New Year's Eve: What are You Eating or Serving?

[CatPoet]

No soup at new years day, I couldn't get hold on neeps at all. *sigh*

[JohnT]

So, Joy and I had our "dop en 'n tjop" - well, the butcher was out of chops so I just went with chicken thighs and boerewors on the braai. The chicken was coated in sweet chilli chutney for the last turn and the whole lot served with a green salad.

Happy New Year! May 2015 be a whole lot better than the last 12 months. John.

[CatPoet]

John, looks yummy.  My friend in South Africa, sent me a message saying WOHO  I got goat on the grill.  She is mostly living on gnu and zebra normally.

 

So have a lovely  New years eve.

 

We had apple pie for dessert today and it is the best pie I ever done, the new  pie tin makes everything  so easy.

[JohnT]

John, looks yummy.  My friend in South Africa, sent me a message saying WOHO  I got goat on the grill.  She is mostly living on gnu and zebra normally.

 

So have a lovely  New years eve.

 

We had apple pie for dessert today and it is the best pie I ever done, the new  pie tin makes everything  so easy.

Tell your friend to be very careful of eating Gnu (actually called wildebeest - Gnu is actually an old San or Khoi name for the wildebeest, not used anymore), as they are carriers of foot and mouth disease. Goat is good, but way too tough for the grill but makes a brilliant curry! Also, why on earth would somebody want to eat zebra? They are simply donkey with a striped jacket. They are like eating tough leather! I am sure your friend is pulling your leg as nobody eats them. Your pie sounds good - I wanted to do a pear tart but all the pears in the markets today were too green or rotten. Just had more champaign as desert.

[SylviaLovegren]

Few additions to the menu (or smorgasbord if you will):

 

Parm Reg. Frico's w/ Thyme (saw these on a cooking show, thought they would be a great crunchy addition to the table)

Pistachio Souffles

 

Would you have a recipe for pistachio souffle?  Is this a sweet or a savoury?  

[pbear]

Serious Eats has a fascinating article on how the current version of hoppin john is debased from the historical version and relatively flavorless, only existing due to tradition. The historical version he provides is apparently much better, now that traditional heirloom varieties are available once again.

 

Rooting around in the pantry today, I realized I had the makings for a creditable version of the historical dish.  In particular, although I didn't have Sea Island Red Peas, I had half a pound of Rancho Gordo San Franciscano beans, which have a similar color and more importantly a similar texture (based on the description in the article).  For rice, I had only basmati.  (In future, I'd use converted rather than the Carolina Gold, which from the write-up at Anson Mills seems pretty fussy.)  For meat, I had some capicola (cured pork shoulder, not smoked).  That's pretty far from bacon, but I like it for beans, which is why I had it in the freezer in the first place.  If preferred, one could use bacon, of course, or even ham hocks.

 

Anyhoo, prepared the dish pilau style (all in one pot), using onion, carrot and celery for aromatics.  Just salt, pepper and little bay leaf for seasonings.  Only water (no stock).  Bottom line, this was very good.  Definitely going into the recipe file.  Thanks for the tip.

[CatPoet]

JohnT: nope, she is not joking, which is sad and  gnu is still used in Sweden. 

 

I was ponder to make pear and ginger pie but they didn't have right pears.

[liuzhou]

 

Also, why on earth would somebody want to eat zebra? They are simply donkey with a striped jacket.

 

Nothing wrong with eating donkey. It is very popular around here (there are many donkey restaurants) and it is one of my favourite meats. 

[TicTac]

Would you have a recipe for pistachio souffle?  Is this a sweet or a savoury?  

No recipe, apologies - something I was taught at age 10 and have made since.

 

It is sweet (though not overly) - typical souffle approach, for the pistachio, I get fresh pistachios, remove the 'husk' as it can sometimes be bitter, crush them, and cook in milk and a bit of cream (not too much liquid as you want a strong flavour), low simmer, then puree into a paste and season with a bit of honey.  That is the flavour base.

 

I also roast some, and lightly crush, which is folded into the souffle to add texture.

[Tri2Cook]

With a full day of football to watch, the easy way out won the day. I put a big pot of chili on this morning and I'm doing the bread dough in the bread machine (sorry but bread making does not take precedence over New Year's Day bowl games). I will bake the bread (a basic white loaf with a bit of molasses and a hefty portion of corn meal added) in the oven if that redeems my soul in any way.

[Shelby]

I reeeeeeeeealllllllly want to just thaw some chili out and do the same, Tri.  I have black eyed peas soaking, though.....sigh.  

[Darienne]

We had grilled salmon with lime and baked potatoes (made by DH).   And for dessert, Millionaire's Shortbread Bars, an experiment from a couple of days ago which probably won't be repeated.

[ElsieD]

We had grilled salmon with lime and baked potatoes (made by DH).   And for dessert, Millionaire's Shortbread Bars, an experiment from a couple of days ago which probably won't be repeated.

I have never had any luck making Millionaire's shortbread. Too bad too as they look and sound really good.

[Shel_B]

Last night Toots came by and we had a lovely, quiet dinner.

 

I ordered a couple of 1 1/2-inch thick pork chops from The Local Butcher, and while I was there, decided to grab a jar of duck fat.  Some roasted potatoes and sautéed greens rounded out the meal, along with some Champagne and a lovely French apple cider (which was used in the pan sauce for the pork chops as well).

 

I cooked the chops following as closely as I could the "reverse sear" method described here - there were some time constraints - http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/03/the-food-lab-pork-chops-blah.html and here http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/03/perfect-pan-seared-pork-chop-recipe.html.  The pork was local heritage pork purchased from The Local Butcher http://thelocalbutchershop.com/.  The result was the BEST pork chops I've ever prepared, and actually better than some chops we had at the CIA in Napa.

 

The organic Yukon Gold potatoes were roasted in duck fat after par boiling them in well-salted water for seven minutes.  They were dried for 25-minutes on a rack, coated with duck fat, and roasted until the outside was crisp, brown, and chewy while the interiors were soft and creamy.

 

The sautéed greens were fairly typical except that I put a little "wok char" on them and Toots loved it.

 

Dessert was a Honeycrisp apple for me and a chocolate wafer for my sweetie.  After dinner we played a couple of rounds of our favorite word game, Quiddler, http://www.setgame.com/quiddler and this time Toots cleaned my clock.  We had fun.

 

Breakfast this morning was popovers with either honey or lemon curd, fresh brewed coffee, followed by a canning lesson and some tips on how to dress up jars with those little cloth caps.

 

Later we're going to a walk at the shoreline park a little north of us.  Should be nice, and maybe followed by a nice, light dinner.

 

Hope you all had an enjoyable New Years Eve and are having a great day!

Edited January 2, 2015 by Mjx
Typo adjusted. (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

So, Joy and I had our "dop en 'n tjop" - well, the butcher was out of chops so I just went with chicken thighs and boerewors on the braai. The chicken was coated in sweet chilli chutney for the last turn and the whole lot served with a green salad.

image.jpg

Happy New Year! May 2015 be a whole lot better than the last 12 months. John.

 

Did you make the wors?

[Paul Bacino]

No soup at new years day, I couldn't get hold on neeps at all. *sigh*

 

Had to look that one up...

 

Happy Holidays

[JohnT]

Did you make the wors?

No, I used to, but it is much easier to get it made by my local butcher than spending the extra hours cleaning and sanitising for small quantities.

[ElainaA]

New Year's Day here involved brunch for about 25 people.(On Tuesday it was six - somehow it grew. That happens here a lot.) I made almost everything the day before - ham and spinach strata, caramelized bread pudding served with fromage blanc (first time making this - it was lovely. I worried about the caramel sticking to the baking dish but it came out beautifully.), green salad, winter fruit salad (dried apricots and figs, pear and apple marinated in a light sugar syrup with star anise, lemon peel and vanilla bean), LOTS of bacon, a very simple blacked peas with rice, pumpkin muffins, scones, plates of cookies for dessert along with a chocolate trifle which, unfortunately got left in the refrigerator until half the guests had left. No pictures - people showed up early (!)- I barely had the food out of the oven before it was on people's plates. A lovely time - and no one even mentioned football. And what I consider a perfect amount of leftovers - a lunch and a breakfast for the weekend.

 

One pet peeve - Why do so many people insist on bringing a contribution of food when invited to a meal that the host has carefully planned out? Luckily yesterday it was mostly desserts so I sent everyone home with bags of cookies and slices of cake. But I had a difficult time talking one friend out of bringing a large (and largely redundant) breakfast casserole.

 

Elaina

Edited January 2, 2015 by ElainaA (log)

[CatPoet]

Paul: I am picky about my neeps, they should have a fresh smell like crisp apple and cabbage  and when they dont smell like that, they are not being used by me.

[ChocoMom]

Elaina:   I had to chuckle....a similar thing happened here. A quiet, casual dinner for 7 on New Year's Day erupted into a large, sit-down dinner for 17; and lasted until roughly 2:30am.  David Ross's Crab Dip and toasts, several kinds of rolls, roasted new potatoes with garlic and rosemary, roasted root veggies, green salad, and thankfully, enough roast beef!  Dessert turned into 2 large blueberry pies, done the same way Shelby did her peach pie, with the batter/crust on top. And ice cream. Must have ice cream with pie!  I also had some "reject" truffles/bon bons that accumulated over the past week, so I put them on a tiered dessert tray. No one knew they were rejects because I turned the lights down lower. (I'm so bad!)   I actually would have been grateful if some guests had brought some items, because I hadn't originally planned on the crowd....but no one brought a thing.  With the chocolate shop built onto my house, there's always something around to serve in addition to the usual pie, cake, etc.

 

Having a farm, and raising beef cattle helps these situations a lot. There's usually enough  meats, be it roasts, steaks or ground meat- in the freezer to accommodate more people. The only issue is when using roasts from grass-fed beef, it can be a little on the tough side, so it should cook a little longer to attain that melt-in-your-mouth sort of texture. So, thinking ahead, I had cooked a total of 3 roasts in the slow cooker, hoping for some leftovers, but when the number of guests increased, the hope for leftovers really decreased.  There was a little, though.

 

Ah well. It was a wonderful evening, and I will plan better for next year so I don't get frazzled.  Happy New Year, all!

[Darienne]

"No one brought a thing"...ChocoMom, you have got to find a  new bunch of friends!   

[ChocoMom]

I've got great friends; the group that was over were all relatives! LOL!

[CatPoet]

Chocomom:  Big  new years party 18 years ago , the people doing the dessert brought 1 packet of store bought cookies and  vanilla sauce powder.... dont know what they where thinking and this was for 30 people.   I was the poorest and I did the main and they where the richest in the bunch and well they are not my friends any more. Dessert was how ever saved,  some one ran to the local gas station and manage to find  ice cream lollies for every one and this was when ice cream lollies normally only existed during summer.

Edited January 3, 2015 by CatPoet (log)

[FrogPrincesse]

Cleaning up the iPad and going through old photos. Here was the menu this year. We went with a few of our favorites.

 

Various little canapés with salmon roe and crème fraiche on blini, smoked salmon from Santa Barbara smokehouse, a smoked fish spread, and champagne of course.

 

 

The main course was duck confit with a pomegranate salad.

 

 

Dessert was David Lebovitz's Racines cake and homemade eggnog ice cream.

 

 

[Shelby]

We've neglected this thread for a couple of years.....

 

I bought some king crab legs for tomorrow night.  Those are so filling.  Maybe just those and some butter