NYE 2011

Happy New Year!

The evening started out with friends and fondue at our place – it was my first time making it. I followed Martha Stewart’s fondue party planner/recipe with great success. I went with the classic cheese recipe, but used Gruyère, Fontina and Sharp White Cheddar instead of Emmentaler, and French Raclette. Mostly due to the fact that I didn’t shop for the get together until a few hours before it started and I couldn’t find the last two cheeses.

Our fondue accompaniments included cubed Pugliese bread, steamed cauliflower and broccoli, steamed new potato wedges, mushrooms, Granny Smith apples, cornichon pickles and caramelized lil smokies (gourmet all the way).

Our second course (hours later) was grilled filet mignon, garlic shrimp, and salad with golden raisins, shredded carrot, roasted sunflower seeds, spring mix and a sesame miso dressing.

Our third course… provided by Deede – was the highlight of the evening. I LOVE that she even made a sign to place next to the dessert. Gotta love a friend that embraces a food blogger’s wants and needs.

Chocolate Stout Cake with Guinness-Milk Chocolate Ice Cream – Wow were they good! She arrived with dry ice and a pan of ice cream ready to be cut with a mold for stacking. The ice cream was rock hard… she had to let it sit out to be able to cut through it with the ring mold.

The frosting did not want to stick to the cold ice cream, but it didn’t matter… this my friends was heaven on a plate.

The Chocolate Stout Cake Recipe was from Epicurious.com. The best part was that she turned it into an ice cream cake… using the same Guinness-Milk Chocolate Ice Cream recipe that she used to celebrate her first triathlon. It’s from David Lebovitz’s the Perfect Scoop.

Almost forgot… One other highlight of the evening…

Deede brought me all of the leftover cake pieces (labeled of course) so I could try my hand at some cake pops.

My girlfriend Virginia got me Bakerella’s fabulous Cake Pops book for Christmas and I had shown it to Deede earlier in the week. Funny… the cake pieces keep finding their way into my mouth, luckily there is still enough left to try to create a few pops.

I ended the evening in a food coma. We watched the ball drop and could not get into bed fast enough. I remember spending New Year’s Eve in San Francisco dancin’ up a storm with friends… until the wee small hours, eating breakfast around 5:00 a.m. What happened to that girl? Oh wait… yes, she’s 41 now and needs her sleep. 🙂

I’m not a huge New Year’s Resolutions kind of gal… but I’d like to just say here on the blog, it’s so nice to not have “lose weight” and “exercise more” topping my mental list. I incorporated both things in 2011 and I’m happy to report that this morning… like past mornings, I started out with my lemon water, green tea, healthy breakfast, and monster treadmill session. While I indulged over the holiday season, I certainly didn’t go crazy and I don’t have a single pound that I need to re-lose. It can’t get any better than that.

How about you? What are your plans for 2012?

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3 comments

    • Tina on January 3, 2012 at 6:28 pm

    I am having a baby 🙂 So, I will be gaining. Kinda scary and sad since I lost 120 pounds

      • foodiddy on January 3, 2012 at 7:41 pm
        Author

      Congratulations Tina! You will do what you need to do to have a healthy baby and then you will get right back to where you feel comfortable. Super excited for you!

  1. Yay for not gaining over the holidays… I started a weight-loss goal in November and was afraid of what holiday treats (and I did indulge quite a bit) would do, but it’s been fine.

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