No chocolate treat!Username: wish
I've made a: Savoury
Title: Jai or Buddha's Delight
Entry: x X x
Comments: It is not Valentine's Day but it is a sweet/savoury meal for everyone. It is a vegetarian meal that is eaten on the lunar new year and contains so many ingredients that I don't know the english name of. But some of my favorite ingredients (in the third picture) are the fried bean curds, mushrooms, and cellophane noodles (I had to google the name for the cellophane noodle!). According to wikipedia, Buddhists eat this during the new year as a form of self-purification. While growing up, I've always had the belief that it was food that monks eat because they are vegetarians.

---------- Post added 02-18-2015 at 10:06 PM ----------

No chocolate treat!
Username: wish
I've made a: Sweet
Title: soft chewy sweet cakes of goodness
Entry: x
Comments: Normally during the lunar new year my family and I buy these every year. However this year, my mom and I decided to take it upon ourselves to make it! They are called nian gao and are traditionally eaten during the lunar new year. "Nian Gao" actually means sticky cake but in chinese, the sounds are identical to "year high," thus when we eat it during the new year, we are actually wishing for a better year or a prosperous year. My mom and I steamed this for 3 hours in our steamer! We used metal cans which we lined with saran wrap as molds. We also fried the sesame seeds in a pan and my dad wrapped the cakes in red paper after they were cooled. The color red symbolizes luck and wards away evil. :D

With the valentine day flowers and the red paper wrappers, doesn't it look like a great valentine dessert?