>>> Chinese New Year Dinner! <<<

What a day! Oh well, started out normally with swimming for Oliver in the morning and Chinese classes for him in the afternoon. Decided to sit down with him to prepare him for his Chinese class as he has been finding it difficult to follow in class. Anyway it paid off as I received a brillant report from his Chinese teacher. He did so well in class and got a reward as well. He was ever so pleased. Guess I need to do it frequently now. I'm hoping he will be able to speak a bit of Mandarin when we are in Singapore as the language is widely used there!

Got in at 4ish and started preparations for the CNY dinner. Thankfully, there wasn't a lot to prepare in terms of cooking it as the cooking of the food is done during the meal itself! Hence, it was a matter of getting all the ingredients into plates and laying it out on the table.

Guest list was suddenly augmented today! Hubby invited his other sis and her two boys. Then in the afternoon, his youngest sis got herself and boyfriend invited when she heard about it. (The one who often sashays 2-3 hrs late for family functions!) Well, today she did arrive on time but then hubby and I wasn't about to start dinner any later than 6pm if she didn't turn up on time! It was a tight squeeze on the dining table and the rice ran out halfway (I had cooked 4.5 cups of rice which was the max that my rice cooker can handle). Had to re-cook another 2 cups! It was a great dinner and I'm quite surprised that hubby's sisters knew nothing about CNY traditional dinners seeing that they are half Chinese! But then their dad was away all the time anyway. Was so busy with serving that I didn't take much photos during the dinner so I leave you with photos of the food instead! Mmmmmm.....

Hubby preparing chicken wings for the kiddies and also cooking beef rendang (beef curry for BIL)

Chinese delicacy: abalone. A tin costs £30 at a Chinese supermarket here! Thank goodness my Dad brought one with him when he came over last Aug.

My fav: king prawns!
(you need to know how to decipher the numbers when buying them in a box at a Chinese supermart. Usually it's written 16/20 which means you get between 16-20 pieces and they are fairly big prawns. If you see 30/35, it means you get between those numbers but the prawns are much smaller in size. So the bigger the numbers, the smaller the prawns!)

A dish full of seafood i.e. fish balls, cuttlefish balls, fish tofu etc.

A dish of seaweed tofu

Squids!

Marinated beef!

Not forgetting vegetables! So essential in our meals.

Not included in the picture is the steamboat which we used for cooking the food. Also the beef rendang which we specially prepare for BIL as he dislikes anything fishy. So annoying when you forget to take such photos but I was just too busy serving 14 hungry guests!

The boys had a great time with their cousins! It's not often they see them all so they had great fun playing with each other. Oh well, at least half of them played with the DSs. It's great they will be seeing them again tomorrow at Zac's party. TTFN!