Picturesque Food: January 2011

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Lunar New Year - Family Dinner

As a family, we always celebrate Lunar New Year. In the past, because of school, we always chose the weekend with the least amount of school activities/projects. Therefore, even though New Year isn't until the 3rd of February, we had our dinner last night. The Chorus Dinner is on the 5th so we chose an earlier week so we wouldn't be eating so much food in one weekend.

There is a tradition that for New Year's dinner you always cook alot more dishes than normal. You're supposed to eat a little bit of everything but never finish any dish. Leftovers are must because it means you will have leftovers the remainder of the year. There's always a fish, a meat, a soup and many fried foods and desserts. And of course, you can't forget red envelopes!!! We didn't cook as many dishes as we normally do in previous years. This year, everyone except me is sick on some level so we didn't prepare as many dishes. We typically have 2-3 more dishes, a shrimp dish, and exotic dish and another random dish. LOL.

From Left to Right: Radish Sticky Rice, Yucca Sticky Rice, Fried Yam, Red Bean Sticky Rice (Banana flavored) - I fried and arranged everything. ;)

Drunken Chicken Soup - this is a very different soup than our normal soup. Usually it's a mustard green soup but Mom wanted to change it up a bit this year.

Top Left: Mixed Vegetables with Fried Dough

Bottom Left: Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce - this is a popular Cantonese dish

Middle: Steamed Flounder with Black Beans

Right: Sauteed Bamboo Shoots with Roasted Pork

Hakka Stir Fry - this was the last dish so it is taken by itself instead of with the dishes above.

And red envelopes! Ooh, there are extras!!! This year, every one received a "normal" New Year red envelope but also a "bonus" red envelope because I recently got a promotion and want to share it with my family. =)

If I take enough pictures next week, there maybe be another post for next week's dishes! =)

Thursday, January 27, 2011

January 2011 dishes

I realize that January is not quite over but these are the dishes for the month of January, all but the first were made by me (though I know how to cook the first dish too).

Szechuan Fried Butterfly Shrimp - 2011.01.01

Salmon Fried Rice - 2011.01.03

Black Bean Pepper Salmon - 2011.01.05

Dried Shrimp with Vermicelli Soup - 2011.01.11

Spam Spaghetti - 2011.01.19

Black Bean Pepper Chicken - 2011.01.31

The food that was 2010...

Since my last post was in February of 2010, this shows all the food for the rest of the year, get ready to be hungry!!! lol. I made about half of the dishes but obviously ate all the food...lol

Chicken Lo Mein - 2010.02.07
What else is there to do when there's 30+" of snow and it's AJ's bday? Of course, she never got to eat this since I didn't bring it with me when I went to see her that day. lol