Was asking Jo for some inspiration on this post title and he said, "Huat ah!"
沒水准。-__-
Pre-CNY
Mum-in-law was baking pineapple tarts so intensively that her 20-year old oven finally gave way and a new one was bought the next day. Last I heard, she whipped up about 100 tubs of these goodies. They are THAT yummy & popular!Jo gave some tubs to his company's customers and one of them went, "Oooooh! Home-made tarts! I loooooove that home-made feel!"
Coming from a grown man in a managerial position, I can't help but find it amusing, though in a sweet way. =D
Being the generous soul she always is, she gave me 2 tubs of pineapple tarts/rolls, 1 tub of kueh bulu, 1 tub of flower-like cookies & 1 tub of peanut biscuits. That melt-in-your mouth pastry & juicy filling!!
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3!!!
Pineapple rolls are my most favourite CNY snacks, together with the spring rolls wrapped in pork floss!
Took me only a week to gobble all up. Only crumbs are left for Jo. Haha.
Replying emails & packing parcels late at night prior to CNY makes me a hungry bear.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3!!!
Pineapple rolls are my most favourite CNY snacks, together with the spring rolls wrapped in pork floss!
Took me only a week to gobble all up. Only crumbs are left for Jo. Haha.
Replying emails & packing parcels late at night prior to CNY makes me a hungry bear.
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年夜飯
Mum-in-law loves cooking & baking and is a miracle in the kitchen. It is mind-boggling how she can handle marketing, cooking and washing up all by herself. All these years, she does 12-15 dishes, with all the required garnishes (just like how we learnt during Home Econs!), for all the birthday buffets & festive feasts my in-laws held at their home.
If you have your own home like me, you would realise how unachievable this feat can be, okay maybe only for me.=P
She's a Martha Stewart. Amazing. =O
In-laws were remarking how big the dried mussels (in the stewed mushroom dish) we bought were. They were bigger than my thumb!
We children bought so much black moss that almost every other dish has it. =D
My favourites are the stewed pork with yam & the fish maw soup. I'm a totally soup person, typical of Cantonese!
The stewed pork with yam has to be prepared the night before, due to the long cooking time and the yam is the melt-in-the-mouth kind, with the flavour & taste totally locked in it. Awwww....*slurp*
初一
The pre-CNY workload took a toil on me, and I didn't do as many visitations as I wish on the first day of CNY. =(
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| Photos from cousin-in-law's facebook |
His grandma started this and till now, they still observe this decades-long practice.
Although Jo doesn't know the reason for this, I personally find the consumption of vegetarian food on CNY Day 1 meaningful.
The thing I look most forward to the whole of CNY is my parents' cooking.
My mum's a working lady and doesn't cook a lot since I was young.
But my parents' cooking is definitely the highlight of my CNY celebration.
There were 盆菜，燜香菇，蒸魚，蒜茸蒸蝦，五福拼盤，藥材湯 & 自製湯圓！
Last year, my mum came up with her own recipe of 盆菜, from all the 海味 that we bought for her prior to Chinese New Year.
It was yummy-licious!! 100000000 times better than all those restaurants serving it!
So much more value-for-money too!
It takes her 4-5 hours to get it done, as the broth for the dish has to be prepared first, before steaming the dish with it.
I tried replicating it at home last year and it was a resounding...failure.
So this year, I got smarter and requested my mum to do one for me, so that Jo & I can have it again the next day at home!
Check out the magnets on my mum's fridge door! They were accumulated during my flying days.
Some colleagues like to collect Hard Rock shot glasses from all over the world, some collect the coins and some, like me, prefer to collect magnets.
I make it a point to get a magnet in a form which I feel best represent the city/country,
for e.g. the Mummy head from Egypt, the girl in hanbok from Seoul, the Forbidden Palace main building from Beijing, the Turkish rug & the evil eye (I can't make up my mind so I got both) from Istanbul, the scottish terrier from Harrods (London), the windmill from Holland, the Cambridge university crest from Cambridge, the Man. United logo from Manchester, the junk from Hong Kong, the little mermaid from Copenhagen, the b/w night shot of NYC, and the Beast profile (of Beauty & the Beast) from the Broadway show I watched with my buddy etc.
It sure brings back a lot of memories whenever I see the magnets. Some were bought with the last few dollars I have left at that time.
It was very hard to find suitable magnets in certain countries where tourism is not that commercialised.
For some cities, it took me several trips before I could find a suitable magnet, while for some that I know I might never return again, I would go into every single souvenir shop I passed by to hunt for a suitable magnet so that I would not leave the city empty-handed.
One of my favourites are the little SQ aeroplanes! They are limited editions, and actually represent the 3 aircraft types that I was trained in, complete with upper deck and doors for the Boeing Jumbo! *squeals*
I wanted to move them to my own home, but some of them are so stuck on the fridge door, that they will break, if I forcefully pull them out. =(
初二
With most visitations done, it was a simple home-cooked fare for early dinner.
Simple, because bulk of the dishes were done by my parents (which we brought home after yesterday's dinner) or bought.
What a breeze cooking was that day! =))
- 盆菜, by Mum - I only had to pour the soup (also by Mum) in & steam it for 2 hours.
- 五香, by Dad - I didn't deep fry them, as I wanted my kitchen to stay clean, so I toasted them in the toaster oven for 20 minutes. Came out crispy too!
- Leftover ABC soup & stewed pork with yam from the day before
- Braised mushrooms, by Dad
- Yu-sheng, from Soup Restaurant
- Roast chicken, from Cold Storage, with cherry tomatoes & romaine lettuce for garnish
Around 9pm, the Husband got a bit bored and while listening to Youtube videos, he decided that we should head out to Karaoke while I was trying to blog about CNY. -__-
He excitedly made a call to check room availability and off we left home.
It has been a long while since spontaneity hit us this way.
Well, most of the time, I'm busy with TFL work at night. =P
初七
初七， the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, is also known as 人日，衆人的生日, the birthday of all mankind.
For the fun of it, Jo & I had our mini celebration at home, after his work. =D
Seeing so many people at the shopping centre carrying the red box from Sakae, I thought it must be really tasty and queued for more than half an hour to get my hands on the Yu-sheng from Sakae.
It cost S$18.88, before GST, for a 1-2 person serving. But both Jo & I are unable to finish it.
I don't understand why there is lettuce in it but no pomelo. =(
Guess people bought the Sakae version probably for the salmon sashimi.
The Yu-sheng from Soup Restaurant tasted much better, in my opinion.
初九
The ninth day of the Lunar New Year is 天宮誕，the birthday of the Heaven, the Jade Emperor to be precise.
Traditionally, most Singaporeans will begin the prayer & offering once the clock strike midnight.
True enough, around 12plus am, the smoke from the burning of joss paper by other residents wafted into my home and I stayed at the top floor!
I do think it's kinda heartwarming when many residents, most of them being young couples, actually still practice this century-old ritual. =)
One thing that some people might not realise is that there should be NO offering of meat for this prayer.
I know there are some who offer roast meat or pig trotters. This is such a big taboo!
上天有好生之德，大地有载物之厚。
Why would the Heaven be so superficial and demand for the killing of another living being for His birthday?
He would not be pleased about it!
Human beings celebrate by feasting, most often on meat. But not the Heaven.
For those in doubt, they should read the well-known Buddhist sutra, 地藏經.
It is stated very clearly in one of the chapters about how wrong this practice is.
The offering of meat is such a misplaced conception! Urrrgh!
We were really happy to see the ends of the joss sticks & candle curling and everything went smoothly. =D
The major downside was that it was that time of the month for me and I couldn't help with anything, let alone touch the offerings. Jo had to do it all by himself.
In the midst of trying to get everything done on time, he missed out getting the sweet vegetarian pastries for the offerings. =(
I'm ending off this post with a picture of the beautiful flowers.
Jo was telling me that according to the auntie at the market, this red velvet-like flower only blooms once a year and always just before 天宮誕.
I tried googling for the name of the flower but to no avail.
How sweet it is that Mother Nature has a flower in an auspicious red no less, specially for the Heaven.
Reminds me of naming orchids after well-known people. =D
Here's wishing you all my readers a bountiful & prosperous Rabbit year ahead!!
新春快樂！
