Our Chinese New Year meal plans - lots of images

14 years ago

We are going to celebrate Chinese New Year instead of Valentines. Reason? You get to eat a lot more celebrating Chinese New Year than Valentines! LOL

Little man has 5 days off so we started the countdown today. I made Chinese fried rice for dinner tonight. It was a big hit.

Have already made day two's dinner: Lo Mai Gai (Steamed chicken & sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf). It was a lot of work but they turned out pretty good. I made four of them and will steam them for 20 minutes for tomorrow's dinner. The following images are borrowed. I have not made most of them yet.

Images of Lo Mai Gai:

Day three will be Rice Paper Potstickers (thanks everyone for the suggestions)!

Day four will be Shrimp dumplings (Ha Gao) & Chicken Congee (rice soup). Will make my own wrappers for this one. Have never done this but I am up for a challenge. :-)

Image of Shrimp Dumplings:

Image of Chicken Congee:

Day five, the big day, will have Vegetarian's Delight (Jai) and the Togetherness Box with lots of treats.

Image of "Jai":

Image of Tray of Togetherness:

I am afraid we will all put on a few pounds before the weekend is over! :-P

Here is a link that might be useful: Information about Lo Mai Gai

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Comments (13)

sooz
14 years ago
Wonderful photos! I love love love Lo mai gai--we always call it chicken rice in lotus leaves. Gosh, a package of them takes up so much room in my cupboard! Your dumplings look delicious, but I've never had jai, and I wouldn't know where to start on the Tray of Togetherness. Is congee like "jook" or am I misremembering this?

Thanks for posting lovely photos of food porn!
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
14 years ago
Actually, it is Luna New Year, not just Chinese New Year, because it is celebrated by many other cultures.

Immediately, and as soon as possible, go to get all your supplies from your local Chinese stores. In another day there will be mob scences and many items will be gone.

dcarch
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I guess this one is right up my alley. I'm mom of 4 sons though only one is still on the "payroll" though he's now off at college. Anyway there were a lot of years cooking for 6 and 5 of them were VERY hungry! I still use a plan though it's much looser and of course easier! Living 10 miles from a store and having a crowd to feed, I found doing a weekly menu saved me from living at the grocery store! I have a day that I go to the store and that day, I'll take stock of any items from the week before that I didn't use or any meals from the previous week that I never got around to cooking. Then I sit down with one or two cookbooks and start in. I jot down about 4 breakfasts and a few lunches if I think that people will be around (summer etc) but don't put a huge amount of thought into these two. I can always whip up a good breakfast with whats on hand for the most part. With kids around, plan on some nutritious snacks. For dinner, I plan out however many meals we'll need for the week. I usually figure that I'll have one meal where we either do leftovers or I defrost something from the freezer. We also usually eat out about once a week. So that leaves me with selecting 5 true menus. I do it all from veggies, salads, starch, bread and main dish. Be sure to make a note of the page in the cookbook for any new recipes. Look at your calendar for the week and be sure you have enough no brainers for the busy days. Cook extra chicken/meat and use it for a second meal turned into sandwiches, soup, or a casserole. Shopping for a week is easy and feasible. Do your meals that require the freshest produce at the beginning of your week and save the meatless/soup/pizza/sandwich meals for later in the week. Precook or freeze any meats that you'll be having at the end of the seven days. I'd usually need to pick up more milk midweek as my guys guzzled more than a gallon a day. I keep the menu paper on my island, and I feel free to substitute and change the meal or parts of the meal as needed swapping days etc. Remember nothing is written in stone!!! I think part of your "negative" slant on the menu planning may be that you don't want to be pinned down. Roll with the flow, change meals around.... it's only a guideline not military orders that you must follow to a T!!! Grace
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jimster
14 years ago
That's right, sooz. Gongee is another name for jook, or vice versa.

Jim
althetrainer
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks Jimster for answering that question for me.

Sooz, my husband and little man love Lo Mai Gai as well. That's why I spent 4 hours making those yesterday. I should have made more than 4; it wouldn't take more time and I could always freeze the extras. The Tray of togetherness is cool because you can put whatever you want in it. Of course, traditionally the foods chosen are symbolic and that each food item represents a certain good thing in life. The link below explains much better than I can.

Darch, oh yeah, we are going to Chinatown today to see what they have. Our Chinatown is pathetically small but we just have to make the best of it. Little man and I will explore grocery stores and the cultural center. May buy some more decorations for the house too.

Al

Here is a link that might be useful: Tray of Togetherness
jakkom
14 years ago
Although all Asians celebrate the Lunar New Year, they don't all use the same calendar as the Chinese. Just FYI.
jimster
14 years ago
Al, I failed to say how good those dishes look. They are among my top favorite Chinese dishes, although Jai is a new one to me. I haven't tried making sticky rice in lotus leaf but enjoy it whenever I see it as a dim sum offering. I must make congee again soon. So delicious!

Thanks for the inspirations.

Jim
centralcacyclist
14 years ago
This all looks amazing!
ntt_hou
14 years ago
Al, food looks delicious.

As for the tray of togetherness... it is mainly sugar coated dried fruits and lotus seeds.

Jkom51, you're sort of right. The lunar date is all the same. It is the western calendar that sometimes would be off for a few hours (time zones) which if fallen around midnight, it makes a difference of 1 day. A couple of years ago, this happened. Before the end of the war in 1975, the Vietnamese had always used the Chinese time zone and our New Year date was the same as of the Chinese. After 1975, the Vietnamese communist government wanted to use the local time zone which is off several hours from the Chinese. About 2 years ago, this resulted in the Vietnamese New Year date being 1 day before the Chinese New Year date.
althetrainer
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks everyone! We've just returned from our Chinatown excursion. It was a long but fun day. We ate a lot of Chinese baked buns: cocktail buns, pineapple buns, BBQ pork buns, and hotdog buns! Little man and I joked about our fun buns lunch! LOL

We went to the Chinese Cultural Center but things were not quite set up. Seemed like they were not going to be ready until this weekend. So we went to visit a few Chinese grocery stores. OMG, it was like a zoo everywhere. People were shopping like crazy. No surprise though, two more days of shopping before the big day.

We bought a pack of Chinese New Year treat called Cows Ears, some deep fried cookies, for the occasion. But we were out for so long that we ended up eating the whole bag before making it home! LOL

Image of Cows Ears:

Then I bought these gorgeous Chinese kumquat (like mini oranges). They are small but sweet in a strange way. Hard to explain. I did save some for the Tray of Togetherness.

Image of kumquats:

We are going to the zoo all day tomorrow so I will make the shrimp dumplings tonight. Will start the chicken congee in the slow cooker before we leave tomorrow morning. By the time we get home we will just heat up the shrimp dumplings and eat them with the chicken congee. Should be another fun day for us.

By the way, hubby and little man just ate two of the Lo Mai Gai and they LOVED it. So it's worth the time making them. :-)

Al
sooz
14 years ago
This is a wonderful thread!!!
ntt_hou
14 years ago
You know, that chicken congee looks so good for someone that is having a bad cold :(. I'm going to make some for tonight's dinner :)
annie1992
14 years ago
Al, the "cows ears" look really interesting, so they are deep fried?

The congee just looks to thick and gelatinous for me, LOL, the texture would do me in I'm afraid, but I've made gorgeous marmalade with kumquats.

Annie
althetrainer
Original Author
14 years ago
Annie & ntt, If I soak the rice with a bit of salt and oil a couple of hours before cooking, then use the slow cooker to cook the congee overnight, the texture always turns out think and creamy.

Annie, the cows ears are deep fried. The picture is not my picture; I just borrowed from an online site. I didn't even make any cows ears. When I went to Chinatown with little man we bought some from the Asian market. We were out for 5 hours and were so hungry that we ate the whole package before we got home! LOL

But I will send the link to the recipe just in case you would like to try. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Cows Ears recipe

Our Chinese New Year meal plans - lots of images

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sooz

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

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