New Year's Day

Craig and I had our post-Christmas Christmas on New Year's Day, and presents were of course accompanied by some good food. Craig made breakfast--he's very good at pancakes. These are banana-pecan buttermilk pancakes, with a little Italian salami alongside. The pancakes were really thick, almost like banana bread, and yummy, especially with maple syrup.

For lunch I made fancy toasted cheese on baguette. I used two cheeses, an aged gouda and gran queso, which is described as an American Manchego.  I added some jarred roasted red peppers and Penzey's pasta sprinkle.  A little bit of WF smoky harissa hummus (sooo good!) made the sandwiches perfect.

Dinner was to be a roast we dry-aged in the fridge for a couple of days. It was a loin-end rib roast, a beautiful piece of meat. We followed the Cook's instructions, having it cut off the bones for browning and easy carving, but tied onto the bones for roasting. We also served brussels sprouts with pecans and parmesan and horseradish mashed potatoes (Cook's), which were incredible.

Here's the roast just out of the oven! We don't own a decent roasting pan, but it was small enough to fit in a cast-iron skillet, and that worked well. Craig was really excited to try out his new carving knife!

And the dinner. Everything was so delicious and so special. We drank a wine we bought on our honeymoon while visiting the Gagliasso Winery in La Morra, Italy. A 2001 Barbera, it was just perfect for the meal. Look at that meat--even with a kitchen full of untrustworthy thermometers and Hollie Hobbie up to her usual tricks, it came out beautifully. A good sign for 2009.

Dinner was so filling, we had to skip dessert--the aforementioned gouda and gran queso, and Valdeon, an amazing amazing Spanish blue, and Cahill's Irish Whiskey Cheddar (I couldn't resist buying it, and I liked it, but Craig did not care for it).  There was plenty of meat to enjoy for several more days.  We had leftovers with leftover ravioli the next night, then tossed with Italian egg pasta the night after that, and Craig's still eating it for lunch.  I'm kind of over red meat for a day or two.