Lesson 22-Happy New Year!!!

You may be thinking this is a bit late. I mean it is over a week past Valentine's and I'm just now wishing you Happy New Year? But have you forgotten--as I usually do that the Chinese New Year falls after our Gregorian (that is the calendar we use, right?) New Year. Some friends of ours, R & J, are Chinese--by way of Canada--and invited us to their house last night to learn how to make won-tons. And they were even nice enough to let us eat them after wards!!!

Since we were complete novices our main responsibility was folding the noodle in preparation for boiling. The stuffing was ground pork, shrimp, cilantro, black fungus (not as gross as it sounds) and some other stuff that's slipped my mind. The noodles were store-bought to save our hosts from the hassle of making 300 won-ton squares.



With about 10 people helping fold the won-tons into 'nurses hats' we made 300 won-tons! And as K, R & J's daughter, instructed so firmly: "You can't have any holes or they'll explode!" We did pretty good, considering all the hands that were involved in the folding process--only 5 blowouts! Not bad for a bunch of amateurs, I'd say.



After all 300 were boiled they were topped with barbecued pork, noodles, sesame oil, chives and a broth. It was so yummy!!! For dessert we had ice cream with lychee. That was so yummy too!!!

We also had fun reading and learning about our Chinese zodiaks. I'm an ox and the Husband is a tiger. And man is he so proud of being a tiger.

And in case you're wondering this is the year of the tiger. And last year was my year, the year of the tiger.