GOOD FOOD FOR 2010

The food for 2010 has already started off rather well. After mass, 4/5 of my family headed out for dim sum and after a short 10-minute wait, we dug into various small dishes of yum! We had pork dumplings (siu mai), beef rice noodle rolls, beef balls, curry tomato cuttlefish, fried sardines, special rice dish with sausage and dried pork, beef spare ribs and some other stuff I can't remember. It was too much food but I really have not had a meal like that with my family in months; not one where we all sat around and enjoyed ourselves. I genuinely had a good time and good chats with my parents. Sadly I have no photographic evidence of this meal as the only thing I brought with me as we left the house for church was my set of keys.

After an afternoon of stomach unease (too much dim sum and I knew it would happen), I decided to whip up a batch of cupcakes (more on the next post) to take to my aunt's house for New Year's dinner. It's a tradition to go to her house for dinner but since the weather was really bad in Sean's town and he didn't feel like driving and I didn't want to go alone (my family would be there but I haven't seen my extended family in like...4 years), I stayed home alone. There was almost nothing in the fridge beyond some rotting produce but I did manage to whip this up:Orechiette with zucchini, mushrooms and tomatoes. The 1/4 of a zucchini was randomly on the counter and once I saw the mushrooms that were about 24 hours away from their expiry date, I knew a pasta-veggie dish was in the making. With the addition of some thyme, it was really tasty!

And then a few hours later I was craving some sweet but despite all the treats we had in the house (including those cupcakes and other leftover treats from holiday parties), I wanted something warm. I had intended to microwave some frozen fruits and top them off with a bit of whipped cream but there was none in the house so I just settled on the warmed fruits: