Chinese New Year

Pic: Now when I asked her for a smile, she will smile. Usually her smile is even cuter than the one on this photo.

Pic: KK and his cousin on Chinese New Year day

This year we just started a new tradition at our house. From now on, we celebrate Chinese New Year together with our family and our employees too. Yes, my great grandpa is from China but for some reason when he immigrated to Indonesia, he chose to educate his 9 children with Dutch education system. For some other reason, it's too long to explain, both side of my parents' follows Dutch system more than Chinese system. Even more, since my mother side switch their religion from Taoist to Christian, they all stop celebrating Chinese new year. So since I was born, I never knew how it feels to celebrate Chinese New year. Well....until I marry a Taiwanese that is.

For the last couple of years, we celebrate Chinese new year primarily in Taipei with my in laws. But this year, because now KK is already in first grade, we can't just take him from his school so we can celebrate Chinese New Year in Taipei.

There is another reason too why we celebrate with our employees. My husband, R, wants to teach them the history of Chinese New Year and what is the custom in China and Taiwan on how to celebrate it.

So 2 days before Chinese New Year, R told our employees about the history and the custom of Chinese New Year. Then after that we prayed together ( the Christian way since everybody here is Christian ) and we eat together.

To make sure that the food is authentic, R ordered everything from the Khou Fu, a Taiwanese Restaurant. The owner, a Taiwanese, who cooked everything by himself and have everything delivered to our door. He even imported a lot of the ingredients direct from Taiwan.

The next day which is the day when most of Chinese people have dinner with their family from their father side. We had a dinner party again and we invited my father's family and my mom's younger sister who live just next door to where we live.

Again all of the food is from Khou Fu Restaurant but beside that, we also cooked Ma La Tofu , it was suppose to be Ma La Stinky Tofu but since we can't buy stinky tofu in Surabaya, we found one brand of tofu that even though they are not stinky, but we think their texture is pretty similar. It's chewier than any other type of tofu's brands.

To make the Ma La Tofu, I used up 3 jars of Chili Bean Paste! So it's super hot. Just the way we like it!!!

To show you all the food that we ate during Chinese New Year, here are the photos. I did not include the parcels that people sent to my family on this entry.

Pic: Braised Shin Of Beef

Pic: Fried Rice

Pic: Hot and sour soup

Pic: Ma La Tofu ( look at how red it is, that's because they are loaded with chilies! )

Pic: Seafood and Vegetable Stir-Fry

Pic: Sweet and Sour Fish

Pic: Deep-Fried Chicken Thighs

Pic: Shrimp and Vegetables Stir-Fry

Pic: Pork With Preserved Mustard Greens ( You eat this with the bun on the next picture below this photo)

Pic: Buns
Pic: Steamed Chicken With Scallions

Pic: Appetizer
Pic: Fried Fish

Pic: Steamed Prawns with garlic sauce

Pic: Meat and vegetables ( I don't exactly know what it is since by the time I want to eat it, it's all gone! )

Pic: Stewed Pork Hock

Pic: Richard serving every body with Ma La Tofu

NOTE: If you like to try some of the recipe for the food that I ate on Chinese New Year. you can click on the food's name that I already highlighted.