New Year's Eve

Matt and I have never been ones to party on New Year's Eve.  We've always been happy staying at home, drinking champagne, watching movies, and spending time together, and this New Year's Eve is no exception.... especially since Matt is getting over the flu.  I thought about inserting a picture of him asleep in his chair as he is right now, but decided not to..... I am well aware that paybacks can be a bitch.

Tonight's menu is all finger food.  In fact, if one wanted, one would not need any utensils at all.

We have garlic stuffed olives, tomato and mozzarella cups, boiled shrimp, sausage balls, and chocolate butterscotch tartlets.  The olives I didn't make nor did I make the tartlet cups.  My philosophy is why make something when its easier to buy it and tastes just as good.  

I have discovered these things in the frozen foods section, and they are amazing!  Already made, already baked.  You just heat them up, and you're good to go.  I used them for the tomato and mozzarella cups and the the chocolate butterscotch tartlets.

For the tomato and mozzarella cups, I just took about 1/2 a box of little tomatoes and cut them into quarters. 

To this I added half a ball of fresh mozzarella cut into chunks about the same size or littler smaller than the tomatoes and added a little salt and pepper.  Sometimes I make my own dressing, but I saw this at the grocery store this morning and decided to give it a try.

I ended up with something that looks like this, 

and then spooned some into each of the tartlet cups.

The other part of tonight's menu that I am excited about is my dessert:  Chocolate Butterscotch Tartlets!  I found this recipe by googling "New Year's Eve desserts."  It is very simple, and from the "Quality Control" samples that I tried a long the way, very tasty.

For this recipe you will need:

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate because that is what I had in the pantry)

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 1/2 tsp. Grand Mariner

4 1/2 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

3 pkg frozen miniture phyllo tart shells

Place the chocolate and butterscotch chips in a small bowl.

In a small saucepan bring 1 cup of cream just to a boil.  Pour over chips; whisk until smooth.  Stir in Grand Mariner.  Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.  Refrigerate until chilled and thickened.

In a large bowl, beat remaining cream until it begins to thicken.  Add sugar and vanilla, beat until stiff peaks form.  

Spoon chocolate mixture into tart shells, top with whipped cream, and refrigerate until serving.

 From my family to yours, Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Epic Fail

Ree Drummand, The Pioneer Woman, is my hero.  She is everything I once wanted to be -- Homeschooler, photographer, blogger, and fantastic cook.  I tried homeschooling for two years, and while I wasn't a failure, I wasn't too successful either.  I can't take pictures worth crap; this blogging thing is working out too well, and while I can hold my own in the kitchen, I do have my share of failures.  Where The Pioneer Woman and I differ is that I am going to blog about my most recent failure.

This past week Matt and I spent took some time off and spent 4 days, 3 nights in Las Vegas.

Oh, and to prove my point about my photographic skills.... this is a picture I took of the front of the Gold and Silver Pawn shop, from Pawn Stars.... yes, that is the famous sign.... right there behind the damn rear view mirror of the damn car....

Out last night there, we met Matt's brother Mark for dinner.  Mark took us to his favorite Mexican restaurant, Lindo Michoacan.  It was great!  Great food and great view!  Mark got us a table by the window so we had a wonderful view of the Vegas skyline.

Mark told us that their Carne Asada was the best, so I decided to order Tacos de Carne Asada.  The dinners came with the traditional rice and beans, but also something called fideo soup.  I asked Mark what that was because I had never heard of it before.  He said he didn't know, but it was good.  When the soup came, it turned out to be a Mexican noodle soup.  It had a thin tomato broth and tiny little noodles that looked like the really thin pasta in Rice-A-Roni.  It was delicious!  Too bad it came in a little bowl.

As Matt and I were driving home from the airport last night in the cold rain.  I kept thinking about that soup and how good it would be on a cold rainy night, so I googled the recipe on my phone and entertained myself reading recipes while Matt drove.  This is one I found on the Food Network website.


Ingredients
1/2 cup olive oil or 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 ounces fideo, vermicelli or angel hair pasta, broken into 1-inch pieces
3 - 4 dried or canned Morita or Chipotle chiles cut into
2 pounds Italian Roma tomatoes
8 garlic cloves, peeled
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoon salt
6 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
1 avocado, peeled, seeded and
8 slices, for garnish
1 bunch cilantro, leaves only, chopped, for garnish
Directions
In large saucepan or stockpot heat the oil or butter. Add pasta and saute until golden, stirring frequently and being careful not to burn. Stir in chiles and cook for 2 minutes longer. Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, garlic, onion, water and salt in a blender. Puree until smooth. Add tomato puree and stock to browned pasta. Cook over medium-low heat until the noodles soften and the flavors meld, about 15 minutes. Serve hot with the sliced avocado and cilantro as garnish.

This morning dawned still cold and rainy, so since I had to go to the grocery store I decided to get the ingredients I needed to make the soup for dinner tonight.  Several issues popped up:  I couldn't find the right kind of pasta, so I got thin spaghetti and broke it up; and I wasn't sure what size can of Chipotle chiles to get, so I got a large one.  I also didn't want to buy 2 pounds of Roma tomatoes, so since they were going to be pureed anyway, I bought a large can of tomato sauce.  I figured I would saute` the onions and garlic until they were soft and then put them along with the chipotles in my little food processor and vilola!  This is when another issue came up.

I don't use my little food processor very much, so it is in the back of a cabinet.  I rooted around and found the base and the blade, but no top.  Did you know the damn thing won't work without a top?  Well, it doesn't, so I just chopped up everything as small as I could and told myself it would be fine.  Wrong!

I added the chicken broth and can of tomato sauce to the pot with the onions, garlic, and chipotles.  Now, a word about the chipotles..... Chipotles are smoked jalapeños canned in adobo sauce.  I thought I remembered learning somewhere that chipotles were not as hot as unsmoked jalapeños, so since I didn't have the recipe in front of me,  I decided that  half the large can should be about right.  Wrong!

In case you don't know, let me be the first to inform you that chipotles are indeed as hot as regular jalapeños, so the 7 or 8 that were half the large can were indeed too much.

     
= 

Now, about the pasta.  I will be the first to admit it, I love pasta!  In my word the more noodles, the better.  This however is not true in the world of fideo soup.  Even though I used thin spaghetti and broke it into little bits, I put in too much for the amount of liquid I had in the soup, with left me with this

Gives new meaning to the phrase "Hot Mess" doesn't it?   This is not even close to the wonderfully delicate soup that I had in Vegas.    Matt, bless his heart, ate an whole bowl..... I couldn't .... it was awful!!