Chinese New Year 2016 : Day 1 Feeding the Clan

Today is the first day of new year and I was still in a coma when the alarm went off at 4:00am. I am very sure there were firecrackers going off past midnight but I was dead to the world. In years past, I used to curse those revelers for disturbing my sleep but not this year.

When I finally woke up (at 5:30am) I went to the kitchen to take out the minced pork that was defrosting in the fridge. I also took out the baked potatoes which I made and froze in advance a week ago. I was going to make meatloaf to serve with pasta and salad.

It was rather therapeutic mixing the ingredients by hand. Then I placed the whole lot into the corningware which I used the night before to house my lousy Ayam Masak Merah.

Then I topped it off with bacon and I knew that would get the nod of approval from the clan.

While the meatloaf was baking, I fried some sliced chorizo for the pasta. I bought the chorizo on a whim a few months back and it had been sitting in the freezer.

I took a sniff at it and it did not smell that good. But it's all I had and I took a chance.

Well, it became wonderful after it was fried. I must stock up some more.

After that was done, I sauteed some onions and garlic to mix together with the pasta.

This is where I censor what happened next (no photos). I have a confession to make. Phong Hong can't cook pasta. I mean, she can but she does not do it well. I had two packets of Angel Hair pasta and it was quite naive of me to think that I had to cook both so that there will be enough to go around. My clan, we are big eaters. 

So I boiled a huge pot of water and dumped both packets of pasta into the water. Angel Hair pasta cooks very fast, the package instruction said 2 minutes but it was not done by then. It took me slightly more than 3 minutes. 

I drained the pasta and that's when I realized that two packets is a huge amount. Some of the pasta got stuck to the bottom of the pot and the ones in the colander were sticking to each other. It was a nightmare. I was out of my comfort zone.

I poured half into the large corningware and poured the sauteed onions/garlic into the pasta and tried to toss it. The oil was not enough so I added more olive oil. Mix, mix, mix. Then I added the fried chorizo which I had cut into smaller pieces.

Obviously, there wasn't enough chorizo but I continued to toss. I also added some Italian flat leaf parsley to make it pretty. I then seasoned the pasta with salt and pepper because it was grossly under-seasoned (the chorizo oil was quite salty but there wasn't enough of it). Never mind. I will just leave salt and pepper on the dining table for my guests to do their own seasoning.

This is the best I can do. It looks like fried beehoon.

By that time, the other half of the pasta was all clumpy in the colander. So I threw it away. What a waste. 

Then my made the salad dressing. I made a honey mustard dressing ala Salad Shack.

I mixed whole grain mustard, honey, red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic powder and salt. 

Drat! I forgot to snap a pic of the salad. Or the three dishes on the dining table. 

Well, I am happy to say that the meatloaf and salad was very well received with a seal of approval from the matriarch of the clan. The pasta? hah...hah... YB1 (younger brother no. 1) gave me some pointers which I will take note when I cook pasta. Pasta is more his domain and my sister-in-law told me that he has declared his kitchen closed for the whole week. Tomorrow my kitchen is closed hah...hah... 

So that wraps up day 1.