Welcome 2008!

Welcome 2008!
Originally uploaded by jrherron.

2007 was definitely a year to remember for me, but I'm always encouraged by the beginning of a new year and the hope and possibilities it brings. We brought in the new year quietly at home with good friend Scott and new friend Ann. We ate appetizers, including some reformulated leftover crab rangoons from our dinner party last week. Oh that's right, I haven't told you about last weekends dinner party. We had been to travel buddy Francie and husband Steve's house a couple of times, and they take dinner and entertaining seriously. So when they visited us for dinner over the weekend I had to bring my A game. We started with Steve cooking some delicious sea scallops with a pistachio topping. I then turned out a slightly modified (deep fried, rather than steamed) version of this Crab rangoon recipe, and then followed that with this Tom Yum Goong soup. My original plan was to serve a dish from everywhere we'd been this year but that required a little too much of a mix of flavors and constrained my creativity. For an entree I went to an old standby, nut crusted fish. We went to Costco in the morning and all they had in a white fish was tilapia, so we used that, and picked up some delicious marcona almonds and coated my tilapia with them. I served the fish with a side of this spinach salad with balsamic vinegar instead of the red wine vinegar that's called for. I also experimented with a skillet soda bread, that I like more and more every time I eat it. The skillet makes a great crust on the bread, and its very simple to make. We finished with my famous creme brulee (recipe from my Joy of Cooking cookbook), kicked up with a shot of amaretto with some berries and toasted almonds on the side. It was a great dinner if I do say so myself, and it was complemented nicely with a small sampling of Steve's extensive wine collection.
Our new years eve night was capped with a hefty helping of wii, and and I reached back to my college days and stayed up until 5 a.m. playing baseball with Scott. Count me in for an early night tonight and perhaps a healthy nap this afternoon.