Lunar New Year: Year of the Dragon

 

Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year is known as the Spring Festival in China and is celebrated in many East Asian countries. It is a time of seeing out the previous year and ushering in the new one with luck, prosperity, and health. From the time I was born, this was the biggest holiday that we celebrated. This is the one mom hosted every year, the week was spent cleaning and shopping for all of the traditional treats and food. Our loved ones would join us for prayer and a feast. When my parents lived in Laos their parents and ancestors held the feasts.

This year marks the first year that mom was not home to host the celebration. She has been here with us visiting. My cousin picked up the torch back in my hometown and my children got to experience their first Chinese New Year with their Matou. I have made traditional foods during this time for my family in years past. I have never truly held the celebration with all the customs I had growing up.

We cleaned the house and made sure it was ready for family and loved ones. A cleansing away of the old so to speak. On the day of there would be no sweeping, as this symbolizes sweeping away good luck. Of course, this is madness with two standard poodles and two teens. Dust and dirt anyone? Thank goodness my mom said yes you can sweep just push the piles off to the side, you just don't want to take them out and dispose of them until after.

 The week of the celebration we shopped for traditional foods and items we would need. This year I took the time to ask my mom so many questions about which foods, why those foods, how she celebrated as a child, who hosted (her parents), etc.  

Items we shopped for:

Red Envelopes: Lai see (In Mandarin), Song Dang (Lao for "envelope" and "red") - not that we didn't have a bunch lying around but for me Red Envelopes are like Poultry seasoning at Thanksgiving. I always pick some up.

Incense: Toob in Lao

Fake money, fake gold bars, paper clothing to burn

Tea

Candied fruits

Fresh fruits

Snacks

Roast duck was reserved for pick up

Fish

Chicken

Noodles

Once all of the food is prepared and the table is set my mom lit some candles outside and opened the front door. A prayer is said to invite our ancestors to come to the feast and eat. After an hour we moved outside.

Fake money, gold printed on paper, blessings for health and prosperity, and paper clothing are all burned for our ancestors to use in the afterlife. Archaeological evidence supports the use of spirit money as early as 3,000 years ago

After, we all celebrate together and eat.

Red Envelopes are passed out to unmarried guests and the children.

I hope you have a happy, healthy, abundant New Year!

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Perfect Ginger Cookies

 These cookies are an old favorite. They are a little bit different than the Chewy Ginger Molasses cookies I have shared before. That post is a mess by the way and I need to update it. These cookies have a crispy edge but chewy center that still snaps. I think they are perfect. To give these cookies that crispy edge I use shortening, then I added butter for a chewy centers. You can use all butter but you'll have a softer cookie. All shortening will give you a crispy cookie. For the sugars I used both brown and granulated, I have two measurements for the granulated sugar because we like a less sweet cookie. These can be rolled in cinnamon sugar or in powdered sugar. The granulated cinnamon sugar will give you more of a caramelized crunch, the powdered sugar will give you a pretty crinkle cookie look.

Butterfly Blush- Color Changing Sushies

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been so absent. I hope you are all doing well! My youngest recently had a birthday party and I wanted to serve something fun to go along with the roll your own spring roll bar we had. I thought about having a bubble tea/boba tea bar but I wasn't sure which flavors to offer and such. Looking in my tea cabinet I saw my jar of Butterfly pea flowers. I make tea with them and cook with them quite a bit. I though they would be fun to use.

Khanom Dok Bua- Lotus Flower Cookies

 

This lotus flower cookie is called Khanom Dok Bua or Khanom Dok Jok. It's a crispy cookie that is deep fried, not baked. They are like Italian Rosettes. They are light and crispy. Not overly sweet, sesame seeds give them a great flavor, so does Pandan extract. The sesame seeds are what is more commonly used. I made these ones green and pink, Pandan and almond for our Christmas Cookie boxes in 2017. Which isn't really traditional, the almond flavoring that is.

Birds Nest Crispy Noodles

Isn't this a cute dish for Spring or even Easter for something non traditional? The little quail eggs in a nest made from Chinese egg noodles. I made these egg nest noodles like my Mee Korb, or Chinese Double Pan Fried Noodles dish. This is still a family favorite here. For the Egg Noodles I used this recipe posted HERE, but you can also purchase fresh Chinese egg noddles for this.

New England Boiled Dinner (Corned Beef)

New England Boiled Dinner

It used to be that I was the only one around here that liked Corned beef, then my oldest liked it. Now There are three of us here who like it. My oldest, my middle, and myself. My youngest likes the veggies and will eat those very happily. I stocked up on Corned beef because it was a great price and I have never made one myself from just a beef brisket. I keep saying I'm going to and I never get around to it. Maybe next year. The best part about a New England Boiled dinner is of course leftovers! It's delicious the night of, with tender veggies nom nom. But sandwiches the next day... or everything chopped up and heated in a skillet and topped with a fried egg. That is why I like to make extra, or have extra on hand!
I discovered that cooking this in and electric pressure cooker is the way to go. It's perfect because I can cook the beef from frozen or thawed in just a little over and hour. After that the vegetables take about 7-10 minutes depending on how big you cut them. I think that's my favorite part. I used to cook everything on the crock pot/ slow cooker. The problem with that is the whole house smells like corned beef. Great for the people who like it, not so much for the people who don't. Then you had to put the vegetables in and time it. There's no need to check the beef an hour out and add vegetables with the pressure cooker.

Christmas Cookies

 

I didn't share our Christmas Gingerbread cookies with you last year, so here we are Christmas in July. These are the gingerbread cookies the kids and I baked and decorated last year. It was so fun. We had some traditional winter and Christmas shapes. The most fun to decorate were the fandom, geekery cookies though.

These are gingerbread and I don't have the recipe up, but I'm sure you can google a recipe. I do have a fantastic Sugar Cookie recipe that you can find HERE. It's the best.

Rainbow Jello

Rainbow Jello cups.

I haven't had Rainbow Jello is years. This is not a hard dessert to make at all. It's really quite simple, just time consuming. You make each layer after the prior layer has set. That perhaps is the hardest part, the waiting. If you don't time it right you get messy layers (as shown above). You can make this is a large pan and just the Jello into squares after also.

Happy Pi Day, Chicken Pot Pi(e)

Throwback to last year when I made a Chicken Pot Pi(e).

Happy Pi Day everyone!
Find the recipe HERE.

Fortune Cookies, Not a Chinese New Year Tradition

Can you believe that Chinese New Year falls on January 28th this year? Earlier and earlier every year! I have very fond memories of Chinese New Year from my childhood. The day, the foods, the traditions are special to me. But most memorable is my mom's part in it. She would clean the house and cook an amazing spread. Family would come visit. She would often take us out of school, if not pick us up early.

Double Pan Fried Noodles or Mee Korb

 Chinese New Year comes early this year so I thought I would share a favorite noodle dish around here. Double Pan Fried noodles are an absolute favorite way to have noodles at our house. They have always been a childhood favorite of mine also. If you haven't had them, make sure you try them the next time you're out for Chinese food. Or make them at home.

You can use any vegetables or protein you like for this, just stir fry it all up and ladle over the noodles. YUM!

Here's the method for Double Pan Fried Noodles or Mee Korb, is what we call it.

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Cranberry Orange Muffins

Cranberry Orange Muffins

Cranberry season is upon us! I don't know what it is about cranberries. I only make a handful of things with them but I really like them. I don't now if it's the tart berry flavor, that they are good in both savory and sweet applications, or that the color just screams "HOLIDAY SEASON APPROACHING" Whatever the case I smile when I see them, and I always grab an extra bag of cranberries for the freezer for the rest of the year for that bright flavor they give.

I also love seeing them on a tree at Christmas, it's so pretty. They aren't the easiest to string but I think it's worth it, here's our tree from last year. Very simple.

Winter Squash Love

Hello everyone! Happy Happy Fall. This post came about when my kids were talking about how I don't decorate for Halloween. Which, I admit, I hardly do unless it's Christmas. Because Christmas. Is. My. Favorite. To decorate for that is. Halloween, it's just not my thing. I do put out a few fall items though. What about you do you decorate for all the holidays? Certain ones?

Halloween Party (2015)

Sooo, Finally getting around to posting our Halloween Party pictures from last year! It was so fun to put together. I really enjoy doing things like this. It's so fun. Anyway, we had one of the soccer teams over along with their families.  The kids got to run around and after they went trick or treating together.

Strawberry Banana Pancakes

Remember these great Banana Greek Yogurt Pancakes? The pancakes above are the exact same batter with some strawberries thrown in. I think along with blueberries you'd have a great Fourth of July

Matzo Ball Soup

Matzo Ball soup, or as my friend calls it "Jewish Penicillin"

Matzo Ball soup. Comfort in a bowl. I don't know what it is but, this soup has been on my top three as far as comfort foods. Always. It's so good. Especially if I'm sick. Chicken noodle soup? Sure, if it's handy. Matzo Ball soup. All day. Every day, please.

Forget any other recipe for Matzo Balls you've seen on this blog. Because this one is perfect. It produces light, fluffy matzo balls that still have substance to them. So they are still "sinkers" and not falling apart. The texture throughout is tender. Perfection. I honestly don't know if the texture could be anymore perfect. The flavor, well, you're using Schmaltz. Fat is good flavor.

Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes

Give Peas A Chance Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes

MMMMM cheeeeessssyyyyyyyy. I only recently started liking potatoes in my adulthood. I'm not sure if that's because all the butter and cheese I put on them, or if I really actually like potatoes. Whatever the case, these Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes are so dreamy. This recipes is a MILLION times better than this sad recipe here. Thin tender slices of potatoes, creamy roux with melty cheese/s. Whats not to love? 

Happy Birthday Jesus!

I know it's Take It Tuesday but Jonas brought 30 inches of snow, at least! So no lunches to post, sorry about that! But I thought I would share the cake I made for Christmas this year.  We usually make a cake for Jesus every year, it's usually the same recipe also. This whole wheat carrot cake. It's the only carrot cake recipe I'll make. It's just that good. I made it without the cheesecake layer, then slathered it with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting. For decoration I printed out a line drawing of Jesus, Joseph and Mary then topped that image with wax paper. I melted some chocolate and outlined/traced the picture. I also did some sheep and a shepard free hand. 

The gold stars are sugar stars I found. It came out pretty cute I think. The kids thought it was cool. I've used this method for cupcake toppers and it works beautifully.

I hope you all are having a wonderful New Year. My children are enjoying a 7 day weekend, and I'm loving every moment we're being blessed with! Did you get a lot of snow?

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Christmas in the Kitchen

Joyeux Noël. I made this sign reversal, and hung it with hooks so that I could change it out with the seasons.

Getting closer to Christmas! I really am a little confused with this warm weather we've had lately! Where's my SNOW!? Sigh... I had these visions of being snowed in, sitting by the fire, and snuggling with my family. Oh well, we're still snuggling by the fire! I can't wait until school is OUT for the year! What about you all? How's the weather where you are?

Secret Garden Christmas Tree

I have to admit this is probably one my second favorite tree in the house right now, aside from our main tree. This one is in Diva's room. She didn't really choose the theme. But it goes very well with her room. It's very romantic, muted, and just elegant, on a $20 fake tree from Target, using clearance flowers and $1 ornaments from the craft store :).

I'm not a decorator so we really just did the best we could when putting this one up, the lights are white. We used ribbon that I had lying around from a sale of Christmas past.