January 4, 2009
Friday Feast and Sunday Soup
Geek Boy and I do not go out for New Years Eve. I’ve never liked going out then, and rarely had a good time. So, a while back, I decided that it would be much better if I settled in with a hoagie, some beer and a few movies. When Geek Boy and I started dating, I told him that he was free to go out with his friends, but he opted to hang with me. And now it’s a tradition. Friends of ours hosted a big party this year and other friends had asked if we were going to the party because they really wanted to spend New Years Eve with us. We explained our anti-social policy but invited them to come to a New Years dinner instead.
I forgot how much I loved having little dinner parties. There were only five of us, but I had a blast putting the menu together. This also gave me a good start for my food goals for 2009. Like with my knitting, I’ve decided I want to go to my books more often. So, here’s the prep.
A strange assortment of ingredients
I did one old standard, the Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake from Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess. Nigella’s one of my favorites. So, I went to Feast and found a fabulous vodka marinade that I used for a couple of tri-tip steaks (it’s in the Kitchen Feasts chapter). If you are a meat eater and have Feast, or can get it at a library, try this marinade. It’s phenomenal.
Geek Boy keeps me supplied with Cooking Light magazine, and the December issue had some great stuff in it, including, colonial corn pudding, brussels sprouts with chestnuts, and egg nog ice cream. All keepers, although I would probably cut back on the amount of burbon in the ice cream. It wasn’t bad, but I’d still cut back. We like sweet potatoes, and I remembered an old CL recipe for white and sweets mixed. I couldn’t remember which issue it was in, so I just went looking for something on line and came up with this, which is definitely a keeper.
It was a wonderful night. Great food, better friends. Just sitting around the table talking all night. So, another new goal for 2009 is to do this more often. Have friends over for a nice quiet dinner. It’s cheaper than going out and you don’t have to feel guilty about taking a server’s table for too long.
In true weekend and back to work fashion, this morning was dedicated to making soup for the week. A very yummy smelling mushroom barley soup from New England Soup Factory. I made it this morning, but haven’t tried it yet. It’ll probably be dinner.
We’ve got the Eagles game recording on the DVR…we’ll wait a while before we start watching. This way we can scan through the half-time crap. So, in about half an hour we’ll get ourselves some dinner and settle in to watch the game. I’m on block six of the blanket, and since it’s garter stitch, it’ll be a good game knittin’ project.
Go birds!
The 3 F's 
DeuceMom said,
January 4, 2009 at 5:37 pm
We are definitely meat eaters – I will check out Feast on my next trip to the library. Storyhour starts up again Wednesday. I forget that you’re a librarian, but I have a blog post cooking about our library adventures. Off subject. Anyway, I love small dinner parties too. Then you don’t have to be shy about asking friends to sit in the kitchen and chat while you finish cooking, and I’m always much more adventurous food-wise. Great new tradition!