Chinese New Year Eve

Perhaps one of the most important meals of the year is on the Chinese New Year's eve. This is when all family members would try to "go home" to their parents and celebrate the occasion. This is also an opportunity for reunion. When I was young, I remembered that my father and the older males of the family would cook this meal! Today, I would do all the cooking.
This year, we decided to go simple as we have been over eating!

So we cooked a mixed vegetable. Method: cut all veg, dip in boiling water for 1 minute and then "fry" with some meat and corn flour. Add salt for taste.

Eating leek (suan) is a tradition. I don't know why.
p/s: Garry told me that this "suan" sounds like "counting". That may explain why Chinese can count very well! ;-)

... roasted chicken legs with rosemary. The chicken from this particular supermarket is badly done ... sometimes, they didn't remove the blood completely and after cooking, the chicken look as if it had been beaten to death! You can see the bruises which was caused by retained blood! Annoying indeed!

For dessert, we had ice cream, longan and yogurt drink. We also had some spaghetti as Ah Jon crave for it!

After dinner, the two younger boys went to the store room and dug out the firecrackers given to us by friend some 10+ years ago! They played safe by throwing the smaller crackers into the fire. We had about 4 feet of large firecracker left and Jos decided that we will blow everything off!

... and this was the result of the final deafening "explosion"! After dinner, my neighbourhood would let off all kinds of firework. However, the showdown will start 15 minutes to midnight.

... and my neighbourhood was like a "battle for explosion". At the stroke of twelve, heavy smoke and lots of noises were everywhere. Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! May the new year brings you good health, wealth and happiness.