Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year!

With the Year of the Tiger upon us, I decided it was about time that I learned to cook with ginger. We are probably some of the luckiest Peace Corps volunteers because we are able to easily buy ginger root at the local market (along with green onions and napa cabbage). However, I have always been reluctant to cook with fresh ginger. Considering I love all things with ginger, including candy, gingerbread, and of course Chinese cooking, it was clear that with our Ecuadorian Lunar New Year party upon us, it was time that I learned.

I am happy to report that we successfully made several Chinese dishes with ginger! Woo hoo! With a little bit of ginger, the pan fried dumplings, kung pao chicken, and lo mein noodles just had that extra little oomph to it! For our Lunar New Year party, we made kung pao chicken, mai fun, beef & broccoli, fried rice, lo mein noodles, red curry (it's Thai but a good vegetarian option!), pan fried dumplings, fried won tons, and egg rolls. We definitely couldn't have done it with some help (frying queen Liz, dumpling folding champ Justin, supplier of all things bowls and mango expert Stacia, and Jason, the master of delicious desserts). It was a lot of food, but definitely did good for my Chinese food cravings since the chifas here don't cut it. I'm also glad that we are putting to good use the ingredients that we imported from our trip to the US (chinese tea, noodles, egg roll/won ton/dumpling wrappers, real soy sauce, sriracha sauce...). Dragging those heavy suitcases back were so worth it!

Stacia cutting the mango since I have no skills in that area.

Justin, Adam and Stacia making pleats in the dumpling wrappers

Mango pudding and coconut jello

Jason with his delicious chocolate cheesecake squares. Mmmm.....

We ended up having probably way too many people than our little apartment can handle- almost 25 people is a tight fit for our 1 bedroom apartment! For some reason I don't have many pictures of all the people squeezed in our little space, eating and grooving to the music mix that Jason and Grigs put together (something about Chinese Crunk, but all I heard was LFO, Christina Aguilera and some TLC). We also only had a few casualties that night- a few dropped cups of wine (wish I captured the image of Jason with wine all down his front) and a broken bowl (sorry Stacia! And it's official, Corelle does break on tile floors). It was nice to get together with everyone and now I am sure all of us will have a year of wealth, happiness and good fortune!