New Year Eve and New Years day menus please

[bearfan454]

Last night

Jalapeno poppers
Shrimp de jongue
chips with queso
guacamole dip

Today

Fresh blackeyed peas with ham hocks
guacamole dip(leftover)
chips with queso(leftover)
steaks

What's your menu ?

[WritersBlock]

1. Nevermind the menu, what's your address and are there any more leftovers?

I can't remember the last time I had FRESH black-eyed peas. Don't mind the drool, please.

I'm doing biscuits & gravy this afternoon. I make my own sausage, because breakfast sausage as we know it doesn't exist in the UK. I still haven't gotten the seasonings just right, but it's close. (Thanks to the Penzey's link, that may no longer be a problem - they ship overseas!)



(On edit: corrected to say "afternoon" instead of "morning" when I realized it's past 3:30pm, even though I've only been up a few hours)

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Here's a breakfast sausage recipe ..... now let me have one for bangers

This is for Southern or Country breakfast sausage. There are similar, but differently seasoned breakfast sausages from other parts of the country.

One Pork Boston Butt* - cut it into cubes

Season to taste the cut meat with lots of dried, ground sage, a bit of salt, and, optionally, dried, finely ground red (hot) pepper. (You can also play with other spices, but this is the basic recipe.)

Grind it

It is most common, and also the easiest, to simply form small patties. But you could also put it into casings for link sausages, but you need to find very small casings. You'll also need a sausage stuffer for your meat grinder or a special sausage stuffing funnel to make the links by hand.

That's it.

* The names of meat cuts in the UK, I believe, are different than here in North America. The Boston Butt has an almost perfect fat to lean ratio. You can use other cuts if you wish, but you want to end with approximately a 70/30 lean/fat ratio. A Boston Butt weighs in the neighborhood of 5 pounds. Use this link to see what I'm talking about:

http://www.askthemeatman.com/hog_cuts_interactive_chart.htm

(And I was serious. I'd love to get a recipe for bangers.)

[WritersBlock]

3. Fantastic! Thank you - that site is just what I need.

I am lucky in that we have (IMO) one of the best butchers in the UK just down the street, but I think he wonders about my sanity at times when I ask for exactly the wrong cut of meat. This will help.

I have a wonderful cookbook by Gary Rhodes (New British Classics) in which he gives a recipe for pork sausages, but I'm not sure about the copyright aspects of posting it. Luckily, somebody else wasn't too bothered by that: http://www.craftypair.co.uk/recipes/meat.htm :-)

Lots of different British sausage recipes here: http://www.oscarenterprises.f2s.com/main_page_sausage_recipes.html

Or how about this site (which you've probably already found)... they sell seasoning mixes, including what they say is the traditional English sausage. They also do Cumberland & Lincolnshire mixes: http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/Our_Range_of_Standard_Sausage_Mixes.html

Finally, this recipe looks pretty good, too - "Traditional British Bangers" at http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/getrecipe.zsp?id=18342

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Thanks very much!

[merci_me]

4. My grandma's traditional Romanian meal

which is a pork and cabbage ciorba (stew/soup). I serve it with thick slices of a black bread slathered with real butter. Dark Jewish rye, which I have today, or pumpernickle or any dark fullgrain bread is good.
Add an optional dollop of yogurt or sour cream with a sprinkling of dill to your bowl and there you go. Often I add dumplings instead, but today it's just my husband and me. Since I can't make this ciorba for less than 15 or 20 people LOL, there will be lots of leftovers and the dumplings don't hold over that well.

[robbedvoter]

12. What, no sarmale?

I haven't that since the last time I spent New year with my family, many years ago. Since my job was the fruit salad, that's the one thing I still do. So, fruit salar it is, and other leftovers such as roast chicken and mushroom stuffing.

[merci_me]

13. What do you refer to as sarmale?

We use to call stuffed cabbage, varza umpulta cu carne and stuffed pepper ardei verzi umpulta cu carne, but New Years was the ciorba. In fact I've started doing the "stuffed" cabbage and peppers, in stew form. Much quicker and easier, so as a result, we have it more often. The only other sarmale I recall is the grape leaves, but those were only made when the leaves were right, so obviously, not New Years.

Actually, the big treat all through the holidays was something we called gogosi. I never make it cause I am a kitchen failure when it come to two things, yeast and deep frying and gogosi takes both. So I often carry a little baggie of granulated sugar when I go to a fair or someplace I expect to see funnel cakes. I order with no powdered sugar and then sprinkle some granulated sugar over it. Those and beignets come closest to capturing the taste, though the funnel cakes doesn't have the thick doughiness.

Mary

[franmarz]

6. Are you tired of all the goodies from the holiday?

I am overstuffed from sweets, cakes, cookies, and all the giant amounts of holiday foods.
Tonight-Jan 1- we will have quick fry pork steaks and spanish rice.
No sweets either-Tomorrtow its on to the dieting. Guten Appetite allas-bien comida to all.

[bearfan454]

7. After today I will be

Amanda is coming over in a few and I will have to get off the computer so she can play her games.

[BuddhaGirl]

8. our weekend menu

New Year's eve:

turkey
mashed potatoes
gravy
stuffing
sweet potatoes
craberry relish
apple pie
1994 Chateau St. Jean cabernet

New Year's Day:

*cranberry pecan scones for breakfast
*turkey and all of the trimmings again for dinner
another great cabernet

tomorrow morning, blueberry pancakes from scratch with cranberry maple syrup :-) YUM!

[BamaGirl]

9. Today

Black eyed peas, ham and cornbread. Probably some roasted potatoes too.

[Lugnut]

10. Last night

Peel and eat shrimp with cocktail sauce
lobster tails with butter
french fries
cole slaw

Today:

pulled pork BBQ with cole slaw topping

[alfredo]

11. Hopping John soup, left over mustard greens,

sour dough bread, and a Wheat beer.

[grasswire]

14. our favorite menu

And I have no idea why, since we are Yankees through and through.

Peel and Eat Shrimp cooked in Old Bay.
Three-citrus and rosemary polenta, grilled in butter until crispy
Celeriac remoulade
Ambrosia (sliced oranges and coconut)

And for dessert, David Rosengarten's fabulous pecan pie.

[Tweed]

15. Shrimp de jounue

Clearly from Chicago