Gong Xi Gong Xi… Gong Xi Fat Chai !! The year 2011 is year of the Rabbit in Chinese Lunar Calendar, which falls on February 03, 2011. If you celebrate Chinese New Year, we hope you enjoy much of the celebration as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving.

A placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the Tiger. We should go off to some quiet spot to lick our wounds and get some rest after all the battles of the previous year. Good taste and refinement will shine on everything and people will acknowledge that persuasion is better than force.

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade.

Last but not least, on behalf of Ellane and Chefer, we wish you and your family a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2011 !!

As the year 2010 comes to a close, in Indonesia we have reason to celebrate – our land of opportunity and our family, relatives, friends and colleagues who share it with us. At the holiday season, our thoughts turn gratefully to you who have made our success possible.

On behalf of Ellane and Chefer Group, our management team join in wishing you a happy holiday and a prosperous New Year. It is in this spirit we say thank you and best wishes for the holidays and a happy New Year 2011. Thank you for your support in 2010 and we look forward to working with you again in 2011

Ellane and Chefer Group is a hotel, catering, restaurant and kitchen equipment specialist with a goal to fulfil our clients’ Food and Beverage requirements. One of our core strengths lies in designing and manufacturing high quality unique custom built kitchen with our domain experts, enabling our clients to achieve their competitive market business goals.

“Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1431 H” is just around the corner, and it is unusual if we do not send greeting cards to our friends, colleagues, partners and families. Lebaran cards used to be sent through traditional mail but now surely it is not the only medium proven to be the trend anymore. Apart from sending greetings from our mobile through sms, sending greetings via Facebook or email is also becoming the more popular and convenient medium these days.

Having said that, on behalf of all directors and staff of PT. Dinamika, we would like to humbly and wholeheartedly say the following to those that celebrate this festive season:

“Selamat Idul Fitri”
“1 Syawal 1431 H”
“Minal Aidin Wal Fa’idzin”
“Mohon Maaf Lahir & Batin”

Ramadan 2010 is just around the corner, its first day starting on 11 August until 9 September. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and marks the first revelation of the Quran, Islam’s holy scripture, to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.

From the first light until sunset, we fast by abstaining from food, drink and intimate relations. We also try to avoid anger and verbal conflicts, negative thoughts and sinful actions. Ramadan is a month of worship full of prosperity, spirituality and forgiveness.

We are honoured to invite you all to discuss here all traditional delicacies that are usually prepared during the auspicious month of Ramadan at Iftar, often called “buka puasa”, which means “to open the fast”.

The principle of breaking fast is very advisable that we eat food that is easily digested, so it does not upset our stomach that has been resting for so long. High calorific value and fluid food will help recover our stamina and substitute for a lot of wasted fluid from our body during the day.

Eating dates (“kurma”) and drinking a sip of water can be the first two things we can do when breaking fast. Besides the health benefit, both are able to immediately recover the weak condition of our body. Another old-time favourite food and drink that we all love is braised banana with palm sugar and coconut gravy (“kolak pisang”)

”Kolak pisang” is a local dessert that we should all be familiar with throughout Indonesia’s vast archipelago. Some hotels, cafes and restaurants put this sweet dessert on their everyday menu list. To make it ourselves, it only requires a few easy and simple steps. Will this be one of your favourites during this Ramadan season? What is your favourite Ramadan 2010 food?

8 picks, 8 correct, 8 tentacles. Paul the Oracle Octopus is clearly the biggest winner of the World Cup 2010 after recording a perfect prognostication record. Since then, Paul has been an international celebrity of the highest order now, everyone wants a piece of him – both literally and figuratively.

The world hails Paul, most importantly because of him, Spain has won the World Soccer Cup in South Africa! This is more than just a huge world-wide event. In Spain, the streets are empty while the games are played, while the bars with big screen TVs are full.

If you are a soccer fan, you probably are not sitting in the middle of a street, but you are most likely watching with friends. What could be more appropriate than serving Spanish tapas while watching such big events being played? Do you love watching soccer and eating something nice and easy at the same time?

Tapas in Spanish cuisine is the name of a wide variety of appetisers, or snacks. They may be cold, such as mixed olives and cheese or warm, such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid.

Calamares fritos or fried squid is a very popular appetiser or tapa in Spain. Many people know it by its Italian name Calamari. These lightly breaded and fried rings will disappear as soon as you put them on the table.

They are not hard nor expensive to make at all, can be found in any supermarket, and are super easy to cook – especially if you buy them already cleaned and ready to slice! Our next blog we will look into making this tapa using our recommended approach. So, stay tune everyone

To save your gas bills by reducing the consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), we highly recommend the use of our innovative product called Cooking Mama Pot in cooking this recipe.

INGREDIENTS FOR CONTENTS:

• 250 grams mung beans / green beans, soaked in water for 2 hours
• 500 ml water
• 100 grams palm sugar
• 200 ml thick coconut milk
• White sugar
• 2 pandan leaves
• Kraft cheese, grated

HOW TO MAKE:

1. Pour water into Cooking Mama Pot – the Cooking Pot.
2. Add the mung beans.
3. Place Cooking Mama Pot – the Cooking Pot on the stove and cook over high heat for 10 minutes to boil. Add palm sugar, pandan and coconut milk. Stir evenly and add sugar if not sweet enough.
4. Turn off the stove and transfer Cooking Mama Pot – the Cooking Pot into Cooking Mama Pot – the Heating Pot, leave it lid-covered for 60 minutes.
5. Serve in bowls. Sprinkle some grated cheese at the top, ready for consumption.

Designing your kitchen to suit your home and lifestyle that reflects your personality is challenging as you want it to be as perfect as possible. A kitchen is an area used for food preparation and cooking. Your kitchen is not just a place for cooking and washing up, it’s a social centre, a shared room for your family and friends to experiment different kinds of food and often, is the heart of your home.

These days, modern kitchen functions not only as a communal place for cooking or preparing food but it may also be used for dining and entertaining. A successful kitchen renovation will reinforce this and complement your individual needs and lifestyle.

When you are renovating a kitchen, there are various factors that come into play, including cost, area size, usage, style, finishes, positioning, and the list goes on and on. Because the cost of the renovation will depend on your choice of materials and finishes, it is sometimes best to have a rough idea first of how much money you wish to invest and which materials you are looking to include.

While it may be tempting to save money by using your existing kitchen appliances, you would not buy a new car with a second-hand engine. Your kitchen appliances are the engine of your kitchen, therefore you need to carefully think through when deciding whether or not you need new appliances, kitchen set, utensils, etc. in your newly renovated kitchen.

If you are thinking about designing or renovating your kitchen, whether from scratch custom built or adding some finishing touches, manufactured and ready for you to install, then you have come to the right place. You can trust us in exploring the diverse range of cost saving, innovative ideas, functional products and stylish accessories, so you can get started building your own kitchen.

We can do the hard work for you by creating your perfect kitchen with the assistance of our impressive helpful planning guide, full of advice to help you plan, design, order and install from none to a complete and contemporary kitchen.

Talk to one of our Ellane Kitchen Sales Engineers today and we would be happy to assist you with your kitchen building and renovation. Happy renovating!

Organic food has become a hot topic among all of us these days especially for us who lives in a developing country like Indonesia. We heard more and more people talking about eating organic food and the health benefits that we can get out of it. The food we consume everyday is important to our daily life and as we are getting older, our body needs the right kinds of food to ensure our well being are properly maintained physically and mentally.

Many people purchase organic food because they believe it has more benefits and is healthier than conventionally grown food. The advantages of organic food have been a hot topic for more than a decade now but it wasn’t until relatively recently that these benefits were supported by more than just hearsay.

Nutritional Benefits

According to research studies by scientists, it has been proven that organic foods, including fruit, vegetables and milk, may be more nutritious than non-organic produce. Organic foods have higher levels of many disease-fighting antioxidants and essential vitamins that are highly beneficial for our bodies, including Vitamin C. “On average, our research found higher vitamin C, higher mineral levels and higher phytonutrients – plant compounds which can be effective against cancer.”

Nicer & Better Taste

Yes, organic foods do taste better than conventionally produced foods. Many studies have found levels of specific vitamins, flavonoids or antioxidants in organic foods to be higher than the levels found in conventional foods. Many of the antioxidants are poly-phenols, flavonoids and other volatile compounds, which are responsible for a high proportion of the flavours in the foods we eat. The greater the amount of these protective compounds, the greater the flavours, hence tastier and more appetising.

Healthier Environment

Last but not least, organic food and farming reach far beyond our own health and well-being. Organic food is safer for our entire planet – our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and generation after generation, will be able to live longer in a much healthier environment. Scientific studies are beginning to show that that eating organic food results in lower levels of pervasive chemicals in humans, hence preserving humankind civilisation even longer.

With antioxidants that prevent heart disease, cancers, anti-inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, should we start eating organic foods from now on?