New Year's Eve 2008

In the front of her cookbook, Martha provides a variety of sample menus for a variety of occasions (e.g. Easter) and seasons (spring, fall, etc.). For New Year’s Eve, Martha recommends the following, which serves an army of six to eight:

· Spicy seared scallop canapés
· Chicken liver pate
· Red and golden beet cheese tart
· Roasted duck breasts with wild mushroom stuffing and red wine sauce
· Tarragon green beans
· Glazed baby turnips and cipollini onions
· Mixed green salad with date-walnut vinaigrette
· Blood-orange pavlovas with grand marnier
· Cream cheese-walnut cookies

This menu honestly didn’t appeal to me, plus it would be way too much food for just the two us…not to mention a ton of work and dishes in my mini-kitchen. Instead, I selected the following menu from the pages of Martha, catering instead to our two dogs and their palette for the main dishes.

· For an appetizer, avocado with grapefruit and sweet onion salsa (page 68)
· Fresh spinach salad (no recipe needed)
· Because we love our dogs, porterhouse with jalapeño butter (page 256)
· Also because we love our dogs, baby red potatoes with cilantro (page 382)

The avocado and grapefruit salsa came out great. I was a little worried because the grapefruits at Willow Creek Ray’s were hard as rocks and seemed like they had been sitting on the shelf since the days of the Carter administration, but it was actually fairly juicy after all. We like spicy food, so we ended up adding in some habañero pepper and eating the salsa with regular old tortilla chips.

For the steak, Mike couldn’t find a porterhouse cut, so he brought home a rib eye instead. Fair enough. Our neighbor Catfish received a brand new extra large George Forman grill for Christmas, which means we inherited his old George Forman grill. I have never used a George Forman grill before, but it seemed simple enough. I aspired to take ol’ George for a spin to ensure Catfish knew we appreciated his generous gift.

The steaks ended up a little overcooked (what do I know about cooking meat…I survived on tofu for nearly a decade…) and the jalapeno butter was tasty but too greasy on an already rich steak. I say Martha errs with this one…Best to put the jalapeño and garlic directly on the meat or perhaps in a soft cheese instead of drenching the steak in butter. Mike ditched the butter and went for the horseradish. I will save the jalapeño butter in the fridge for the next time we make garlic bread or baked potatoes. Also, I don't think cooking the steak on the George Foreman grill was really the best idea either. Live and learn.

The potatoes came out fabulous, although I baked them on a cookie sheet with olive oil instead of boiling them, as Martha advised. I was hoping for an oven fry experience, so I went my own way. I also added some romano cheese to the cilantro, mostly to get rid of it from last week’s chicken recipe leftovers. I tossed the hot potatoes in a bowl of fresh cilantro and cheese as soon as they came out of the oven.

In the end, we are happy and of course the dogs are happy. Happy New Year to all the fuzzy critters in the world…and our friends and family too.