Getting ready for Tet!!!

Tet / Vietnamese New Year is one of the best time of the year for us.  Especially my Husband, who goes all out with the decor especially RED!!! "The more RED the better" that's his motto for Tet! Here are a few things we got so far!  

Here's a link that defines Tet.  Although I knew what Tet is but it's still very interesting to read! 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%E1%BA%BFt

Since Hoa Mai - Ochna integerrima (in the central and southern parts of Vietnam) is not available here in Chicago, we substitute that with Forsythia instead.  For Forsythia has that same yellow color and blooms right around the Tet holiday! So we settled for that! 

Like the Christmas Tree... it is usually adorns with charms... and most often New Year cards in Vietnam  (we only adorn ours with charms here)! <3 

To pick up that New Year spirit... we had friends and family over ... of course for food first lol and then a few rounds of Bingo! Vietnamese usually plays Lô tô (Lotto) which is the same as Bingo except that they sings when the #s are called instead of just saying the Collum Letter and number like we would call in Bingo! We are not that talented so we just plays regular Bingo. But non-the-less it was an awesome and FUN time! I almost lost my voice screaming the whole night! lol

L'Occitane FREE gift with purchase of $25!!!

Because the hand cream works wonder for me so I went back to get 2 more bottles for my Mom and Auntie! To my luck they've send me a coupon for free gifts with a purchase of $25 as a welcome to L'Occitane since I've registered at the store with my last purchase! At first I thought why not? because it's free and expected it to be like those mini tester that the cosmetic companies usually gives you which are TEENY TINY ... but NOPE!! they really surprised me because it's a lot bigger than that! You can tell from the picture! 

So I URGE you to go to their website and register and once they email it to you, just print and go in with your purchase to get them! 

The lotion I got was only $20 so I bought a tube of hand cream for another $10 so I qualified for it! Best part is that since I need two bottles of lotion so I bought two tubes of hand cream and separate them for purchase and got 2 free gifts sets instead of one (but that's because I used my mom's email for the second purchase)! Want to see what's in the gift set? 

I haven't tried these out yet because I'm just so excited to share this! A small bottle of shampoo, Shower oil ...the girl at the store told me that it creates a foam like texture that moisturize and great for shaving as well! A bottle of whitening face cleanser (although not many of us wants to whiten our face!), and a bar of soap! Pretty awesome as free stuff don't you think? <3  

For $30 you can get all this! 

I've asked the sales person and she said you could just sign up through their website to get the email with the coupon attached! One thing to keep in mind is that it's one gift per customer and they look up your email account to ring up the free gift! So if you want to get the other gift make sure you register that other email as well!

Dreaming of Lavender!

For the longest time I've heard that Lavender helps you sleep and finally putting it to the test! What could I really loose right? Especially when it smells so lovely in my room! 

Found this links that talks about how Lavender helps you sleep... check it out if you're bored out of your mind ...like me!lol

 http://www.goodsleephygiene.com/Does-Lavender-Help-You-Sleep.html

I passed by the L'Occitane store in the summer and they were displaying Lavender bunches at the door but I never got around to stopping by to pick them up until now and I'm so glad I did.  It smells lovely! I also got Lavender hand lotion and I swear it's the best thing I've put on my hands! It makes my super dried skin feels like SILK! 

I had never purchase anything from L'Occitane before and I think they had won me over! Because I had never paid $15 for a dead bunch of flowers and $20 for small hand lotion bottle! It's not that I couldn't afford it but it just doesn't make sense to me before!  Because lotions are abundant here in America and it's cheap, plus I couldn't tell the difference in quality until now! It's worth every penny and more! <3 I was super hyped about L'Occitane that I went to their website to look and found this lovely video of where they got their Lavender from. Makes me appreciate it a bit more! LOL 

http://usa.loccitane.com/FO/lavender.htm#

If only I could convince my little brother to use it on his hand then that would make my day everyday this winter (* AHEM! KEVIN HOANG!) ! Our skin gets super dry, flaking, cracks up and bleed in winter!  So every night we'd slap Vaseline on our hands and then put gloves on or socks if we lost our gloves ( which happens quite often!) before going to sleep to keep it from drying up and bleed! Although, we have been blessed with this lovely weather in Chicago this year but I am ready for some cold winter actions! 

Aside from everything else ...it completes my bedside table! 

I blame  the Lavender it's making me like this LOL

Vegetarian Ham Saute in Lemongrass/ Ham Chay Xao Xa Ot

Ingredients: 

3 cloves of garlic (minced)

2 tbl spoons of cooking oil

1 tbl spoon of mushroom seasoning

1/2 a small onion (sliced) 

2 tbl spoons of minced lemongrass

2 tbl spoons of vegetarian fish sauce (if not available you can substitute this with 1 tbl spoon of mushroom seasoning and 2 tbl spoons of water)

1 tbl spoon of sugar

1 tbl spoon of chili paste 

3 rounds of vegetarian ham ( since then came in a tube-like form so you'd cut 3 rounds each about 1 inch) then slice the rounds up into thin pieces.

Instruction:

1. In a frying pan add in the oil and the garlic, put it on high heat till the garlic starts to brown then put the heat down to medium.

2. Add in the ham, lemongrass, all the spice and sauce. Stir occassionally while it cooks until 1/2 the liquid in the pan have evaporated.

3. Add in the onions and toss for about 2 minutes or until it starts to wilt then turn of the heat. *Reason for adding in the onion so late is that you still want that sweet taste and crunchiness when you eat ...without the bitter raw taste of onions therefore stop cooking when it begins to wilt is the perfect time to get that taste! 

Very easy and you can be done in 10 minutes from prepping to putting it on your plate! =0) 

Happy Cooking! <3 

Ca Kho To Chay / Vegetarian Fish Clay Pot

Ca Kho To is one of my favorite dish and I'm just so glad I've found a way to make it vegetarian, without missing much of the original flavor.  Although it's true... you can never make it taste the same but this one comes close!

Ingredients: 
2 cups of boiling or HOT water 
2 tbl spoons of cooking oil
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 bag of vegetarian salmon fish slices ( cut the slices into 4 even pieces) * I have tried other kind of vegetarian fish fillet for this recipe but this is the only one that holds it shapes.  With the other ones... the "meat" just falls apart from being in boiled for so long ...so the end result is like "fish pudding in clay pot!" NOT GOOD! 

1 small onion sliced ( or half of a large one will do)
a few chilies
1 tbl spoon of ground black pepper
1 bag of spices for Catfish Clay Pot 

 

1/2  tbl spoon of dark caramel ( you can make them simply by burning the sugar on a pan) or you can buy one like this...

 

 1 tbl spoon of mushroom seasoning 

For this dish you'd usually need a clay pot but if you don't have one ... it's OKAY! I'd prefer a nonstick small cooking pot because sometimes during shimmering.... the food could burn a little and stick to the bottom, but with a nonstick surface you can just remove that with a little scrapping so that it does not continues to burn.  

 Instructions:

1. Put the oil and garlic into the clay pot on medium heat till the garlic are golden. 

2. Add in your salmon and onions. Then add in all the spices and sauce.

3. Add in two cups of boiling or HOT water ( because if you use a clay pot and while it's hot, pouring in cold water will crack your pot!)

 

4. Mix up the ingredients a little then put it on high heat until it boils.  Once boiled, bring it down to medium heat and leave it on until about half of the water evaporates then you're done! 

 Mine turned out great! The ingredients above yielded a FULL big clay pot... so if you have a lot of company or plan to eat them throughout the week then great. If you're not keen on that then just cut everything back in half okay!!!! HAPPY COOKING!!! <3 

And this is my "trophy" from my husband who cleaned out the pot with rice so nothing goes to waste! <3