Dave and I had a quiet and very pleasant New Year’s Eve…made WAY more food than was necessary for three people (my friend Michelle came over).

these are just the appetizers!!!
On the cheese plate was 5 year old Gouda, mushroom brie and some Italian buttery cheese, accompanied by Branson’s Pickle, Stonewall’s Cranberry & Horseradish, and some smoked almonds.
The messy looking stuff to the right of the cheese plate was a slice of bleu cheese covered in caramel, apples, cranberries and nuts. Sounded good, tasted not so good. I wiped off the extras and saved the bleu for later.
Next to that is buffalo cheese dip and above it, homemade Chex mix. Also some nuts & olives, flatbread, and Ritz crackers.

We also had steak strips marinated in Dave’s special sauce (which varies each time he makes it but always includes soy sauce); ribs; mushrooms stuffed with crab; and cheddar-potato peirogies.

this (and cookies!) was dessert…strawberries in syrup, angel food cake, whipped cream

After eating, we settled in the living room to watch Brave (love the Scottish accents) and then Michelle headed home.

Shortly after that, Wolf got a burst of energy and tried to get Dave to play by jumping at the couch. Unfortunately, he hurt his paw? leg? somehow and went whimpering off to the kitchen to look horribly sad, with his paw raised. I waited a bit to see if he’d shake it off (the pain, not his paw) and he didn’t, so I gave him a tramadol. That helped make him more comfortable. He limped the next day, but this morning, the limp was gone. Knock on wood, it was nothing!

The first morning of 2013 found me up early. I fed and walked Wolf, then took a 1/2 hour walk just myself. It was a bit chilly, but I felt great. Came home and started cooking! I made:

Immaculate Baking’s cranberry orange scones…which doesn’t really count as “making” since I just opened the can, put them on a baking sheet, sprinkled with a bit of sugar and voila! But while that was baking, I sauteed mushrooms, then sliced up an onion & a red pepper & some celery and did two more sautes, one with half the onion & pepper, the other with the rest of the onion & pepper, and the celery. I added the onion & pepper mixture to the mushrooms to make this:

Savory bread pudding…a tradition for me. I usually make it for my friends when I go to upstate NY but alas, I didn’t go this year (too much snow in the forecast for that long drive).

The onion/pepper/celery combo went into this dish:

“good luck” black-eyed peas & ham (no ham hock this year…trying to lighten it up a bit LOL)

And here’s me, on the way to work this morning and happy to do so:

Hope you all had a happy celebration and didn’t wake up with too much of a hangover! Any good tales to tell?