Chinese New Year's Eve

We had a family Chinese New Year's Eve dinner tonight, celebrating with dumplings, steamed buns and tea leaf eggs. The dumplings and buns were store-bought, but Lillian helped prepare them by arranging them in the steamer. The tea leaf eggs were an experiment Kari tried that turned out pretty well. I used a variation of this recipe. One key is to use black soy sauce (laochau) as well as the more commonly available soy sauce you can find in typical grocery stores. The black soy sauce is generally only available at Asian grocers that have a large Chinese import section. The Korean grocer closest to us doesn't carry it, but one in Overland Park does.

Lillian wore a new dress -- one we'd actually bought in China last year but saved for CNY this year. She also received a traditional red envelope with money (in her case, coins for her piggy bank) and a small Chinese fan.