New Year's Resolutions

I'm not much for making resolutions since I am never able to keep them. It's not that I don't try hard enough ... it's more like I get busy or distracted and their importance seem to lessen over time until it's too late to do anything that will make a difference (at least from my perspective).

Take this blog for instance. I haven't updated it since last July ... that was six months ago. A lot has happend since then ... I've made new friends, cooked and eaten great food with family and friends, drank some pretty darn good juice (wine), tried new restaurants and laughed a whole lot!

There's a lot I didn't do too ... like I didn't get to try as many new recipes as I wanted to and some of my cooking magazines are still in the plastic mailing wrapper and I still don't have my recipes organized (electronically or printed). The list goes on ....

Anyway, this year I am going to try to be better keeping the blog current. I'm not sure I have all that much to say that might be interesting to others but maybe it'll keep me more organized. For example, I couldn't remember what I cooked last New Year's Eve so I'm going to recap this year's experience below.

I prefer to spend New Year's Eve close to home with family and friends. This way, I can eat and drink as much as I want and be close to my bed when the time comes. In the past, I've done a series of appetizers on the hour starting at 7pm and ending with dessert close to midnight, pairing wine with each appetizer. I find that this approach keeps me awake until midnight and prepping the various courses makes the time go by fast. Here's what we had, course by course:

1. Bruschetta with crostini and jalapeno pimento cheese with crostini
2. Stone crab claws with mustard sauce
3. Prosciutto wrapped melon
4. Clams casino and stuffed mushroom caps (with the same "goober" we used for the clams)
5. Roasted red peppers with fresh mozarella and basil leaves drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar
6. Baby lamb chops
7. Cheesecake tartlets with pineapple topping

We started with champagne, went on to sparking wine from Sonoma, then had reds from California and Argentina and wrapped up with more sparkling wine from Napa. It was a great way to end the year!