Y-Lyn's Journal...... Of Food, Fun & Travel =): December 2013

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Easy-to-bake Pasta using Perfect Italiano Perfect Bakes

Recently, I bought a pack of "Perfect Italiano Perfect Bakes" to try baking pasta after being inspired by food bloggers such as Keropokman, Camemberu and Melicacy who had tried out simple receipes using Perfect Italiano cheese and shared their cooking experiences on their blogs. For "Perfect Bakes", it contains three cheeses blended to give pasta bakes, vegetable bakes and lasagne a superior flavour and delicious golden crust.

The pack came along with a small recipe booklet which gives us many simple but good ideas on the different dishes that we can whip up with Perfect Italiano cheese.

Basically, these are the ingredients required other than the Perfect Italiano Perfect Bakes cheese, cooking cream, pasta and tomato pasta sauce.

To cook the pasta, normally I will add quite a bit of salt and a bit of olive oil.

Saute the onion and garlic with olive oil, then add in the mushrooms and turkey ham.

Tomato Pasta Sauce and Cooking Cream were added next to the ingredients.

When the pasta was cooked, I added the pasta to the sauce and mixed them well.

Transfer the pasta into a baking pan and top it with Perfect Italiano Perfect Bakes cheese. Bake in oven for about 20 minutes until the cheese melted and turned golden brown.

I was very pleased with the outcome and the baked pasta was really yummy!

Would love to try out the other recipes from Perfect Italiano soon!

Friday, December 13, 2013

[Travel] Our 13-Day Taiwan 2013 Itinerary! - Taipei/ Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Kenting!!!

This was our third trip to Taiwan. Our first trip was done in 2004, following a packaged tour, covering only Taipei. For the second trip made last year in 2012, we decided to go for a total of 15 days free and easy, covering Taipei, Taroko Gorge, Cingjing, Sun-Moon Lake, Chiayi and Alishan. You can read about it HERE!

This year, we went for an almost 2-week tour to Taiwan again. This time, other than Taipei, we also covered Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Kenting. It was another great trip with hubby!

Why did we choose to go to Taiwan again this year for our year-end long holiday? I was invited by Lend Lease in July this year for a food tasting session at the event "Taste of Taiwan" fair held at Parkway Parade. I blogged about this event after the session and was lucky that they actually picked me as a winner for a Taipei Tour package for 2! The package included return air flight, 3 nights stay at "See You Hotel" with daily breakfast, return airport transfers and a one day tour! The prize was sponsored by "PriceBreaker". We decided to extend our trip instead of just spending 4D3N at Taipei.

I had summarized my itinerary in this blog post. You may click on each day's hyperlink to access my travel photos in my facebook album. Hope they will be useful to you if you are planning for your own Taiwan Trip. :)

Day 1:

Eva Air (Changi Airport Terminal 1)

Taipei: Reached Taoyuan Airport Terminal 2 at around 6pm.

Accomodation: Ann's House (Minsu near Taipei City Hall Station)

Late dinner at 下港酥汤 nearby.

Raohe Street Night Market.

Day 2:

Breakfast near Ann's House.

Took train to Taichung.

Taichung: Rainbow Village, Fengjia Night Market.

Accomodation: CityInn Plus (Taichung Station Branch).

Day 3:

Taichung: Breakfast at CityInn hotel.

Day Trip to Lukang 鹿港

Taichung Railway Station

Miyahara 官原眼科 for ice-cream.

Day 4:
Breakfast at CityInn Hotel.
Took train to Tainan.

Accomodation: Premiere Hotel

Tainan: Exploring Tainan on our own with no fixed itinerary but we were lucky to chance upon a very popular dinner place - 霸王薑母鸭

We had ice-cream at Elate Cafe and on our way back to the hotel, we saw many art installations along the street. It was actually Hai-An Street Museum.