Ring in the New Year (2009)

Happy New Years!!!

My New Years was quite mellow. I actually did not have anything planned out. I only knew that my cousin, Monak, would be in town and that perhaps, we would make dinner.

And so we did. It was a small gathering at Nick's, just Sophan, Monak, Dan, Nick, and I. We had lamb roast with Moroccan spice, lemon & parsley orzo and a refreshing summer salad. It turned out great! Sophan loved it so much, she helped herself to a second plate. And after New Year's, when we got back home, she was craving for more. Unfortunately, we cleaned it all up. I'm so happy she loved it that much.

So about the lamb roast, well we were pressed for time so I did not marinate it as long as I would have (in fact I did not marinate it at all). But it turned out great. I tweaked (yes, I tweak nearly every recipe I find) the recipe a little bit. It was supposed to be a rack of lamb, but the selection was not great so we settled with making a lamb roast.

First the marinade. I combined the following in a bowl then rubbed it all over the lamb, which I had sitting in a roasting pan so it would reach room temperature: about 1/4 cups extra virgin olive oil, about 1/3 cups finely chopped mint leaves, bit of sea salt & fresh peppercorn, 1 tsp cumin, (the recipe called for 2tbs coriander as well, however, while picking up the cumin & coriander, I accidentally picked up 2 cumin. Oh well.)

Then I poured in some chicken stock and dry red wine (I absolutely love cooking with wine!) into the roasting pan. I also tossed in some chopped onions and baby carrots. (Random I know, but it was lying around in the refrigerator looking a little lonely.)

I cooked it for about 15 minutes at 425degrees, then lowered the temperature to 350 degrees and cooked it for about another 40 minutes, until the temperature read 140 degrees. I took it out then tented it with foil for about 10 minutes.

The orzo. I made plain orzo first, basically 2 quarts boiling water, 1 cup orzo and a little salt and pepper. Cooked it for about 8 minutes until done. Then I drained the orzo. I then combined the cooked orzo with: zest of 1 lemon, the juice of 1 lemon, about 1/4 cups olive oil, a little cayenne pepper for a bit of a kick, and about 1/4 cups finely chopped parsley.

A simple salad was served: mixed spring greens, sliced strawberries, mandarin oranges, sunflower seeds, and a pomegranate vinaigrette dressing.


That was basically it. Everyone looked hungry, huh?

Dinner was topped off by a James Bond marathon, Amish electric fireplace info commercial, and the "clothesline" commercial, and the horrendous commentary of Kelly Pickle on one of the NYE special.

We did catch the fireworks. Walked right down to Bayshore and saw a beautiful 360 panorama of the Tampa Bay scenery with fireworks shooting from every angle.

We did not make it to Channelside, but I cannot imagine a better vantage than where we stood on Bayshore.
(Oh, before I forget, I just wanted to update my previous post about the Coke ribs. When Nick made it back at home in New York, his dad and friend, Brian, both loved it so much they planned on making it tonight, NYE. When we talked to Brian, he was about one hour into the ribs, and had a lot more to go. Dr. P, Nick's dad, decided to fore go it and make it tomorrow so he would have plenty of time to make 2 batches. I was so happy to hear the ribs was such a great hit!)

Below is a picture of Nick's Dad prepping his Coke Ribs. Notice the happy smile :D, the upside down Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce (the best!), sea salt & fresh peppercorn, and the CrockPot. PERFECT ingredients (minus the Coke) for the perfect COKE ribs. Who says you cannot have THE perfect BBQ ribs when there's snow outside? Anyways, the COKE ribs recipe is in an earlier post. ENJOY! :D