Chinese New Year in Finland

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you may remember this post, when I celebrated Chinese Mid-Autumn Harvest Festival in Colombia.  Well, it's been awhile since I've enjoyed Chinese dumplings, and they are much too much work to bother with for just one person (and besides, how on earth would I eat so many?), so I figured Chinese New Year was the perfect occasion to invite some friends over and celebrate.  

Lucky for me, there's an Asian grocery right downtown, so I got almost everything I needed.  Ground pork was the hardest. After asking (in Finnish!  Go me!) if they sold it at 2 stores, and being told no at one, and it was sold out at the other, I finally settled on a 60%pork, 40% beef mixture.  (I should really ask some Finnish friends why they sell it. . .  Anyways, if you're ever in Finland and making dumplings, it works fine if you can't find ground pork). Oh, and don't plan on serving green beans in Finland in February.  After searching in 4 stores, I finally found a largish handful for €3.80. It didn't seem worth the price to me.

On the menu: Pork (ok, ok, pork/beef) dumplings, orange chicken, spoon vegetables, jasmine rice, and bubble tea.  The orange chicken was a new recipe and it was delicious. If you're looking for a new recipe, you should give it a try.  

Have I mentioned what wonderful friends I have here?  I was running a bit late, (searching for green beans and ground pork in 4 grocery stores the day of will do that to you) so they pitched in and helped assemble dumplings and cook the veggies while I finished off the chicken and bubble tea.  

Dinner finally ready, we sat down to eat.

Well, I never said they were normal

 We ate until we were full.  Then we kept eating.  We ate until there wasn't anything left to eat, and then took a break for dessert.

So yummy

And then, in true international fashion, we combined one celebration with another.  We happened to be celebrating Chinese New Year a few days late, and it also happened to be Runeberg's day, a day to celebrate a 19th century Finnish poet who penned the national anthem.  For whatever reason, it's typically celebrated by eating Runeberg's Torte, so  eat them we did, compliments of Alistair and Birte.

新年快樂！

(xin nian kuai le- Happy New Year!)