Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner
Well, most of my friends would have posted on their Facebook accounts all that had taken place. As for me, I am so busy with a lot of matters on hand.
Our reunion dinner was a simple one. We had Duck!! which is my favourite but not often made. We had Health and Prosperity Prawns and a simple Mange Tout stir fry.
Our simple Chinese New Year Dinner.
Then of course there is the obligatory Ang Pows for the girls.
It was a simple relaxing dinner. Actually, the duck took the whole day to cook. It wasn’t rushed even though we had a great Kosen-rufu Gongyo in a new venue near me. It was a great meeting.
The next day, there was not much cooking as there was enough food for the day, especially the rice. You see, we cook more rice for the reunion dinner and must have left overs to signify that there will always be abundance in the whole of the new year. Furthermore, we must have left-overs of almost everything, and this also means that the first day of Chinese New Year is a day of rest. A good thing to usher in the new year.
The leftover duck, i.e., the bones and some meat was used to make a soup – Kiam Chye Ark. This soup is a favourite of our home and is made whenever there is a celebration.
Carers Choir Ladies CNY Lunch
On Tuesday, I invited some of the ladies from my Carers Choir group to have Chinese New Year Lunch. There were 9 of us including myself.
We had Chicken with Red Dates and Shiitake mushroom, Blanched Broccoli, Preserved Radish Omelette and a last minute change, a gluten free dish – Beehoon Salad.
One of the ladies was a vegetarian, which I can manage. Another is gluten free. And this prompted me to read all the labels. I found out that all the soy sauce that I have in my cupboard contains gluten!! So that makes all my food non-gluten free. Even the fish sauce that I have contains gluten, and so is the (tomato) ketchup!!
So I decided not to add soy sauce to the omelette and instead of frying the beehoon ( rice vermicelli) in soy sauce, I made a beehoon salad with chili sauce and garnished it with fried sweet bean curd sheet and fried shallots. I had been trying to make this for a long time, but I was not able to source the sweet bean curd sticks in China Town, both in London and Birmingham. I brought this back from Penang on my last trip home. This is one of my favourite fried beehoon recipes. I cooked it a couple of weeks ago and my children love it. The vegetarian lady liked the beehoon.
We had Pandan Chiffon Cake served with cream and fresh fruits for desert.
The best part of the lunch was getting to know each other better. This is a good start for all.
Thanks ladies, I really appreciate your presence and company very much.
Valentines’ Day
Yesterday was Valentines’ Day. My other half and daughter number 1 went to visit his grand kids; and daughter number 2 had an appointment with her friends. So it was a quiet day which I totally enjoyed and went food shopping. I bought myself some flowers. Later on, my other half bought some home as well. So there was a bit of too much flowers in the house.
This is certainly cheerful.
Have a great week.!!
