Merry Christmas

LOVE comes to us in many ways, 

but none more beautiful than the gift of JESUS. 

May you have the endless blessings of His love 

throughout the season and in the New Year. 

Have a wonderful Christmas.

Blessings,

Sydney + Will

Thanksgiving Recap

Bird-mama invited Sam, Edward, and us over for dinner the night before Thanksgiving day. It was very kind of her to cook for us except that we had to listen to her playing piano before, during, and after dinner. hahaha =P It was a very hilarious dinner. Whoever gets invited next time, be prepared.....

We spent our Thanksgiving day at my in-law's. We invited Anita to join us since she had no plan that day. We started to eat in the early afternoon and watched the DVD "Kung Fu Panda." This movie is very cute and funny. We loved it very much after watching it at the theater. Then we started getting the big dinner ready. I made my five-color baked fish. My mother-in-law made so many great dishes. It was a feast! Same as last year, Hubby's great auntie came and brought her popular sweet baked yam. All of us pigged out.... and we had fun playing Wii for the rest of the night.

More photos for Thanksgiving Dinner (Click Here)

Black Friday. Both of us stayed at home. We're glad that we didn't have the urge to go shopping, except for grocery. We actually didn't need or want anything. It was a relaxing day to just do nothing, ate the leftover ham and turkey, and watched the forensic files marathon, my favorite.

Saturday was my big cook day for my family. It was Grandma's first time visiting our apartment. I got up so early to start preparing all the ingredients I need for my big dinner. Hubby also helped out with cleaning the entire place. It felt like we were having an open house and ready to entertain the guests. I spent hours in the kitchen, basically the whole day, to cook. I was a little slow but I wanted to make sure everything just tasted right. We made 7 dishes (five home-made, two take-out) & home-made soup.

We had some ice wine and cheesecake for dessert after dinner and played some Mario cars. We also took some pictures with the photobooth. It was amazing that all of us could fit in the pictures! I guess we didn't care where Zoya was. MeiMei, where were you?!?!

It was a lovely family gathering. It was a joy to see them eat. All the hardwork had paid off. Grandma approved my cooking skill, I guess I'm passed. Now I can cook for my in-laws. =P

More photos from Janice for the family gathering (Click Here)

I'm thankful for everything God has given to us, my loving hubby, our families, brothers & sisters in Christ, our small group, friends, our churches, our health, our marriage, the work of our hands, our daily life.... I thank God for all the overflowing blessings He has poured down in our lives. Thank You Jesus, for you're the source of all the blessings and perfect gifts. =)

Iron Chef 11.22.2008

Our small group held the first annual iron chef contest over the weekend to celebrate the early Thanksgiving. The rules are very simple. Whoever wants to participate must make your own main dish and think of a name for it. The host would write the name of the dish on the card with a number. It was anonymous and after we tasted the foods, everyone could cast three votes. The dish that received the most number of votes would be the winner.We'd been thinking about what to make for many days. Hubby decided to make the pumpkin that matched that theme of Thanksgiving. For me, I decided to bake the fish and use the power of "colors."

Hubby's dish is called "碧綠輝煌" (emerald-green-splendid). The huge Japanese steamed pumpkin is used as the bowl and the difficult part is to cut the pumpkin to make the lid and take out the seeds inside. Then we filled the pumpkin with stir-fried chicken and then sprinkled the pine nuts on top. The broccoli is placed around the pumpkin for decoration.

My dish is called "五彩繽紛" (five-colors-colorful?!). I used the Tilapia fish fillets. Marinated with olive oil and sprinkled the "secret fish spice" on both sides. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Then garnished the fish with diced red onion, green onion, red bell pepper, and corn kernel, and put the slices of lime around the plate to make it more presentable.

Cooking is indeed an art. It's not just about taste, but also the presentation, how it looks like, smells like, the texture of the ingredients, and so on.

There were 13 different tasty dishes on the table to be judged that night. All of us were so amazed when we saw all the dishes before we started the dinner. We spent like five minutes "observing" each dish. It seemed like everyone was very serious about this iron chef competition.

(click on the photo for larger view, photo from Janice)

The highlight of the night was to reveal the chef behind each dish and count the votes. For the first annual iron chef competition, the winner goes to.....

Chef Ruth, for her 福蝦滿溢 (overflowing blessed shrimps)

WOW......I'm very surprised that she was able to make this. hahaha =P She said she found a recipe online from a five-star restaurant and watched several youtube clips to learn how to carve the cucumbers/tomatoes from Taiwanese and Indian chefs. She even practiced once for my grandma to try. Her shrimps taste really good! She got one of my votes. =)

There're two second place since the votes were tied. Second place goes to......

Chef Edward, for his 牛郎織女 (very creative name but don't know how to translate that, it's beef-stew!)

Everyone said that his beef is truly delicious. Even my grandma who doesn't like to eat beef said that this dish is incredibly tender and tasty.

Another second place goes to....me, for my five-colors baked fish. Yay! I'm very surprised that people actually like it! The colors do catch people's eyes and the "secret spice" does attract people's taste buds.

The votes were very close and I think everybody did a great job tonight. Let's get ready for another round next year! heehee

Some photos from my camera (Click Here)

More photos from Janice (Click Here)