2010 Comes to a Close

I just noticed when I logged on today that my post yesterday about soup was my 200th post. Wow. That's a lot of posts (for me).

So here we have post 201, which falls on New Year's Eve. I was trying to remember today what I did on New Year's Eve last year, and I think it was absolutely nothing. If I remember correctly, Buppy had to work so I stayed in. Who knows if I even made it to midnight; I just can't remember.

Buppy will be home *hopefully* early tonight, and I've planned a pretty stellar dinner. His father & step mom were here visiting and celebrating Christmas with the kids earlier this week, and even though we always say we don't want anything for ourselves, his father always gets us something. Usually food related, so I'm usually happy with it. This year, it was 2 giant packages of meat, one New York strip, the other rib eye. These things are the size you'd find at Costco or Sam's Club or BJ's. Yikes (in a good way)! On the last night they were here, his father helped him butcher them up into steaks & roasts. I think we have 1 rib eye roast and between the 2 pieces of meat, 24+/- steaks. And we're supposed to get another 1/4 cow soon too. Holy beef overload. On the plus side, I'm glad our icky steaks from last year are almost gone and we get to move onto yummy stuff. Makes a person avoid steak when the fat tastes like raunchy seafood.

Back to the menu --- we left out 2 strip steaks from when they were butchering them up, so we plan to grill those with nothing but salt and pepper. I first considered making sauteed mushrooms and onions as a topping, but just today found a "lite" recipe for a blue cheese sauce and have since decided to make that. We have the blue cheese and it needs to be used up, so why not give it a go? I'm also making my award-winning (ok, just really loved by family & friends) cheesy potatoes (75% reduced fat cheese and reduced fat sour cream, thank you very much). Last but not least, we're making lobster tails at home. They better be good too; it took me 3 different grocery stores to find any tails at all. They're only 4 oz., but with steak and potatoes, it'll be plenty of food.

I'm skipping out on dessert for tonight for several reasons: a.) poor planning on my part and I simply couldn't think of anything earlier today before I went out; b.) we still have plenty of my mom's candied and spiced pecans along with cookies/fudge/truffles from Buppy's aunt, so no shortage of desserts; c.) while I love to bake and make desserts, I don't really care to eat them, so why bother if Buppy has other goodies to complete the meal?

After dinner, we're contemplating going out to a local bar that's having a little something special to ring in the new year. My only concern is how bloody busy it's going to be, but we don't go out much at all, so heck, why not listen to some good music and sip some bubbly?

I hope everyone has a safe, healthy & happy 2011. Enjoy!