Food centered weekend

It was a food abundance weekend! The Sunday lunch that I hosted featuring chinese food was a big success! But let me start from the beginning

Friday: I stayed home to make sure all the vegetables that could be prepared ahead of time was prepared by Nair.

Saturday: the raining season is in full force. I managed to run 6 miles in the middle of heavy rain and called it good for the day. I spent the morning food prepping for Sunday, with tons of help from husband who was in charge of cutting meat and cleaning the jumbo shrimp. A big discovery happened this week. Brasilia doesn’t have a large Chinese community thus I can’t find many ingredients. I was still missing a few so I asked two of Chinese parents that I know where do they find ingredients. They introduced me to a chat group and I realized that the community is larger than I thought and I can basically find anything I need. That was an EPIC moment for us. Saturday I used the newly acquired rice cakes to make a traditional dish for the family and they loved it. That night, I went to bed 7:30pm, same as the night before as I was tired. TMI: first period since starting HRT.

Sunday: I continued to sleep very well which is super recharging for the day ahead of me. The rain has stopped so I went out for a run. I ended up doing 12 miles with the last two with Sofia.

At 9:30am I started the real prep, making all the cold dishes first while mixing sauce for the wok dishes.

At 1pm, guests arrived (5 instead of 8 as 3 of the adults kid decided not to join which is totally reasonable, but one 18 yrs old joined because of the chinese food).

Sofia had a friend over to make cookies for teachers so Sofia was busy and entertained. Lizzy on the other hand was my taste tester. This is a new dish I tried: pork ball with glutinous rice, which I forgot to snap a pic at the end.

Beef marinated

cucumber salad

pickled radish

bittermelon salad

The #1 dish for all guests: pork ribs

mixed vegetables salad with mung bean noodles

kelp strip salad

jumbo shrimp over mung bean noodles with tons of garlic

Unpic dishes: mapo tofu, spicy chicken, salmon with scallion sauce, and the glutinous rice pork balls.

It was a LOT of food but the guests loved them and finished 90% of all these! I was truly impressed by their appetite.

They lingered around the dinning table until 3:30pm before moving to ice cream and coffee.

Oh.. they are all Argentinians and the conversation flowed all around and a lot of laughing.

After they left 5:30pm, I took a cat nap as I was quite exhausted. When I emerged from my room, Sofia was still baking in the kitchen. Her friend left, Sofia looked tired and stressed as she wasn’t sure she’d be able to finish all. I helped her, made her sticky rice with mango for dinner, and called it a night.

Although it’s a lot of work, I enjoyed cooking. The mmm…. ohhhh… sound of my guests after their first bite is priceless. And the fact that they finish most of the food, which is a lot! 10 dishes, tells me that they like them. 🙂

My signature dish remains: pork belly! It never fails to impress 😉