1/8/15

New Year's Eve

Each year, I host a New Year's Eve celebration for Trevor's godparents. It's a really fun group and we always have a great time. 


Part of what I love about them is that they are completely tolerant (enthusiastic, even) about being guinea pigs for my weird food experiments. Last year, I served them seven dishes featuring potatoes (including two potato desserts and a potato drink). The year before that, I served only foods with the word "new" in their names. It's great fun for me to challenge myself. 

A big part of the challenge is that this particular group, while compatible in so many ways, is quite incompatible culinarily-speaking. Amongst the 8 of us, at least one doesn't eat: beef, lamb, duck, goose, game, seafood, onions, garlic, peppers, anything spicy, dairy, cheese, eggs, raw tomatoes, peas... and the list goes on and on. We eat a lot of chicken teriyaki when we get together. 

Because we have such a prolific orange tree, I decided to go for an orange-themed meal. Could I put together a multi-course meal with each dish featuring oranges? Of course! For an extra challenge, I went vegetarian as well. 


We even dressed for the theme.


I served a carrot-orange-ginger soup with homemade sourdough croutons, a flaxseed wheat bread with rosemary-orange butter, a salad with oranges and an orange vinaigrette, and cranberry-orange sauce (to be eaten plain, or in place of the butter on the bread). Steve made a fabulous cocktail (mocktail for the kids, of course) featuring oranges. 


For dessert, we had orange creme brulee. (Everyone except the person who doesn't eat dairy and eggs. There aren't a lot of desserts with neither and I really wanted to make a creme brulee.) It was really yummy.


It was a great way to welcome in 2015!

7 comments:

  1. You are so amazing!!! I am loving the orange theme!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think your dinner parties sound so fun! I like trying new things, and I love that you challenged yourself to do that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like fun, love the orange theme.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oooooh...love the orange theme! What fun you must have as a group!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, Cindy! You are so creative!! I love what you did on New Year's Eve and I bet everyone enjoyed it! I love orange, everything, especially your orange creme brulee sounds absolutely delicious!!! And I love that you all dressed for the occasion, too. (Thanks for your wonderful visit to my blog!! HUGS!!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love oranges. This dinner looks and sound scrumptious to me! What a fun tradition!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I just went back and re-read the links to your previous year's party descriptions, and Martha Stewart needs to come to YOU for party advice!! :) I am SO impressed!! I really need to come out to California sometime! I'd tell you to bring the gang out to Oklahoma, but our weather is horrible, and I'm sure Gracie would want to chase Trouble, LOL! :D

    ReplyDelete

I moderate comments, so you will not see yours appear right away. Please check back if you had a question; I promise to answer it as soon as I see it. Thank you for taking the time to comment!