Happy New Lunar Year! (Year of the Cat)

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới (Happy New Year!)! For Vietnamese, today is the first day of the Year of the Cat (Mèo), which is the "rabbit" in the Chinese zodiac.

If you're wondering what the plant is, it's cherry blossom flowers. It's decorated with red envelopes that contain "lucky money", called lì xì. The first morning of the New Year is a celebration (Tết) where adults congratulate children on becoming a year older by giving them these lì xì. We also decorated the house with a lot of red color, which is a sign of happiness. We cooked quite a few vegetarian Vietnamese dishes to observe the tradition of eating vegetarian food (ăn chay) on the last day of the previous year and first day of New Year.

Finally, if you want to get in on the festivities, I’ve collected a list of some of my favorite dishes for Tết for you to try. Enjoy!

Happy New Year 2010: Pham Fatale's 1st Blog Anniversary

Chocolate filled Sticky Rice Balls with Coconut

I made some coconut flavored sticky rice balls but instead of making the traditional split mung bean filling, I stuffed the dumplings with chocolate. I steamed them then rolled them in freshly grated coconut. They're delicious and cholesterol free.

My 2009 Resolutions List

Soy Nog

Today is New Year's Eve and I thought I'd make something special for one of my sisters-in-law.  I wanted to do something festive and decadent for her this Holiday Season, but she is deathly allergic to eggs and nuts.  She has always wanted to try egg nog, so I thought how about egg nog, sans eggs and alcohol? It’s Egg-less because of her allergy, and alcohol free because she’s only nine.  So let’s get started on our egg-less custard with the eggnog flavoring.