Two New Awards！

I got 2 more awards from Tina of Pinay In Texas Cooking Corner on 23rd May 2011！ She is a Philipina, stay-at-home-mom of 2 lovely girls living in Texas together with her loving and supportive husband. She can cook a lot of yummy Filipino Cuisine and Non-Filipino Cuisine. She's a very nice and friendly lady. Check out her beautiful blog if you haven't do so！

The first time, also my very first time getting awards during these 3 months of my blogging life, she gave me a total of 8 Awards！ This is the second time she awarded me and I'm totally lost for words when I checked out on the post that she asked me to！Thank you very very much TINA! Thank you for being so sweet, kind and generous to me. I truly feel so honored, so happy to receive these 2 lovely awards and greatly appreciated that you always think of me, visiting and leaving nice compliments in my blog to encourage me！
I totally agreed with her that it's not easy making friends here in the blogging world. Personally, I feel that the blog space is too big, although having the same interests don't mean having the same wavelength to click right away and sometimes it all depends on fate. Are we fated to be friends or just acquaintances? Sometimes it also depends on the efforts and sincerities that you show in trying to change your relationships from acquaintances to true friends. 

Most Deserved Award

2011 Beautiful Blog Award

Presently I wish to share my happiness and awards with 3 new friends that I got to know recently. Hopefully there will be more new friends in future that I can share with them！ The 3 friends are ( in random order) : 

• CG of Cooking Gallery 
• Nami of Just One Cookbook 
• KEcker of Photos and Thoughts of My Home Cooked Meals+some restaurant ones thrown in

CG, I believe most of you knew her. She's a young lady living in Germany who has got the passion for cooking, decorating cakes and cute bentos. I really love all her works, they're so impressive！Even my Mom who saw her works kept going WOW！WOW！She is really creative and talented in decorating her foods. 
Nami, she is a Japanese living in San Francisco, a friendly, beautiful mom of 2 beautiful kids, who loves cooking delicious food for her family shares all her authentic Japanese dishes recipes clearly with step-by-step pictures. I love all her dishes because I'm a Japanese food fanatic and so are both my girls！
KEcker, also a Japanese living in Los Angeles, CA, US with her husband is a friendly, cheerful-looking lady who is passionate about food. She loves sharing recipes of her own style of cooking which I find them very attractive and worth trying out！

Lovey Dovey Tortoise Couple Bento-Butter Fried Rice Recipe

Finally I starts to make Bento again this Tuesday, 24th May after resting for about 2 weeks due to Messy's exams period but after this week maybe I'll be stopping again because Friday is the last day of school and it'll be the June long school holiday for Messy.  Unless I make for Cheeky as there's no school holidays for the ChildCare Centres.  (She keep complaining that her sister is so good to have school holidays yet she doesn't) Next year she'll have it, I told her.
There were some left-over rice on Monday night so I told Messy I'd fried rice for her the next day. Actually I wanted to cook oyster sauce fried rice (I tried once which my mom-in-law taught me and it was so nice！) for her but I accidentally added too much butter while frying so decided to change at the very last minute. It turned out nice！

Cheeky's Butter Fried Rice Bento with Lovey Dovey Tortoise Couple

Messy's Butter Fried Rice Bento with Tortoise Fishcake and 2 Heart Sausages 

Closed up view of the Tortoise Fishcake

Now let me give a short, quick recipe on my Butter Fried Rice because I find that it has a very nice buttery taste and aroma.


    Ingredients for 2-4 Pax :

• 2 Cups Cooked Rice (Preferably over-night rice so it won't be soggy when you fried it)
• 2 Tbsps Light Soya Sauce
• 4-6 Tbsps Butter (Depending on how buttery you prefer)
• 3 Eggs Beaten (Lightly seasoned with Light Soya Sauce and a dash of white pepper)
• 1/2 Small Bowl of Frozen Mixed Veggies
• 4 Imitation Crabsticks (Sliced Thinly)
• 1/2 Packet of Streaky Bacons (Cut into 1CM wide)
• A dash of pepper to Taste

    How to Cook :

1. Dry fried the streaky bacons on medium heat for about 1 min. Set aside on a plate with kitchen paper on it to absorb excess oil.
2. Heat up the wok on low-medium heat, add 1 tbsp of butter and let it melt. Pour in beaten eggs and scramble a little once it started to set. 
3. Pour cooked rice on top of scrambled eggs and add in 5 tbsps of butter, turn up the heat to medium-high and mixed all well.
4. Add in mixed veggies, imitation crabsticks and bacons. Stir-fry 1 min, turn heat down to low, add light soya sauce, a dash of pepper and mixed all well.

This is my own version of Butter Fried Rice and both the girls love it！Hope you enjoy this too！

Spicy Stewed Bitter Gourd with Porkbelly Recipe

My Mom cooked this on 16th May, Monday. All of us, me, my hubby and especially my Dad find this very delicious！ Messy, who can consider as 80% vegan, obviously don't like this. The few types of meat she eats are minced pork, fried pork and chicken that's all. Worse when she was younger！ONLY minced pork that's it！Imagine she would order a plate of chicken rice W/O chicken meat！LOL 
As for Cheeky, she's more of an omnivore but also depends on her mood. She LOVES roasted duck and chicken drumsticks, will request not to chop into smaller pieces because she says it's more delicious to hold the drumsticks and bite off the meat！ Talking about this, there was one incident that happened few months back in Cheeky's school. She bit one of her classmates on her arm while watching TV show all of a sudden with no reason！ When I reached her school, the teacher on duty told me about that and I was like "OMG！ Not again！" I asked the teacher how's the little girl, was it serious, why did Cheeky do that? She told me it's minor, she had already applied some medication for her and the teeth's mark had subsided (PHEW！I was relieved to hear that！) but still not really sure of the reason as both of them don't wanna say. Teacher also mentioned that the girl dare not tell her when it happened, instead she told her softly when she went to the toilet！I WISHED THERE'S A HOLE RIGHT THERE！Is my girl really such a terror and a big bully！?  I asked Cheeky "Baby, why did you bite your friend?" She replied giggling "I thought it's a drumstick..." "DRUMSTICK??? Are you really that HUNGRRRRY???" Still giggling "No... I just thought that it's a drumstick..." What kinda reason was that！?  I was trying very hard not to laugh out and asked for the little girl, made sure that the bite was really not serious and made Cheeky apologized to her friend right in front of everyone. Telling them if she ever do that again, Mommy will pull out ALL her teeth！
That's not the first time Cheeky bite her friends and it can be very serious, this is why I'm very scared if I ever heard any complains from the school on this. Lucky from the day on, no such things happen again. 
So sorry for my long long grandmother's story about my Cheeky. Let's go straight to my Mom's Spicy Stewed Bitter Gourd with Porkbelly now！

Spicy Stewed Bitter Gourd with Porkbelly

    Ingredients for 4-6 Pax :

• 1 Big Bitter Gourd 
• 500g Porkbelly (About 2 thick strips)
• 1 Clove Garlic (Crushed with skin on)
• 1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
• 1 Tbsp Sugar
• 1/2 Tsp Salted Minced Bean Paste (You can use chilli bean paste if you prefer it more spicy)
• 1-2 Small Chillies (Cut thinly) Optional
• Little Light Soya Sauce to Taste
• 1 Big Bowl of Water

    How To Cook :

1. Cut the bitter gourd into half lengthwise and take out the seeds using a spoon. Rinse clean, cut half lengthwise again and then into big pieces. Sprinkle some salt on cut bitter gourd, mixed well and leave on for about 20 mins, rinse off and drained. This is to make sure the bitter gourd is not too bitter. 
2. Boil a small pot of water and 'wash' the porkbelly inside for a few mins. Take out, use a small knife to scrape the skin (you'll notice there is some white substance on the knife) and remove hairs if any. Rinse clean and cut into 1 inch thick.
3. Use little oil on low heat in a non-stick pan, fry crushed garlic awhile, add in minced garlic, minced bean paste, cut chillies and sugar. Mixed well until browned.
4. Add in porkbelly and stir fry for about 5 mins on medium heat.
5. Next, add in bitter gourd and fry together for about 2-3 mins. If there is some liquid appear, cover for 1 min on low heat.
6. Add in 1 big bowl of water, some light sauce to taste if necessary. Transfer all into a crock pot if you have. Bring to boil.
7. Cover and let it simmer on low heat for about half an hr or until the porkbelly is tender. (Personally I prefer the skin of the porkbelly to be very tender, so usually I'll simmer for at least 45 mins.)
8. Serve hot with plain rice.

Bitter gourd is known to helps in Diabetes and according to my parents, it helps to reduce body heatiness so whenever the weather gets too humid continuously for few days, we'll cook the bitter gourd soup with some meat for some flavor in soup and beaten eggs so that it's not so plain.    

Paper Wrap Chicken Recipe

Since I'm not making any bentos for the girls lately, I take this chance to try out those new recipes awaiting for me！One of them is this Paper Wrap Chicken that I'm going to share with you today. I got this recipe from a monthly magazine that was mailed to my helper and it has got a section whereby they'll publish 'Recipe of The Month' and I presumed these recipes are from other helpers who wanna share out. 
Before I started on the recipe, let me share with you a Lunch Punch Giveaway from Alice (Angeleyes) of Bento Fun. Rules for participating are very simple so check it out in her blog if you're interested. Who knows, you may be the lucky winner... Of course I've already submitted mine！
Ok, now let's get down with the recipe.

This may look burnt but it's not... The greaseproof paper prevent the chicken from being burned and makes the marinade caramelizes onto the chicken.

    Ingredients For 4-6 Pax :

• 500g Chicken Wings (About 10)
• 10 Pieces of Greaseproof paper (18cm x 18cm)
• Oil For Deep Frying

    Marinade :

• 3 Tbsps Light Soya Sauce
• 3 Tbsps Oyster Sauce
• 2 Tbsps Sesame Oil
• 2 Tbsps Chinese Cooking Wine (花雕酒)
• 1 Tbsp Cornflour
• 3 Tsps Sugar
• Dash of White Pepper

    How To Cook :

1. Marinate chicken and leave in fridge for 3-4 hrs. Stir again during half the marinating time to make sure all parts are well marinated.
2. Take a piece of greaseproof paper, place one wing in the middle. Fold paper over the wing diagonally to form a large triangle. Fold in both side corners towards the center, then fold down the top corner and tuck it in securely under the two corner folds. Make sure the packets are well sealed so that no oil will seeps in.
3. Using medium heat, deep-fry the chicken wings about 6 at a time so as not to overcrowd the wok, stirring occasionally until packets turn golden brown.
4. Drain on kitchen paper and serve hot with rice.

I cooked this on 14th May, Saturday. All my family members like this new recipe of the chicken wings and requested me to cook again the next day！ I dare not cook too much on first try as I'm afraid that it won't turn out nice and there'll be left-overs. 

More Bento Tools( AGAIN！?)

Hahaha... More bento tools again！ I got all these from J-Mama & Baby, ordered in conjunction with another friend. Actually they already arrived quite some time back but because they're with my cousin and both of us didn't meet up for the past few weeks due to busying with the kids' exams preparations etc... So I just leave with her and let her use first. My cousin tried using the Hello Kitty Bread/Rice Mold to make pancakes (it's stated this can be used for bread, rice, mashed potato, pancakes) but so sad it didn't turned out nice, maybe because she's not using non-stick pan. I think my bento posts will be stopping soon as the long school holidays (1 mth) are here in another 2 weeks time from now, but I'll try my best to do some if the girls want or maybe I can just do some bento lunches for them at home！

4 Different Designs of Silicone Chocolate Molds 

Sandwich Cutters with 4 Designs in a set.

Left : Hello Kitty and Pooh Bear Bread/Rice Molds
Right : 2 different sets of Cute Food Cutters 

Leaf and Heart Cute Food Picks + 3 Different Sizes of Egg Food Cups that come with Food picks in a set

Are these going to be my LAST orders of bento tools??? I'm already trying my very best to control myself on my impulsive buyings of all these！ But I had been wanted to get some cute mini punchers from Carla Craft... LOL

Rolled Roti Prata with Egg Bento

I made this bento for Messy on 10th May, Tuesday morning. She requested for roti prata (frozen) with egg. I think she must be craving for that because she hasn't had it for MONTHS！She used to eat roti prata ALMOST EVERYDAY for breakfast or even suppers sometimes！No wonder she's growing wider and wider, we always tease her ( SO BAD！) 

Messy's Rolled Roti Prata with Egg Bento + Side of 'Seafood' Sausages.    

I learned to do the Crap from Pikko of Adventures in BentoMaking. As I don't have any plain Kamaboko (can't find it here in SG), I just used sausages to try out my luck if I'm able to make the Crap since Messy wanted to have some of it in her bento. Haha lucky I succeeded！ 

First, I cut the sausages into 3 parts, then cut half lengthwise for each part. Next, I cut a 'V' at the end for the tail and lastly, I boiled the sausages. Hope you have fun making the crap too！Here's Pikko's Crap Tutorial link. 

This Roti Prata with Egg, Iceberg Lettuce, Ham and Crabsticks topped with Mayo was Messy's breakfast on 28th Feb.

This was Cheeky's...

and this was my Hubby's. Deliberately did a funny face for him with the mayo to make his day when he woke up. Hee...