Happy New Year (Oink Oink)

Without mum here this year to help prepare for Chinese New Year it was all up the two of us to pull up our socks and get things ready. While we didn't end up with as much food this time around I think we did a pretty darn good job.

We picked up this pretty funky Chinese Festival dishes cook book while in Sydney last year which included a recipe for layer cake. It was probably due to the size of the cake pan but we didn't manage to get more than six layers. Still tasted nice though.



Once again we broke out the steam boat that's been collecting dust in our cupboard for the last year. Food stuff on plates included chicken, prawns, pork balls, prawn balls, tofu, vermicelli, kang kung, shitake mushrooms and won tons. We would have had enoki mushrooms too but we noticed they smelled pretty sour as we were unpacking so thought best to leave them off the table.



We had to rearrange the furniture a little to fit six people around our dining table. Regulars Kath and Andrew were joined by Krit and Charlie this time round so we got our first chance to hold a real dinner party. There was some concern about the volume of food put out at the start of the night but we somehow managed to choke it all down without too much difficulty.



Of course Andrew could not refrain from washing up right after dinner.



I'd folded some paper pigs (year of the pig and all that) as table decorations. Kath wanted to have a go and soon enough everyone was getting into it.



Kudos to Krit who actually managed to finish the entire fold. Kath came up with a pretty fetching dinosaur and Andrew completed what I've been told is a scorpion. Sorry Charlie, getting your girlfriend to finish your model doesn't count.



I'm usually relegated to the other end of the camera lens on most gatherings but Andrew was kind enough to snap a few piccies of the two of us.



To finish off the night we served cold watermelon sago which I always enjoy. Hopefully everyone else did too. It was great to have everyone together and we should do this more often.



Oh and as happy news to start the New Year, we found out last night that Kath and Andrew will be buying a new townhouse this year. Settlement will be around June and they were originally planning to move on the Queen's birthday long weekend but we gently reminded them that they might have other commitments on the day. :)