Thursday, February 3, 2011

Hop To It

Happy Chinese New Year!  It's 4708, and  the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese calendar

My preschool held sessions today, after being closed for two days due to snow.  I felt pretty good when I woke up, but as the day wore on the ice chopping and snow shoveling I did yesterday on the driveway led to sore muscles in places I didn't even know I had!  By time I left work for the day all I wanted to do was come home, sit on the couch, and read the newspaper.

I wanted to celebrate the Chinese New Year in some way, but cooking sounded like too much work when there were leftovers from last night's dinner that I could reheat--baked salmon with dill sauce on the side, brown rice, and steamed broccoli.  Rather than starting from scratch with a new meal, I decided to try to put an Oriental spin on the one I had.

I didn't have a lot of ingredients to work with, but I think I managed to do an acceptable job. I cut the broccoli (green symbolizes luck and harmony in China) into small pieces, tossed in a can of bamboo shoots (for strength and longevity), and marinated both in a soy sauce-based vinaigrette. Instead of last night's dill sauce, I made a quick sweet and sour one to spoon over the fish  (a symbol of prosperity if it's whole, but I'm not sure what our serving size chunks would stand for).  For dessert I sliced  oranges (which are a symbol of good luck) and arranged them in a bowl. When Tony got home from work, I heated the rice and fish in the microwave and put everything on the table.

I hope our meal was an auspicious beginning to the Chinese year.

2 comments:

  1. Gung Hay Fat Choy, Kathy. We cheated and brought food in from Panda Express. My mother loved it! Hmmm... we also had Tai Chi today so I guess we managed to get some Chinese celebration in.

    I hope your muscles will unwind quickly and that you won't get socked by more snow.

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  2. What a fantastic idea to make a new sauce and it sure sounds like it was good... and all I had was salad and a bun. lol

    My Chinese Zodiac is the rabbit so good things will come my way this year. ;-)

    Happy Chinese New Year!

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