Reunion Dinner & Chinese New Year Part 1

Hoho! The big day has finally arrived! Happy Tiger Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Before anything else, please allow me to share with you this awesome video:



This video sure brings up the Chinese New Year mood, yes? :P

Okay, enough jokes and let's get going with the Reunion Dinner!

The Reunion Dinner for Chinese New Year happens on the evening before the 1st day of the Chinese New year.
It is a time when all family members from all over the world gather, usually at the grandparents' place, chit chat and catch up on the year's happenings.

Chinese traditional red firecrackers, usually used before the Reunion Dinner

However, for my family, ever since my second uncle died from heart failure, we hadn't had a Reunion Dinner at my grandparents' place.
So, like the previous years, our small family of four make our own Reunion Dinner, here at Bintulu.

Onions, garlic and stuff for cooking

Guess what this is!

My mum in action (of course I helped out)

I helped out my mum in the kitchen during the afternoon. Didn't get to go into action myself as my mum is way too pro already. Just can help accompany my mum, do some dishes and prepare the materials.

Simply love her cooking! Can beat any restaurant in the region!

Called Chang Shou Mian, if direct translation means Long Life Noodle

The spread! I simply love my mum's cooking

The cold dish

Cod fish slice with a dab of extra virgin olive oil, really like this (I teach my mum how to do this 1 :P)

If you haven't guessed what this is yet, this is how it looks when served
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It's Sea Cucumber! A really large one, too! A gift from my dad's friend

Desert was just a simple combination of longan with sea coconut in syrup.
Simple but heavenly!

Will post up part 2 when I got more pics of Chinese New Year here at Bintulu!

Chinese New Year Resolution

Well, 1st of all I wish to apologize for the 1 week break I took from blogging. Didn't find anything interesting to write about and still waiting for more polls to pool into my poll HERE. If you haven't vote yet, please do!

Chinese New Year is only 5 days away (if you exclude today).
Time flies way too fast! Faster than I wanted it to be, anyway.
Getting older and older already... few more years and I won't be getting Ang Pau anymore; I will be giving out Ang Pau instead!

Chinese New Year deco. My dad bought it from Guang Zhou

Well, finished spring cleaning for most parts of the house already, left the garage and garden area only.
Nearly finished buying all the stuff needed for CNY as well.
This year really don't have much CNY mood at all, maybe it's my age.
Feels only like any normal day... plus cleaning, baking and occasional CNY songs at supermarkets.
And surprisingly, I am not looking towards the annual house visits I usually do with my friends.
In fact, I feel that it's a very tiring tradition.

Some more deco :D

Aside from all those, I am looking forward to meet and hang out with some of my old friends, classmates and relatives who I haven't seen for quite some time.
Chinese New Year brought them all back here to Bintulu, and that's what I like most about CNY.
I know I said about being sinful and consume food in exceeding amounts, but at the same time I am also looking forward to lots of home baked cakes (cheesecakes specifically, mmmm~~), cookies, biscuits and tid-bits. (Okay, there goes my maintained weight. I am gonna return to Miri as a fat block)

Jade twin fish deco. This one had been here for 9 years!

I made my New Year resolution last year HERE and I am proud to say that I had achieved at least 1 of those resolutions already!

So, for this CNY, I am gonna add more resolutions to the list, which I see fit.

The list from New Year:
1. Stop smoking (Going on strong and hopefully will stay that way forever)
2. Stop drinking (Breached already :P, but no harm trying harder, rite?)
3. Stop driving over the speed limit (Except long distance and so far so good)
4. Stop gambling (MOST IMPORTANT! CNY is always the time to gamble and I always lose! Have to hold on tight to this)
5. Do night driving back Miri/Bintulu (Completed!)
6. Graduate from university, convocation at Perth (ongoing)
7. Get a girlfriend (No progress, lol)
8. Get a job (ongoing)
9. Get a dog (ongoing)
10. Continue my blog (ongoing)

For this Chinese New Year gonna add:
1. Go vacation to at least 3 countries outside Asia (So you see, Australia counts as 1, so 2 more)
2. Make lots more new friends (How come I forgot this for my New Year resolution >.<)
3. Try to pick up a sport (Need to keep in shape and at the same time polish my skills in sports)
4. Try to be more cheerful and keep an open mind (I think last year was a gloomy year for me, time for a change :P)
5. Go on fishing trips regularly (once a fortnight would be best :D)

So how's your preparation for CNY?
Do drop me some comments in the chat box (left panel) or in my comment box :D

Cookie Monster!

Chinese New Year is less than two weeks away now!
Lots to be done before the Big Day, busy as a bee.
Besides the usual spring cleaning (I haven't started yet) and buying lots and lots of CNY stuff, there's also baking!

Lots of yummy photos of yummy cookies here:

After making the dough and shaping, ready to be baked

Can't wait till it's baked

On the cooling tray. Cannot eat straight away coz still sizzling hot and not crispy yet

The final product, Corn Flakes and Chocolate Chip Cookie

I helped my mum in baking all these cookies lor! From measuring to dough, to shaping into size (some might be too big or too small :P), to cooling and to putting them into containers (not to forget testing and tasting).
Baking cookies kinda easy actually, just need a lot of time if you are baking a lot in one go. Mixing the ingredients into dough and shaping them into the appropriate size takes the most time and effort as this is quite repetitive and boring. Not to say cannot even hold anything else since my hands are oily from the butter in the dough.

Baked other types of cookies as well!

Oats and Chocolate Chip Cookies (this one my mum modified from other recipes)

Rock Chocolate Cookie (bought the mixing from a bakery shop, just add butter and egg)

Almond Cookie

Butter Cookie

Made 5 types of cookies in total, only used up 2 mornings.
Welcome to come my house for visiting during Chinese New Year!

P.S.: Been missing from blogging for a week now... coz of Mass Effect 2 and couple of other games, hehe.