New Year's Eve

The past four years, we have gotten together on New Year's Eve with my three housemates from college and their husbands.  It has always been a ton of fun, and since we have all lived in different cities since graduation, our "Rendez-Vous" (that was also the name of our house) are few and far between.  Unfortunately, things did not work out this year, leaving Grant and I with nothing to do until our good friends Katie & Dave invited us over :-) Thanks guys, you are awesome!!

I had already decided we should have a nice dinner (aka I'd allow myself to splurge at the grocery store!!) to start off our evening. It was fun to have dinner with just the two of us (but we really did miss our usual NYE pals), reminiscing about the past year.  We talked about some of our favorite moments of the year... topping the list were finding out we were pregnant, the ultrasounds and our trip to Nantucket!  After dinner, we had a great time playing games with our friends and believe it or not, I stayed up til midnight! (But was in bed shortly after!!)

Here was our menu: 

Appetizer: Cheese Fondue with granny smith apples, bread & carrots 

Main Course: Garlic Marinated Steak, Spinach & Chive Linguine with olive oil and Parmesan

Dessert: Happy New Year sugar cookies... because sugar cookies are my favorite, ok? And I never made any for Christmas due to my glucose tolerance test situation.  

Drink: a bottle of sparkling cider... yes, we drank the whole bottle.  We are that crazy. 

Now... a few thoughts about the meal. 

#1- buying the fondue pre-made from Trader Joes does go against my desire to make everything from scratch... but this was $5.99... and it included GRUYERE, COMTE & EMMENTAL, along with the wine and kirsch... ok, seriously, that is a steal.  I was at Giant Eagle and saw a bag of the same three cheeses shredded (but you'd still need to add the wine) for ... $15.99!! Anyways, there really weren't any artificial ingredients added to the TJs blend, and it definitely tasted authentic :-) 

#2- the marinated steak was very-well marinated... I think I'd cut back on the amount the next time.  This brings me to one of my cooking goals for 2012: I want to be able to cook meat without having to cut it open & check if it's done... or perhaps just invest in a better thermometer!

#3- this sugar cookie recipe (thank you pinterest!) was the best one I've made yet. 

Happy 2012 friends :-) I can't believe we will become a family of 3 this year!!  (Ok, more like super soon...)