Chinese New Year/Tet for 2011: what are you cooking?

[chocolate lover]

I went back to Jakarta for CNY so had tons of food. Hmm....snacked on mostly pineapple tarts and love letters and had hong ba for dinner a few nights in a row.Had some bbq-ed beef cos grandparents had a bbq on chu yi and long thick noodles stir-fried with diced chicken, prawns and mushrooms.

[Ben Hong]

Goodness Ling! With the culinary skills and beauty that you are endowed with, why are you eating alone?? (Please take this question as if it were from your very own aged Ben sook!)

As for me, there is just my wife and I living in the country an hour away from Chinese friends and relatives...and it just so happened that there was a storm on the night we were to get together. Real bummer. With this unexpected change of plans, I thawed out some char siu, loo'ed a chicken and blanched some wilted gai lan. Delish.

[XiaoLing]

Ben sook!! You always put a smile on my face. I did have a guest over for my meal away from my family so it was all good! You have to share good food!

hathor - I too wonder if it was okay to eat the animal that the new year is suppose to celebrate. I understand that there's no way to eat tiger, rat, or dragon but what about the other stuff that are eaten all around the world?? Is it wrong to eat rabbit on the rabbit's year? I can't imagine not eating chicken when it's the year of the rooster.

DeliciouslyLekker - Meatballs is yummy as long as you are eating it with the New Year in mind. I also had meatballs this year. We make homemade pork meatballs with chestnuts every new years.

chocolate lover - I would LOVE to see Jakarta for CNY! Do you have any pics? I am salivating just thinking about all the possibilities.

Back to my celebration, besides the lunches and dinners at home, we had a constant array of watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds, candies, varies fried pastries to munch on throughout the day. I didn't take a pic of the snacks since I figured everyone probably knows what they look like and we didn't make them from scratch.

Here's one of my lunches. My uncle cooked it for me one day. It's homemade lotus root and rib soup with store bought cheong fun and for more flavor my uncle added homemade meatballs and some leftover hot pepper and water spinach dish from the previous night. Oh...and a perfectly poached egg. So tasty!!!

Edited February 16, 2011 by XiaoLing (log)

[Dejah]

Waited until Saturday when the kids and their S.O came home before we had our big meal: BBQ duck, char siu ribs, shrimp, chicken, mixed vegetables, fun see, dried bean curd sticks soup with oysters.

Kids brought 2 big round trays of preserved fruits and vegetables (toon hap)to nibble on all weekend.

On the 12th, my tai-chi group went to a local Chinese restaurant for lunch, and we had deep fried Salt'n'Pepper Tofu, Golden Sand Shrimp, Ginger Beef, Young Chow Fried Rice, deluxe mixed vegetables, and eggplant, potato, and green pepper stir-fy. I provided mango pudding for dessert.

In the evening, we went to the annual university's Chinese association's Spring Festival celebrations. Another local Chinese restaurant catered: Chinese mushrooms in oyster sauce, char siu, fun see, sesame chicken, shrimp, Chinese vegetables (lotus root, wood ear, etc). Delicious food and excellent local entertainment with modern and traditional dances, instruments, vocals, etc.

Year of the Rabbit bounded off with a great start!

[chocolate lover]

Sorry Ling! I just saw your reply!! Yup!! I have pictures!!!

Gonna find a way to shrink them and post them up here

[Dejah]

Finally got my picture program fixed up and can now post:

Feb 12 Chinese New Year supper with our kids at home:

[XiaoLing]

Looks Delicious Dejah!!! My mouth is watering especially for the shrimp.

Can't wait to see your pics Chocolate Lover.

So for another dinner during the CNY celebration this is what we had:

From the bottom left corner and going clock-wise: Chilies and garlic stir fried A-Choy, Salty/Sour pork with green peppers, broccoli with garlic, potatoes, steamed pork belly with spiced rice and taro, stir fried three strips (five spiced tofu, peppers, and preserved vegetables), homemade meatballs with woodear fungus, steamed fish with black bean sauce, and steamed yu-shiang asian eggplant.

[YSL]

Prawncrackers - Just wanted to let you know that I made Dong Po Pork using your recipe for the first time last week and the results were SPECTACULAR. *EVERYONE* who tried it had nothing but praise for it - So I thank you for sharing the recipe

[chocolate lover]

Finally managed to resize them

here they are...

my grandfather's sister kinda own a bakery back home so they will always bake these for CNY...

and my aunt bake these for us too this year

my grandparents will always serve kuah lapis and this chocolate and vanilla cake to the guests when they come by the house to visit...

Edited February 22, 2011 by chocolate lover (log)