may the nomz be ever in your flavour!

hello hungry readers and happy hunger games!

unless you've been living under a rock, you should be aware of the phenomenon that is the hunger games series. i won't claim to be a super hardcore, long-time fan (i read the books a few months ago after seeing the movie trailer), but i lurve it nonetheless.

so, to celebrate the release of the movie this weekend, i arranged a tournament in which 24 children were to fight to the death, the grand prize being a meal made by me. apparently this is not panem and there are some ethical issues with that, so the police and i have "agreed" that only the prize meal would take place. this time, i accept it. when Catching Fire comes out, chances are i'll defy 'the man', try again and spearhead a revolution under the name 'the Cookingjay.'

but in the meantime, i suppose i'll tell you about how i celebrated the hunger games with:

katniss' lamb stew, peeta's bunz ;), prim's herb and goat cheese crostini and nightlock pie. 

if you've read the books, you may remember the recurring appearance of lamb stew. katniss says it's her fav part of the captiol, haymitch sends it to her and peeta in the cave of love, etc etc

i thought it only fitting, then, to feature it in my hunger games menu. but rather than making it over rice and with dried plums (really, katniss??) i'm made a spin on my nana's classic beef stew.

first thang's first, i bought a lamb, named it President Snow and killed it. then i cubed it and shook it in a paper bag (this is all very high-tech) with flour, salt and pepper.

then i browned it in a bit of olive oil, like so:

next, i put it into my trusty crock pot, added 4 cups of beef broth and an array of diced veggies: potatoes, carrots, celery, onion. i also added thyme, bay leaves, garlic and a bit of rosemary.

and left it to cook for 4 days. and by days, i mean hours. though it felt like days.

next, i got started on the bread, which is a staple for any hunger games menu since peeta works at bakery and the different breads from the districts are mentioned a zillion times throughout the series. but since i love peeta, because his name sounds so bread-esque, i have chosen to refer to these as peeta's bunz. also, josh hutcherson has nice buns. in the film. that he throws at jennifer lawrence. not a sexual reference to a child actor...

SO the buns!

i combined a package of dissolved yeast, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of salt and 4 cups of flour in my mixer. after this was all doughy and whatnot, i added 3 more cups of flour gradually. then i added some garlic powder and rosemary and kneaded it for 6 minutes, which gave me some nice Cato-esque biceps. this made a lot of dough, so i cut 3 pieces off and made them into circular buns and left the rest aside to use later as baguettes.

i left the dough proof for 40 minutes, covered in some olive oil in a bowl. then i reshaped them and stuck 'em in the oven for 25 at 400.

 this was the result:

notice that i did not burn them and have to feed them to the pigs. theresa: 1, peeta: 0. 

while these were in the oven, i got started on dessert: nightlock pie. also known as completely  edible and non-poisonous bumbleberry pie. but that's not very hunger games. and nightlock is pretty important in the first book/movie (i won't spoil you if you haven't read it) so i felt it needed to make an appearance. 

so while i one-upped peeta on the bread, it pains me to admit that i used a pre-made pie shell. such shame. i pray my mother does not box my ears for this.

anyways, so we have a premade pie shell. next i mixed 2 cups of sugar, 2/3 cup of flour, the juice of half a lemon and precisely one bumble of berries (and some apples) for my filling. 

then i added a second pie shell on top, scored it a bit and stuck it in the oven at 350 for about an hour. le result:

by this time, the stew was almost ready and i had a district family of starving humans begging for nourishment. cue prim's basil and goat cheese crostini. 

so, the morning of the reaping katniss wakes up to find that prim has utilized her pet goat to make some cheese, which she wraps in basil leaves. katniss takes this when she goes hunting, gale brings bread. all is well...well, until the reaping. so, since basil, goat cheese and bread were precursors to the reaping, i thought it fitting to feature it as precursor to the meal. 

so first, i bought a goat and used it to make cheese. or did i buy goat cheese from walmart? i forget. anyways, goat cheese was acquired. i mixed some of my italiano blend of herbs into the cheese (for taste, but it also made it easier to spread, accidental genius) next, i cut up my baguettes from earlier, smeared them with some of the cheese and added a basil leaf. 

such beauty. 

by the time this was made and eaten, the rest was ready to be served up. 

as i was cutting the buns into dip-able pieces i had a revelation. while the hunger games is mostly a bloodbath for beebs, there's also a wee romance in it between peeta and katniss. so, because i'm cheesy (and also a culinary wizard of sorts) i decided that peeta and katniss had to find their way together in my meal. this was the result:

d'aaaaaaaaaaaawwww. amirite? arguably one of the best/most delicious ideas in my culinary meandering. 

so while the rest of my family, who are normal haven't read the books, thought they were just eating stew and bread, i was consuming a metaphorical recreation of peeta and katniss' love. or as the shippers like to call it, peeniss. haha, kids today.

the stew was delicious - the lamb gives it a more game-y taste, which i actually prefer over the plain old beef version -  i also had to make this kind for my picky taste-bud challenged sister. i mean, lovely sister. katniss would not approve of sibling hate. ahem. i love my sister, i'd totally volunteer for her at the reaping. if i could shoot a bow. and wasn't busy...

stew was followed by a slice of nightlock pie, which was to diiiiiiiie for ;)

after all these carbs, it's safe to say that there was no longer any hunger at this hunger games feast. though my mother always says "there's always room for popcorn!" - which turned out to be true. post-dinner, the whole fam headed to the theater to watch the movie. which was splendid. 

if you haven't seen it yet, do so. if you have, see it again. with me. i'll be there all week. both the books and the movie really, while entertaining the heck out of you, make you thankful for what you have. freedom, family and, most importantly, food that is not squirrel roasted on a stick. 

on a completely different topic, the next blog entry will feature woodland creatures roasted on a stick...

until then, thanks for reading! :)

happy blogiversary!

happiest of march 22nds to you, hungry readers!

in case you don't have this day marked on your calendar as a holiday (which you should - get with it!) i am pleased to inform you that today marks the first anniversary of my culinary meandering!

HUZZAH!

to celebrate this joyous event, i bought myself one of these:

in the true spirit of the blog, shared this with my lovely roommates. we sang a little song and took a little picture. it was beautiful. 

i'm majorly swamped with end of term papers at the moment, so this wee celebration is all i can muster for the big one year. BUT, never fear, i'll be back in the kitchen shortly. in fact, stay tuned this weekend for some Hunger Games themed meandering! 

in the meantime, i encourage you to celebrate the blogiversary by taking a delicious trip down memory lane (the archive) and reliving your fav blog posts. shoot me a comment and let me know which ones they were :)

thanks for reading today and this year!!

♫you are the only crustacean♫

(please sing the title to the tune of paramore's 'you are the only exception')

happy (day after) valentine's day, hungry readers!

i hope you all had a lovely love day!

if you spent it with a significant other fuck you, great! if you spent it with buddies (like such as me) great! if you spent it alone i hope you're still alive, great!

i jest. the truth is, i don't much care to spend valentine's day alone or boyfriendless. the main reason behind this is because i like me.

so rather than spending the night crying into a tub of ice cream, listening to All By Myself, i have decided to make the best of valentine's day the only way i know how: with food. and friends.

friends meaning that i invited my friend biz over and spent time with my roomates. but also, friends meaning the gang that hangs out at central perk.

if you've seen this show, which i assume you have, (because if not kill yourself you're nuts, bro) you may recall a little philosophy laid out by one phoebe buffay about lobsters. she explains that lobsters mate for life and that you will often find them in their tank holding claws.

later in the episode, she goes on to say that ross and rachel are each others' lobsters.

i rewatched this episode a few weeks ago and realized that this was the most beautiful and wise thing i had ever heard. also, i realized that i wanted to eat lobster asap. and obviously romance+cravings= valentine's day blog post.

so, i present you with:

phoebe's lobster, fine-by-myself filet mignon, 

mended achey-breaky-heart potatoes and not alone scones 

like i said, i've had my mind set on valentine's day lobster for some time now. as such, i planned the menu above completely around it. i wrote a grocery list 3 days in advance. i waited until the last minute to head to loblaws (because the all-knowing internets have informed me it's best to serve lobster right after you buy it). i went to the grocery store and gathered all of my side-dish ingredients first. then i made my way to the fish counter. only to find this:

naturally, i had a mental breakdown during which i flipped my cart over, attempted to throttle the fish department employee and screamed obscenities in 47 languages. none of this is true. i'm a pretty emotionally stable person, so my mental breakdown was internal. my silent rage and blank stare may have made the fish clerk visibly uncomfortable, though. 

so rather than throwing my hands up (in the air sometimes, saying aaaaaaaaaaay-oh, what a bad daaaay-oh!) and quitting on lobster, i paid for what was in my cart and headed over to metro. 

alas, metro was in cahoots with loblaws to shatter my hopes and dreams and decided when it was built many years ago to not include a lobster tank. so after accepting that my dream of singing Endless Love while making two live lobsters (which i would have named ross and rachel) hold claws was not in the cards, i bought some frozen lobster claws. and ran home to start cooking. 

the first thing i did was set up the potatoes to roast. but before i put them in the oven, i did this:

if you didn't "awwwwww," please take the time to do so now. i'll wait. 

okay, good. so i cut my potatoes into slices and made them into hearts.

side note: that cookie cutter was originally a circle, marvel at my skill. 

after they were all cut, i sprinkled them with sally, pepperann, garlic and paprika (to make them red!!!) and stuck them in the oven for an hour at 400. 

next, i got started on the scones. now, my original plan was to make red lobster's famous cheddar bay biscuits, but loblaws screwed me again (not in a good way - forever alone) and decided to not carry a biscuit mix. 

SO, i says to myself, i says, scones it is! i just picked up a basic PC pre-made mix and made them according to the directions on the box. but since that is suuuuper boring, i added 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder, a cup of shredded cheddaaaah and 2 tablespoons of freshly chopped chives. then i made them into wee sconey shapes like so:

these only take 15 minutes to cook and i wanted them to be warm when i served them, so i stuck them in the fridge until i was ready for them emotionally. 

next, i started on the filet mignon. since i unfortunately live in the french-dominated capital of this country, i reject the correct pronunciation and insist on saying "phill-ette migg-non" - you have to do this too. i'm the boss. 

i fried up some bacon and fed it to the scavengers who seem to appear in my kitchen each time i cook for the blog. then, i dumped out the grease (because i just wanted the bacon flavour on the pan) and deglazed the pan with a bit of white wine that my roommate happened to be drinking. 

please note: i did not take the wine directly from her mouth. this time. 

then i panfried my steaks at medium-low. when the outside was cooked, i took them out of the pan, wrapped a strip of bacon around them and put them back in the pan. it was beautiful. 

please excuse the blurriness. i was shivering with anticip......................................ation. 

when the bacon is cooked, u guud 2 go bb. 

FINALLY, the lobster. now, since i had my heart and soul set on live lobsters, all i had for preparation was a pot of boiling water. but rather than ruining my lobster in that or, god forbid, putting it in the microwave of blasphemy, i put on my thinking cap. except that i do not have a thinking cap. or any caps. buy me a hat.

the internets told me that you could steam frozen lobster, but since i am le stupid, i do not have a steaming receptacle. I DID, however, have a metal strainer and an orphaned pot-lid to a pot that i don't even believe ever really existed. so, i made like mah budz thomas edison and got inventive. 

okay, i'll say it. sweet baby j, i'm a genius! also, that element is not actually hot pink. there's some sort of photographical witchcraft afoot here.

i brought some water to a rolling boil underneath the lobster and dat shit got cookin' and was done in 5 flat. 

and that was that! romantic dinner for singletons, served!

i provided some lemon garlic butter on the side to accompany this fine feast/win popularity contests. 

the meal proved challenging for some (who shall remain nameless but will be shown in photos) and scissors were required to gain VIP access to the lobster meat. we had guest list tho, bb - no worriezz.

before consuming my portion, i made sure i sort of fulfilled my dream of lobsters holding claws. though they were much more dead and dismembered than i had imagined. 

nonetheless, phoebe would have been pleased. 

dinner was then followed by chocolate covered orgasms strawberries. 

each of my guests then fell in love with me and valentine's day was saved. the end. 

just kidding. for serioussssss though, chocolate covered strawberries are the way into a girl's pants heart. that or traditional courtship, honesty and communication. unless the girl is me. then just strawberries. 

ANYWAYS, the meal was a hit. elizabizzzzz and the roommates enjoyed it a great deal. and so did i. there were absolutely no leftovers besides scones, but there were an army of them. and one does not simply eat an army of scones, boromir. 

after din, we had some nice hangzzz, watched some medieval porn Game of Thrones and valentine's day was complete. a great success, if i do say so. okay, there were a few times i found myself IN A PINCH (awkward lobster pun, check!) but there was zero sadness, good food and cool buddies. so i say valentine's success and as you may have read, i AM the boss.

see, hungry readers? valentine's day isn't just for couples and it doesn't have to be a pity party either. in fact, while i have a fierce love for alliterations, pity parties and crying over first-world problems drives me bonkers. so what? i'm single and i cooked myself a romantic lobster dinner on february 14th! things can always be worse - i could have been the lobster!

thanks for reading! :)

all you need is love and rice krispies.

so if you haven't heard, valentine's day is approaching.

in the spirit of the holiday, i have decided to celebrate love. shocking, right?

but not the love between two humans: the love between girl and baked goods. 

to celebrate this undying love, i present you with these:

no, your eyes are not decieving you - those are indeed red rice krispies with chocolate chips.

but they are not simply dyed red, they are RED VELVET chocolate chip rice krispies.

hey, if you're gonna be single (like some girls i know...who are me) on valentines day, you might as well have two desserts in one. no judgement here, kids. 

so here's the recipe:

first i melted 3 cups of the world's largest effing marshmallows 

and 2 tablespoons of butter and mixed them together. 

then i added 1/3 cup of red velvet cake mix to the marshmallow mixture

then i mixed again. and sang some sir mix-a-lot. baby got baked goods. 

the mixture wasn't as red as i would have liked. it was more of a pepto bismol pink and since i did not have nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach or.....other things i won't mention in a food blog... i added some red paint food colouring. 

then i added 4 cups of rice krispies and a cup of chocolate chips.

next, i poured the mixture into a pan. and by poured i mean enlisted the help of an assistant to help me pry this cement-like mixture from the bowl. 

i let it set for about an hour  in the fridge while i started on the icing. cream cheese icing, specifically, to go with the red velvet theme. 

the icing is 1 container of cream cheese, 1/4 cup of room temperature butter creamed together. then i added a teaspoon of vanilla and gradually poured in a cup of icing sugar. 

i threw this in the fridge and broke the rice krispies again. using a cookie cutter, i cut them into wee hearts and iced them. 

my original plan was to write the lyrics to celine dion songs on each, but alas, i cut the hole in my piping bag too big. also, i'm too busy (wanting to eat these) for such shenanigans. 

i settled for much shorter inscriptions like this:

awww, i feel the same way, rice krispie. i really do. 

these turned out super cute and delish. my many romantic lovers (roommates/friends) really enjoyed them. these also make adorable picture message valentines and will likely make recipients fall in love with you. if not, dem peepz craycray. 

anyways, i'll be serving these to my sweetie (myself) on tuesday, and you should too! peer pressure is okay when it's this delicious. 

stay tuned on valentines day for some more lovely culinary meandering!

thanks for reading! :)

my super bowl snacks bring all the boys to the yard... line.

anyone who knows me well will know that i am a die-hard football fan.
or is it that i've never watched a full game before? i forget.

okay, the truth is i'm a super bowl band-wagoner. well, sort of.

i'm not one of those dinks who pretends they've been following all season and that their life depends on the outcome of the game. you know who you are.

i'm more of a general sports fan who likes catching the game with some buds (my parents and dog) and eating obscene amounts of sports-themed food, like such as:

pigskins in a pretzel blanket, brady's buffalo wing sauce and strong side salsa. 

i'm gonna keep this short and sweet since i'm actually watching the game as we speak/counting down the minutes to madonna.

my favourite part of any sports event is the concession food - hey, i'm not ashamed. and my two favourite game-time snacks are hot dogs and soft pretzels. and since my goal is to someday eat so much that i am a candidate for the Giants front line, i thought it'd be a great idea to combine them.

i started by making some pretzel dough: 4 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups warm water, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 packet of yeast, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt all shmixxxed up and left to set for an hour.

then i cut it into 16 sections and rolled them into 12 inch tubular tubes. of tuberculosis. or just tubes.
then i rolled these dough tubes around regular plain jane hot dogs. not very complicated.

until i got to the next step. what makes pretzels different from other bread isn't what's in the dough, it's this:

no, i did not accidentally punt my pretzel dog into a cup of water. i meant to do it. 

to make pretzels shiny and hard on the outside and soft on the inside, you submerge them in a hot water/baking soda mixture for a few seconds, THEN stick them in the oven. 

side note: the water/baking soda mixture bubbles like a cauldron full of hot strong love. chances are, making it will have you feeling like a wizard in potions class or a mad scientist. 

so i sprinkled them with salt and put them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.
they came out like this: 

i served them with a side of ketchup and honey mustard. delish!

next up: brady's buffalo wing sauce - called "brady's" because he's one of the only players whose name i know :)

this is super easy - combine 1 cup of hot sauce with 1/2 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of honey. i heated it up in the microwave and tossed my wings in it. 

please note: any similarities between these wings and those served at pizza pizza is purely accidental. the cesareos do no endorse pizza pizza in any way. wait. yes, we do. why not grab a $7.99 large for the second half? :)

this sauce is really great because it has all the flavour of hot sauce, but the honey and butter cancel out the heat and make it a sweeeeetie. 

last, but by absolutely no means least is my strong side salsa, so named because it's the most delicious component of my super bowl feast AND because of the scene in Remember the Titans where the two players are screaming STRONG SIDE, LEFT SIDE and then they all huddle up and cheer and solve racism and whatnot. Remember the Titans is the extent of my knowledge of this sport.

so here's how it goes:

i started by roasting 6 roma tomatoes, 1 yellow onion and 2 cloves of garlic in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

then i put them through the food processor with some cayenne pepper and cilantro. 

until it looked like this: 

now, i won't lie - this wasn't my first attempt at homemade salsa. you may recall the mexican blog entry (http://theresacesareo.blogspot.com/2011/08/in-queso-emergency-make-enchiladas.html) but what you may not know is that i had originally planned to include a salsa recipe in that entry.

at the time, i thought, "hey, it's salsa, how hard could it be? tomatoes, cilantro, onions, bam!"  alas, i was not aware that the tomatoes in salsa were meant to be cooked, so the end result was what resembled a horribly chunky, raw and cold tomato soup. ya nastaaay. 

this time, i was less cocky and googled my facts before entering the kitchen. this time around, the result was infinitely more delicious and less raw, which is always a bonus in cooking. 

EEEEP! it's half-time, i'd better take advantage of the stoppage in play to get a second plate of all these goodies. and pay attention to madonna. ooooh sexy gladiators! 

hope you're enjoying the game whether you're a bandwagoner, a true fan or if, like me, you're just here for the food. 

thanks for reading!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 happy eating! i mean, new year...

happy new year, hungry readers!

i hope that your hangovers are beginning to wear off so that you can handle the discussion of solid food.

last night, i rang in the new year surrounded by things i love... food and drinks aplenty.
oh, and my family was there too.

while waiting for dick clark's ball to drop - get your mind out of the gutter, that man is a saint - we snacked and engaged in some well-mannered frivolity. translation: gluttony and drunken tomfoolery.

but before all that, i found myself in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove, trying to change the world. okay, that's a bit drastic. what i was really trying to change was tradition. the typical Cesareo new year's eve menu consists of a box of frozen appetizers and whatever is kicking around the liquor cabinet. and while after a few drinks, this may seem okay, it's really not.

and so, in the spirit of new years and renewal, my resolution is to resist the alcohol-induced passivity of my taste-buds and eat only the most delicious of things.

thus, i present you with:

homemade hors d'ouerves, celebratory cocktail and lemon jello shots. 

first, i started with the hors d'oeurve fillings. as a clinically diagnosed overachiever, my original plan was to make 6 different kinds. i was then informed by my wallet mother that this was slightly excessive, so i settled for 4.

the first is a spin on french onion soup. i started by chopping a whole onion and sauteeing it in some butter on low to caramelize them. after about a coon's age 45 minutes of this, they were ready for the french onion treatment.

some thyme and a healthy splash of brandy. whaaaaaat - it's new years! you're gonna be drunk anyway, might as well get a headstart during the appetizers.

the filling is ready when the onions are a deep golden brown. if you happen to be tanned like me, you can use your skin as an onion colour comparison. once i finished comparing colour swatches, i put the mixture in a tupperware in the fridge.

the next filling is very similar to one that my nonna makes for stuffed mushroom caps. she starts by blessing the mushrooms with holy water. aaaaaand that's when i stopped following her recipe...
i chopped the mushrooms very finely and tossed them in a pan with a clove of garlic and a splash of olive oil.

after allowing some of the moisture cook out of the mushrooms and letting those ingredient mingle for a bit (an activity i also encourage for new years parties), i added a palm-full of parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. if you do not have palms, it should be about a 1/4 cup each. also, if you have no palms, good work on getting this far in the recipe.

when the cheese is melted and all of the ingredients are well-mixed, that filling is all set. throw it in a tupperware in the fridge.

the next filling is a spin on the classic pizza roll appetizer. even with my pizza connections, i have eaten far too many of these blasphemous imitations in my life.

as penance for this sin (nonna will be so proud) i created a new and improved version of the pizza roll.

for the filling, i started by whizzing up a cup of sundried tomatoes and a tablespoon of pesto sauce in a food processor, then transferred it to a pan to heat up. sauce component - check!

for the cheese component of this glorified pizza roll, i used freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. fancy.

i folded the cheese into the mixture and let it melt a bit, then tossed it in the fridge with the others.

at laaaaaaaast, the last filling has come along: spanikopita. most difficult to pronounce and the easiest to make. i started by crumbling some feta with a fork. here's a picture if you need some help with that.

next, i took some frozen spinach and threw it in the microwave to defrost. then i rung all the excess water out, albeit a little sooner than i should have - my third degree hand burns have taught me patience. then i mixed the spinach and the feta together, throwing in some granulated garlic and oregano.

and that's it for the filling!

next, the shells.

the hors d'oeurves that usually grace our new years eve table are made of puff pastry. so i figured, hey - let's try that! i've seen it on the food network - how hard can it be? well. it's not very hard at all. when you actually buy the right pastry. cut to me buying phyllo pastry by accident :)

hey, it could have been worse. i almost came home with this:

what an awkward family meal that would have been...

alas, i did not realize my phyllo mistake until i had already opened the package and was, thus, screwed.

not wanting to waste perfectly good pastry, i decided to make use of it for the sundried tomato and spanikopita-esque filling. which then proved to be true spanikopita, since it is usually made with phyllo pastry. fate?

but since i hadn't planned on phyllo, i had to refer to an informative source to learn how to use it. no, i didn't pull out my copy of The Joy of Cooking, rather, i consulted youtube.

usually you take the sheets of phyllo, which are thinner than the average olsen twin, and layer them, brushing them with butter in between. since i wanted to finish this recipe before 2012, i opted for the youtube shortcut - pam! spraying that on each sheet before layering allowed me to save several valuable minutes of 2011. after layering 4 sheets, it was time to cut. my wrists, because there was still such a long way to go.

also, it was time to cut the pastry and add the fillings.

for the spanikopita, i cut the pastry into long strips using a Pizza Pizza pizza cutter. everyone has one of those right? then i folded it like you would a flag, just as youtube commanded. easy peasy. if you have ever folded a flag. which i often find myself doing. except that i have never folded a flag before and the beauty below took several minutes to perfect. 

for the pizza-esque sundried tomato filling, i took a simpler route by cutting the pastry into squares.

then i folded all of the corners in to make wee squares. like so:

so while i was slaving away with this culinary origami, my mother had made her way to the grocery store and bought puff pastry. directly beside the phyllo pastry. when i write my memoirs, such mistakes will be blamed for my systematic descent into madness. GAH!

anyways, life goes on. and hors d'oeurves must be made. 

i started by rolling out the puff pastry to about 1/4 of an inch thick and cutting circles using the highly expensive and high-tech tool known as "the glass." 

for the french onion puffs, i put the filling in the middle of the pastry and folded it over, sealing it with eggwash (mixture of a battered beaten egg and a bit of water) and a fork. 

sidenote: no eggs involved in this recipe were victims of domestic violence. however, to protect their identities, i have not included a picture of this pastry. or did i forget to take one? we'll never know. 

to maximize the french onion flavour, i added some shredded gruyere cheese to the top of these puffs.

moving alonggggg, for the mushroom filling, i made wee pastry cups using a mini muffin tin and filled them.

and that's it! i stuck them in the oven for 30 minutes and moved on with my life.

to the drinks!

turning back the clock to new years eve eve (that's two eves, yes), i was making some jello shots. but not ordinary jello shots. these:

pretty fancy, right? and they're really easy to make. i cut oranges or lemons in half and hone out the insides with a spoon. then i set them in a muffin tin to keep the rinds from falling over and fill them with a lovely alcoholic jello mixture. if you've never made jello shots before, get a life you just substitute half of the cold water requirement with cold vodka or rum or whatever blows your dress up. but please keep your dress down, jail time for indecent exposure is no way to spend the holidays. 

after i let the jello set overnight, i cut them into wedges. 

these jello shots are great! tasty, fun to look at and infinitely easier to eat than the ones in little plastic cups - which usually result in me making a fool of myself by either covering myself in jello or resembling an anteater as i attempt to extract jello with my tongue. 

before you have time to construct a visual of that, let's move along to the celebratory cocktail.

celebratory cocktail: (n) a drink served at a festive get-together, colloquially referred to by the layman as "punch" or, more accurately, "the nectar of the gods." often leads to lowered inhibitions, drunken tomfoolery and good times.

my new year's eve celebratory cocktail is a twist on my nana's classic punch recipe. it's made up of a bottle of ginger ale, a bottle of cranberry juice and a can of frozen pink lemonade. for aesthetic appeal, nana would add some sliced oranges and i followed suit. this non-alcoholic version is delish on it's own and suitable for any occasion, or new years day breakfast (points to self). 

to maximize the evening's frivolity and fun, i added a few cups of vodka or rum :) 

and then promptly forgot all of the year's troubles and quite possibly the rest of the night. 

while i may not remember much after the punch, i do remember making myself several of these plates and loving every morsel. 

the fam, members both human and canine, shared my appreciation of the hors d'ouerves and beverages too, leaving no left-overs. other than the ones i stashed at the back of the fridge for myself :D

while the homemade hors d'oeurve route is a much more tedious one than the store-bought appetizer route, it's fun to make your own. and the customization of fillings enables maximum guest satisfaction. 

all in all, t'was a great way to ring in the new year - surrounded by family, friends and food. 

and so, hungry readers, the culinary meandering of 2011 is at an end. but don't despair, 2012 promises to be just as, if not more, delicious than its predecessor. stay tuned!

thanks for reading! :)