Week One - My Own Chinese New Year Celebration

Last week was a busy week for me.  Chinese New Year came and went.  The most exciting and celebratory thing I did was call my parents to wish them a Chinese New Year, during which they incited my envy by mentioning the Chinese New Year bash they would be attending on the upcoming Saturday.  Yes, it would have been nice to be at home to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family.  Yes, it would have been nice to get red envelopes.  Yes, it would have been nice to have gone home for a break.  Yes, I was sad to be missing all those things.  But to be honest, what I was most sad about was missing all the wonderful food.

So on Saturday, I decided to have my own celebration for Chinese New Year, including and consisting only of two traditional Chinese New Year foods:  dumplings and 年糕.

Dumplings was kind of a cop out for a new dish of the week (since I had made it freshman year of college), so I added in年糕 (also because I wanted to eat 年糕).

The dumplings turned out okay and kind of bland.  I kind of winged it from memory from when I asked my mom during freshman year.  In them, I put ground pork, shredded cabbage, scallions, some Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil.  I think next time I will add tiny, tiny pieces of ginger in it for some more flavor.  I pan fried these and ate them in my usual Kong Yen brand black vinegar.

And then I made red bean 年糕 (New Year's Cake).  I had never made it in my life before, so I opted for the cheaper complete paste red bean paste instead of the more expensive one with bits of beans still in it.  Maybe next time I'll make my own red bean paste...maybe.  年糕 is actually surprisingly easy to make. :)  I was thinking that I would steam it, but the recipe I found from a new blog that I started following - Tiny Urban Kitchen http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/2010/02/red-bean-mochi-loaf.html - has directions to bake it.  So I did.  It ends up with a nice crusty layer.  Since I opted for the cheaper bean paste and I think I stirred it in too much, the 年糕 didn't turn out very good looking.  But I don't really care because it tasted good. :)  Maybe I'll try the brown 年糕 next.  Or the prosperity cupcakes, or whatever there called.  I'm in no rush, Chinese New Year's usually celebrated for two weeks right?  I've got over a week left.

So woohoo!  Consider Chinese New Year celebrated. :)

First One!

Here it is.  This is the blog where I'll document my culinary experiments. Each week, I'll endeavor to cook or bake one new dish.  It most likely won't be something I've created, but from a recipe posted on one of the food blogs I follow or something found randomly on the internet.  I actually started doing this a few weeks ago, but I couldn't think of anything spectacular to name this blog, so I simply settled for mediocre (and for using one of my favorite words in the English language).

I'm planning on heading to Wegman's in a half hour (hopefully), so I can try to beat the crazy weather that's supposedly headed this way today (or has it started already)?  I must say, though, as much as I like shopping for food, grocery stores on Saturdays are not my favorite places to be (apart from the free samples, of course).

[Oh, and a disclaimer.  The pictures I'll upload are going to not look very nice (not purposely of course), but I don't really have aspirations to be a great photographer.  I'm just going to take pictures and post them. Ha.]