Chinese Buffet!

Yesterday my Dad (Bill) turned 65.  So, my Mom planned this big dinner for him.  She called me for ideas on what to do for his birthday dinner.  I suggested Chinese because he really loves Chinese food and we rarely eat it at family gatherings.  But, because Mom does not really know any Chinese recipes, I offered for Matt and I to come and cook for dinner.

So, yesterday after church and a nap, we headed up to Eagle Mountain.  Matt has been experimenting with various Chinese recipes for me because I have been craving Chinese food, but going out to eat Chinese all the time is expensive.  So, we had a couple of good recipes in our back pockets that we knew were good.  We made Panda Expresses Bejing Beef and Asian Stars Walnut Shrimp.  We often will eat something at a restaurant and I like it, so Matt immediately looks up the recipe online when we get home.

We cooked for like 2 hours (we were cooking for a crowd of 30) and we finally finished a little after everyone arrived.  Nicole did not like the idea of us cooking without her.  She prefers to stand on a chair at the counter and watch us cook, but as we were cooking with oil, she was not allowed to do that and there was many a meltdown.

The buffet was successful and my siblings all brought awesome dishes (lettuce wraps, stir fry, fried rice, ect...) and I think that Dad really liked it.  I got Dad the new Wheel of Time book by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson and he seemed to like that too.  Now I just have to wait patiently for him to finish reading it so that I can steal it to read for myself.