A New Year Tradition

It is tradition for me to ring in the New Year with my Favorite Person In The World, we will call him FPITW from now on. He will love that, he is the king of acronyms. We usually spend several days together here or there. We celebrate New Years Eve, cook, eat and laugh a lot. That is where I have been. I have a lot to share with you in the coming posts. I will start with a short list of what's been cooking.

Before I left for FPITW's I made a Pork Noodle Salad and Chicken Pho. Both were great but I want to make a few adjustments before I share the recipe. I want to use a larger rice noodle in the Pork Noodle Salad before taking it's glamour shot. I want to adjust the cooking time on the chicken in the Chicken Pho. I will post these recipes soon. Here is a sneak peek.

Then it was off to Central Texas to hang out with FPITW. He cooked dinner for me when I got there. The next day he took me to Deckhand's Oyster Bar for great oysters on the half shell. The owner who is from Laos makes this special green chili sauce called Deckhand sauce. It spicy and complements the oysters so well. If your ever in Austin go try it. We also did a good bit of cooking over the holiday. Poor FPITW made four or five trips to the store, I went on only two of those trips. He also took me to The Alamo Draft House. It is a great dine in movie theater, a real fun way to enjoy a movie. I am a lucky girl to know such a great guy. Here are some of the things we cooked together this week:

Black Eye Peas and Chow Chow
We make this every New Year's Day for luck and it is always accompanied by FPITW's family Chow Chow. It is a spicy not peppy tomato condiment. Sorry it is a family secret but I will share the Black Eye Pea recipe soon.
Click here for recipe.

Nick's Lasagna
This is a recipe from FPITW family friend. It is a huge, delicious, and easy lasagna casserole. I plan to try to make a smaller version with lighter ingredients real soon.

Shrimp and Noodles in Brown Garlic Sauce

A stir-fry FPITW and I created with a Brown Garlic Sauce from Food.com, veggies and Fresh Rice Noodles from a YouTube video. Click here for recipe.

Drop Biscuits
We made drop biscuits twice. I made an adaptation of Mom's recipe first. We did not have baking powder so I used Bisquick. Basically I made "Rocks" and Gravy. Right then I made the resolution to learn how to make great biscuits in 2013. We were watching Cook's Country at the time and I said show us biscuits. 


Then it happened the host started singing a song about biscuits and they aired a piece about Cat Head Biscuits. We made two trips to the store to get the ingredients. But is was so worth it. They are PERFECT!!! They are light as air, soft in the center, they have a crisp exterior and great flavor. I am ahead of schedule on that resolution.

Goldenland Thai Spring Rolls


Linking to:
Ms. enPlace: See Ya in the Gumbo