2nd Day of CNY 2017

Other than the tradition of visiting during CNY, family and friends visit us on the 2nd day of CNY 2017 for two other things:
Eat - Hockchew red wine chicken soup with me sua & Taiwanese braised pork bun (扣肉包)
Drink - Pu'er tea

Us on 1st day of CNY (Marieann is down with flu)

Happy Chinese New Year 2017

Here is wishing all my family and my friends (both in Singapore and overseas), my students and my colleagues (both present and past, in Singapore and overseas) a Happy Chinese New Year. May all enjoy good health, prosperity, success and great happiness!!

Happy Chinese New Year 2017!

祝新年快乐，万事如意!

(Image credit to dreamstime.com)

Chinese New Year's Eve 2017

It is the eve of Chinese New Year 2017. 
Time for our steamboat reunion dinner. :) 

Our own version of Lo Hei (seasoned seaweed, jellyfish and scallops) 

Happy Chinese New Year 2016: Day 2

On the second day of CNY, visitors usually come to our place for these two dishes which are available for the whole day from late morning to night - Taiwanese style Braised Pork Bun and Hockchew Red Wine Chicken Mee Sua! 
大年初二，客人特地上我家来吃这两道菜 - 台式割包（新加坡所谓的扣肉包）和福州红糟酒鸡肉面线！

Taiwanese style braised pork bun (台式割包)

Hockchew Red Wine Chicken Mee Sua (福州红糟酒鸡肉面线)

The second day of CNY at our place is open house. My mother loves having guests over. She loves cooking for and feeding family and friends, not just during CNY, all the time! Feel free to come! :) 
My mother loves having guests over, she loves cooking for and feeding family and friends, not just during CNY, all the time! Feel free to com

Happy Chinese New Year 2016: Day 1

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐! From the ladies of my family - my mother, Juliane and I (Marieann is at that awkward age where she doesn't want to be in photos.) 

Finally persuaded Marieann to take the annual CNY family photo in the afternoon lol. Happy Chinese New Year from all of us! 

Happy Chinese New Year 2016!!

To all my family, friends, students and colleagues (both overseas and in Singapore): 
May the Year of the Monkey bring opportunities your way, and may all your dreams turn into reality and all your efforts into great achievements!! 
Happy Chinese New Year 2016!! 

smile emoticon
祝大家猴年行大运，事事如意，身心安康！

CNY Reunion Dinner 2016

Simple dinner, happy reunion.
It is our tradition to have steam boat for CNY reunion dinner.

CNY Snack

Our favourite snack during CNY is the CNY nian gao. My mother will make different variations of the nian gao snack by coating it with egg batter and fry - a slice of nian gao sandwiched between a slice of sweet potato and a slice of yam, or nian gao with sweet potato, or just nian gao on its own.
I prefer the nian gao on its own because it is sweet. :)

Happiness is...

Rainbow Cake!

2nd Day of CNY 2015

We always have friends visiting us on the 2nd day of CNY for our signature dishes - Hockchew red wine chicken soup with mee sua and my mother's Taiwanese-style braised pork with buns (扣肉包) which were served throughout the day. :) This year, my mother also cooked her glutinous rice (糯米饭) and a new salad dish consisting of thinly sliced capsicums (raw) and pear mixed with apple cider vinegar. :)

Looks like our waist lines will expand lol.

Happy Chinese New Year 2015!

Here is wishing all my friends, my colleagues, my ex-colleagues, my students, my ex-students, my family and my extended family (both overseas and in Singapore) a Happy Lunar New Year!
May the Year of the Sheep bring you and your family Great Health, Great Fortune, Great Success and Great Happiness!
祝大家新年快乐，四季平安，五福临门，事事如意！

Happy Lunar New Year 2015, Everyone!

The four beauties in the family :P

Chinese New Year's Eve 2015

My mother was busy since morning, preparing a number of dishes for offerings to our ancestors and also for our consumption on the 1st day of CNY as we have vegetarian food on the 1st day of the month. She didn't have to prepare much for the reunion dinner because we are having steamboat. She only had to prepare the broth for the steamboat, and prep the seafood, e.g. fish and squid. Something new for this year, she smoked the chicken instead of steaming it for our reunion dinner. It was delicious! :)

Happy Birthday to Men

Today is the 7th day of Chinese New Year, also known as Day of Men or 人日 (rén rì). Today is the day when all men grow a year older and is celebrated with Yusheng (鱼生, yúshēng), also known as Lo Hei (usually a salad made with thinly sliced raw fish, shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments) which has a symbolic meaning of abundance, prosperity and vigour. 
We had yusheng today at dinner to celebration everyone's birthday. :)

4th Day of CNY 2014: Substituted Public Holiday

As Saturday 1 February 2014 was a public holiday for Chinese New Year (2nd Day of CNY), it is substituted and observed by our organisation today*, Monday 3 February 2014. As such, it is a really long weekend, counting from Thursday 30 January afternoon till today, Monday 3 February. It would have been another perfect day of rest except that I have to work on some stuff today...

*However, not every organisation would have today off for their employees, e.g. hospitals and banks and so such organisations would allow their employees to take a day off in lieu of the public holiday.

3rd Day of CNY 2014

It is a day of rest! :) According to the traditional Chinese customs, people do not go visiting on the 3rd Day of Chinese New Year (CNY) for three reasons. 
One, today is the Red Dog day (Red Dog = God of Anger). Apparently, God of Anger brings bad luck to people so people don't go out on this day to avoid losing temper and getting into arguments with others. 
Second, there's a saying that today is the Mice's wedding day and so people want to prevent mice from breeding too fast (or something to that effect, there's a saying in Minnan dialect which I can't recall). 
Third, today is also known as the day of "Sending off the Poor". If you have any rubbish which was not removed before CNY, this is the day to clear them out. And also for the first two days, there was no sweeping allowed and so today is the day to sweep out the "Poor Spirit" from your home. :) 
On a more practical note, after days of CNY preparation and 2 days of CNY celebration, most people are tired and the 3rd Day of CNY is the perfect day for a rest. :P There are definitely wisdom in these sayings by our ancestors. :) 

2nd Day of CNY 2014

For the 2nd day of CNY, we stayed home as we usually have friends visiting us for CNY and for our signature dishes lol. As usual, my mother prepared our Hockchew red wine chicken soup with mee sua and her Taiwanese-style braised pork with buns which were served throughout the day. :) This year, we only had three families visiting us but we were busy entertaining from 10:30am until 6pm! Tiring. :P
Three other families couldn't make it today but have already made appointments to visit on Friday 7 February for CNY visitation as well as for the food lol. Looks like we will be having mee sua and braised pork buns twice within the week! :P   

Chinese New Year 2014

Happy Chinese New Year!

May good health, good luck, good fortune and great success be yours in the Year of the Horse.

祝大家: 新年快乐, 心想事成, 马到成功! 

With no extended families here (both my paternal and maternal side), we only had five places to visit on the first day of Chinese New Year - the temple (to pray for blessings for the year), my grandaunt, an elderly family friend, my primary school teacher and another elderly family friend. :) Pretty relaxing for us. :)

Chinese New Year's Eve 2014

It is Chinese New Year's eve 2014. The girls are at home because their school has declared today a school holiday because of the excellent results for PSLE 2013 and O level 2013. Yes, their CNY holiday is 5 days long!
In the morning, my family prayed to my ancestors and asked for their blessings for the year. In the evening, we had reunion dinner at home as always. :) Being practical, we feel it is not worth it to be fleeced by restaurants for dishes with over the top prices just because it is the Chinese New Year and it is also uncomfortable to eat within a time limit because of the crowds. For us, it is so much easier and comfortable to have dinner at home as we always have steamboat. :)

Preparing the Yu Sheng with seasoned seaweed, jellyfish and scallop

Yu Sheng all done up :)

Home-cooked steamed chicken and steamboat soup

Steamboat

After dinner, we just relaxed and watched television. Actually, it feels like any normal day lol. Oh yes, I gave out red packets to my parents and the girls, and also to our domestic helper. :) The next two days will be busy with visiting family and friends as well as hosting family and friends who come visiting.

Spring Cleaning

Completed, well more or less lol. I realised that this is the last weekend to spring clean before the girls start school next week, and especially before my parents/ their grandparents return home next week from Xiamen. :P Well, although there is another four more weeks to Chinese New Year, no time is a good time than now to start the spring cleaning. :) Of course, with my parents coming back SOON is also a great motivation to spring clean now (in order to avoid scolding from them for messing up the place lol). 
We, meaning the girls and I, have managed to tidied up their study materials, their art and craft materials, and their toys and re-organised into the various boxes. We also threw out and recycled a lot of their past year study materials. Just a little touch up here and there in the next few days, our spring cleaning for Chinese New Year will be done. :)

Drizzly Day 2 of CNY 2013

It is Day 2 of CNY 2013 and the wet weather has not let up. It drizzled on and off through out the day. We didn't go visiting because it is open house today at our place. Family and friends came over for our Hockchew red wine chicken soup mee sua. :)