Mid Autumn - season of gatherings

I don't remember when I started "celebrating" Mid Autumn festival (a.k.a. Mooncake / Lantern festival).  I think it was during my previous job where 99% of my colleagues are Chinese and one or two of them really make special effort to buy Mooncakes for their in-law families and I got caught up in the festivities.

2012's lanterns.  We had more this year, but lazy to take pix :D

It started small, with just a lantern for Noel and when Del came along, a lantern for him too.  But it got bigger and bigger.  Last year we had a full blast family gathering just so that the kids can have fun playing the lanterns.  This year even better - we had three family gatherings over two weekends!!  Absolute fun, not just for the kids, but for the adults as well.  We had a gathering with the Tans on the 14th Sept, with the Ganangs on 15th Sept and another with the Tans on 21st.  How awesome!!

One of the rekindled relationship with Dad's side - never met this Aunty and her family before.

The gathering on the 15th was totally unexpected.  We were walking around in Serikin on the 14th (something we rarely do!) when we bumped into Dad's nephew who stayed with Mum and Dad during his bachelor years and we have not seen for the longest time (10 years at least).  So we invited them over for dinner and was thrilled that they (he and his family) accepted.  We had the greatest time catching up.

One of our family gatherings - at Pantai Pasir Panjang - "Clove".  The family happily sitting under a tree.

Did not take any pix of this year's celebrations but putting in some photos of the gatherings that we have been having with my mom's side of the family.  

Our kids exploring new things - not only lanterns but also flying kites!

2nd cousins happily playing water together.

Oh! But wait!!!! I had more than just 3 gatherings that weekend!!  I had one great time over breakie on the 14th with these two lovelies as well.  So aunt-ish of us to be up early and to have breakfast so early in the morning!  Yeah, we met at 7am!

Not really morning persons,but we made a point to get up and have our rare meet!

And on the 20th night, our cell group also had Mid Autumn dinner, which turned out to be just 3 families - with our parents joining and we had 2 different groups fellowship-ing - the kids (errr.... 30 above "kids") and the parents (60 above!).  We even had our own "kids" table!

This year have been a season of kindling family ties with both sides of the family.  I have been blessed to get to know more family members and I pray, come 2014, when things gets hectic for me, I will still have time to enjoy this beautiful tie.  Yes, it was a great time to sit back (pile up on the kilos!!) and catch up over the Mid Autumn.  It is after all about family ties.  

Simple Birthday meal

Over the years since SIL joined the family, we have tried as much as we can to celebrate her birthday with her - just like the rest of the family members of course.  But we've come to realize that every time we had a cake while celebrating her birthday, it would rain so heavily till a point of thunderstorm even!

It was a fine, bright day

There was this year, when we decided to have a bbq at home for her birthday, and we decided to dine al-fresco, bringing out our dining table.  The evening started to drizzle - we moved in the car porch, then it rained - we moved further in to the veranda.  It started to be a full forced thunderstorm, that we have to move into the living room and when it got really heavy we moved back to the kitchen!

Red Velvet cake with Cream Cheese frosting

Another year, we had dinner at TopSpot, a seafood outdoor eating place, and again, it decided to rain cats and dogs.  And both years, it was when we had a cake for her birthday!  So we resorted to not have any cake anymore (actually, come to think of it, we don't have cakes for the other adults too!).

RV was originally a layered cake - so actually, it should be more than two layers - but, oh well.
Sandwiched with cream cheese.

But this year, I went back to the usual practice of making a cake for her birthday just to test our theory of cake = heavy rain.  It took me nights and days thinking of what cake if suitable.  Didn't manage to think of any so I decided to head to Taka (local bakery) to look for inspiration.  Even before I walked in, the name Red Velvet (RV) jumped out to me.  But, but, but.... I've never baked RV before - because of two reasons.  1.  To me, it's just chocolate cake with red colouring (a lot of colouring at that!). 2.  In my head, a RV should be sourish as in, it contains sourcream and buttermilk - to make it sourish and moist - and both ingredients are almost impossible to find in Kuching.  But what the heck, I went ahead to try to find a "localized" recipe and found one here and I baked the cake.  The result, a bit too dense for my liking (In my head, it should be light and fluffy) - yes, I have too many ideas in my head!  But then again, I've never tasted a "real" RV so I've got nothing to compare it against.  The other RV I ever tasted almost made my teeth break and dropped due to it's sweetness!  Not a good benchmark.

Ready to be roasted on top of a bed of carrot, celery, onions and garlic - love the lemon in the bird.

Then for the dinner, I cooked a simple meal - all oven based.  She was working that night so I had to rush rush rush.  Followed Jamie Oliver's roasted chicken recipe as closed as possible.  Love the lemon in the chicken cavity - but, hard to get fresh herbs around here (thyme, rosemary etc).

Need more cooking time.  Not brown enough too!

Result?  The recipe indicated 1 hour 20 minutes in 200C oven for a 1.6kg bird - not enough cooking time.  The chicken was still bloody when we cut it open even after I have added another 30 minutes to the cooking time.  Next time I'll try 3 hours.  But when it was cooked, the chicken was still nice and moist, which is what really matters actually.  And.... our family of 5 adults + 2 kids finished the whole 1.6kg chicken in one sitting!  Yums!

Rice splashed with mushroom soup, topped with mince meat red sauce

As for the carb, I decided to make Cheese Baked Rice.  The kids called it Pizza Rice!  Haha... probably because I used the same mince meat + red sauce as the topping for the rice.  

Topped generously with mozarella cheese and baked till golden brown

In the "normal" Hong Kong food shops, the baked rice is very creamy and wet - which I do not quite like - so for ours, I didn't put too much mushroom soup on the cooked rice - poured just enough to cover the rice.  Topped with a lot of mozarella cheese and bake till golden brown.

So much cheese for the day!  Cream cheese (from RV) + mozarella cheese!

Result?  Nice moist rice - with just enough taste of mushroom soup - not wet and sticky, superb layer of cheese and again, our family finished the whole dish in one sitting (about 3 cups of rice!) - which is actually very rare as we limit our rice intake.

But we had vegetables too, of course!

Overall, it was a nice (and yes, simple) meal, which I hope my SIL enjoyed.  And no, it did not rain this year :)