gives us some guidelines on what each enrichment school provides and help us to make the right choice for our child to attend their classes during coming school holiday. There about 20 over pages on the top enrichment schools in town and some discount vouchers will be given to Parents World Readers too..... :)

Other than choosing the best enrichment school for your kids, you can also read about the WILD & WET land at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. Tips on taking charge of your child's health and what are the area to look for. You can also find some interesting read up on "Household Tips - Clean well with toothpaste", "Planned & Unplanned C-Section" and etc......

Lastly, you can also take a glimpse on some of my recipes contribution at "Dish Up Your Own" page. From stir-fry, oven bake to steaming dish...... these are some of the easy to whip-up recipes that can satisfy you and your family taste bubs.

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Double-Boiled LingZhi Soup

It has being a long time since the last time I made this "Ling Zhi - 灵芝" Soup. We used to have this at least once a month which is recommend by the Chinese physician. You can even make this soup in different version by manipulate with the ingredients as per your preference.

Lingzhi (Ganoderma lucidum) is a woody mushroom highly regarded in traditional medicine and is widely consumed in the belief that it promotes health and longevity, lowers the risk of cancer and heart disease and boosts the immune system. So in the double-boiled version of mine, I used the above ingredients such as Red Dates, Dried Longan, Wolfberries, Honey Dates, Hard-boiled Egg and Ling Zhi Slices.

Red Date (红枣): It is a blood tonic, that can be widely used with other ingredients to nourish the body.

Dried Longan (桂圆肉): It influences the heart and spleen channels. Calms the spirit, nourishes the blood and strengthens the spleen. Commonly used to treat heart palpitations, insomnia, forgetfulness, worrisome tendencies and overwork.

Wolfberries (枸杞子): It strengthens body and bones, supplements kidneys and energy, nurses liver and clarifies eyes. It also cultivates energy and aids yang bodies moistness lungs and stops coughing. Other than use it as a soup ingredient, it can be used as a condiment in frying dishes or used to make tea. Choose Qizi which are full and with bright colour.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)
5g Ling Zhi Slices
10g Dried Longan
5g Wolfberries
8 - 10 Big Red Dates
Honey Dates (金丝蜜枣)
2 Hard-boiled Egg, removed shell
800ml Water
1 Knot of Pandan Leave, optional

Method:
1. Place the uncooked eggs in a small saucepan and bring to boil, then simmer for about 5 -7 minutes, remove from pan, rinse and peel off the shell then set aside.
2. Rinse all the herbs ingredients then place them (except the wolfberries) in the pot of boiling water (800ml) and simmer together with the pandan leave for about 3 minutes.
3. Add in the eggs and bring to boil again then transfer the mixture to a ceramic pot.
4. As usual, I always place the ceramic pot into the slow-cooker and cook on Auto for about 2 hours. (you can take a look a the sample HERE)
3. Add in the wolfberries at the very last 30 minutes of cooking time.

Note:
~ You can replace the hard-boiled eggs to a few quail eggs if you prefer a small portion.
~ If you find the taste a bit too bitter for your linking, you can add some rock sugar to sweet it.


Nothing is more heartwarming then a bowl of homemade soup after a long day of work. And during this flu bugs season, it good that you can whip up something simple and yet good for your healthy. You can consume this soup either before bedtime or in the morning and serve it as breakfast. The nature of this soup will taste a bit bitter due to the adding of Ling Zhi so do not overdose it in the ingredients portion. The adding of the hard-boiled egg also add extra protein to this soup.

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Purple Wheat Noodles - Part II

This is a continuation exploring on the new "Purple Wheat Noodles" which I have bought yesterday. After sharing with you the "dry" version on making the colourful Noodles Salad(recipe here) with this "new product". So today I decided to use it to make a Hong Kong Style Soup Noodles with luncheon meat (spam), vegetable and a sunny-side up egg.

This is a very simple and easy way to prepared Instant Noodles in a more nutritious and at the same time you can present it similar to restaurant style. All you need are some simple ingredients which you might be able to find from your kitchen fridge and pantry. Look at the texture and colour of this "Purple Wheat Noodles" isn't it look great for any combination. The noodles itself taste great with a spongy texture if you don't over-cooked it.

Here we goes:-
~ Any type of Instant Noodles
~ Few Slices of Luncheon Meat/Spam
~ Sunny-Side Up Egg/Hard-boiled Egg
~ Some Green Vegetable
~ Stock Cubes/Instant Stock

Method:
1. Cook the instant noodle according to the packet instructions, when done, rinse and set aside. (the purpose of rinsing is to present the noodles from sticking together)
2. Prepared the egg according to your preference, then pan-fry the Luncheon Meat/Spam for 1 or 2 minutes on each side.
3. Prepare another pot of water, add in stock cubes or use instant stock.
4. Bring to boil, blanched the vegetable in it for a few second, remove and set aside.
5. Arrange the noodles in a bowl or soup plate, scoop in some soup base, top with vegetables, Luncheon, Egg and serve immediately.

Note:
~ You can swap with any other ingredients that you prefer instead of Luncheon meat or egg.

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Purple Wheat Noodles Salad

As we have late and heavy Lunch today, I decided to whip up something light, simple but vibrant in colour. So this is what we have for our Special weekend Dinner Menu. With my "new ingredient" that I managed to grab from one of the Supermarket, I can't wait to try out this "new products" from KOKA Noodles.

I was attracted to an advertisement on Friday, 23 Oct 2009 in the TODAY newspaper introducing on this new Purple Wheat Noodles from KOKA. I was immediately captured by the word "PURPLE WHEAT" and I am also curious about the actual colour and texture of the noodles. According to the advertisement, the promotion will last for a week which you can read more at this link HERE.

After grabbing a packet of this Purple Wheat Noodles which is 1 of the 3 packets left on the shelf. Rey and I starts to look around for other ingredients to prepare our Dinner. Since this noodle is purplish in colour, I decided to use it to make a Colourful Salad Noodles Dish. Rey suggests to grab a pack of cherry tomato and breakfast ham while I think some curl lettuce will do a great job to enhance the colour and add extra crunch.

Other than the salad ingredients, I also made some garlic oil to act as the salad dressing.

Ingredients For Garlic Oil:
50ml Of Olive Oil
4 - 5 Cloves Of Garlic

Method:
1. Preheat a small saucepan with drizzle of olive oil, then add in the garlic cloves and saute it till fragrant.
2. Pour in the remaining olive oil and saute the garlic till slight golden brown, dish up and set aside for later use.


Ingredient For Salad: (serves 2)
2 Individual Packet of Koka Purple Wheat Noodles
4 Slices of Breakfast Ham
2 Hard-boiled Egg, halves
8 Cherry Tomato, halves
50g Fresh/Frozen Corn Kernel, blanched
Some Salad Lettuce
2 Tablespoons Garlic Oil

Method:
1. Cook the eggs in a small saucepan under medium-low heat for about 4 - 6 minutes from the time the water boiled.
2. Removed from heat, rinse and peel off the shell then cut into halves and set aside.
3. Bring another pot of water to boil, cook the instant noodles according to the packet instruction, rinse with cool water and set aside. (rinse with cool water to stop the noodle from further cooking and also to make it taste spongy)
4. You can either blanched the Ham with boiling water or you can pan-fry it under low heat for about 30 second on each side with some Olive oil.
5. Next, drizzle 1 to 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil on the cooked noodles, toss it well with the blanched corn kernel and cut tomato.
6. To assemble the dish, place some lettuce on the plate, place the noodles mixture on it.
7. Top with ham, hard-boiled egg and you can drizzle some extra garlic oil and serve it warm.


So after seeing this Noodles Salad, do you have the urge to try making some for yourself? This is indeed a very healthy and nutritious dish, if you can't find any Purple Wheat Noodles, don't worry, you can always replaced it with whatever you have in your pantry.

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Curry Chicken With Longan & Pineapple

Since this is the Deepavali week holiday and last week I have being invited for a Curry Sampling at CURRY ON! I think maybe I can share a simple and healthy Curry Recipe with everyone here. So what come in your mind when you read the heading of the post and see the photo. LONGAN + PINEAPPLE + CURRY ? ? ? ? ? ? = NICE?

From the ingredients here, you can see that it doesn't required any coconut milk or cream. All you need to get is these simple and healthy stuff which can satisfy your taste buds on curry and also help you to watch your waistline. The main ingredient that provide the fragrance is the Kaffir Lime Leaves which makes give this dish a very refreshing taste and fragrant. I have use this leaf to cook another Chicken Dish a few years back. You can click on this link for more details.

The Longan used in this recipe is from can which contain syrup, you can easily grab a can of this Longan in syrup in any supermarket or convenient store.

You will be surprised with the taste of this dish, it is something like a cross taste between Sambal and Tom Yum Chicken. It is very easy to prepared without much hassle. All you need is to cut the chicken breast meat into cubes, marinate with instant curry paste. Furthermore you can even use canned pineapple to replace the fresh type. Overall, this is a very refreshing dish because the gravy is infuse with Kaffir Lime leave aroma and Longan. It is an very appetising dish that goes well with steam rice.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
2 Tablespoons of Thai Red Curry Paste
1 Chicken Breast Meat, cut into cubes
1 Slice of Fresh Pineapple, cut into cubes
15 Longan In Syrup
2 Tablespoons of Sryup, from the longan can
1 Tomato, cut into wedges
2 Small Red Onion, cut into wedges
1/2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
4 Small Kaffir Lime Leaves, shredded

Methods:
1. Clean and trim the fat from the chicken breast, cut it into about 2" cubes.
2. Marinate the chicken with about 1 teaspoon of Thai red chilli paste and 1/2 teaspoon of light soy sauce for about 10 minutes.
3. Heat up a small saucepan with olive oil, saute the onion till fragrant.
4. Next add in half of the tomato wedges and some shredded kaffir lime leave then continue to stir-fry for another 15 second or so.
5. Spoon in the remaining chilli paste and continue to saute until fragrance then add in the marinated chicken cubes and fry till the meat is cooked through.
6. Next add in the pineapple cubes, longan, remaining tomato wedges and give it a good stir till combined.
7. Lastly stir in 2 tablespoons of syrup juice from the longan can and bring the mixture to boil for about 10 seconds.
8. Dish up and served with some balanced broccoli and steam rice.



Note:
~ You can get those instant Thai Red Chilli Paste by "Asian Home Gourmet" in most supermarket.

You can served this as a side dish or as a individual Main Course like those in the restaurant with steam rice. This is the 2nd time I tried using Longan as a ingredient in the dish. The other dish which I used Longan is "Stir-fry Pork Fillet with Longan" which you might be interested to take a look too :)

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