New Year’s Menu 2020

Hello! It’s back to my regular schedule this week, but, as promised, I want to quickly share some recipes from our New Year’s Day lunch we enjoyed with our parents. After our moms have hosted all the holiday meals from Thanksgiving to Christmas, Joel and I like to take New Year’s Day to treat them to a break from cooking and cleaning for company. Every year I go with the traditional New Year’s pork, collards, peas, and cornbread, but this year we decided we needed a steak! Joel and I could not remember the last time we’d bought steaks, and thought it would be a nice surprise for everyone.

New Year’s Day Menu 2020:

New York Strip Steak

Shrimp and Bacon Stuffed Potatoes

Roasted Parmesan Asparagus

Butterhorns

Chai Tea Eggnog Cookies and Clementines

(I also planned for sauteed mushrooms and even purchased a big container of them to cook, but then never gave them another thought! Completely forgot all about them until 2 days later, ha!)

We kept the steak and asparagus pretty simple for ease of prep and to enjoy their natural flavors since the potatoes would be heavy and rich. We marinated the steaks in Ken’s Caesar Lite Dressing for 24 hours before Joel grilled them.  The asparagus was roasted in a 425 degree oven until golden after giving them a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. The butterhorns were in the freezer from a big batch I made during the holidays.

The twice-baked potatoes were a new dish that I’ve wanted to try for a long time, but every time I’d get ready to make a potato dish like this, I’d always just go back to my trusty ol’ Twice-Baked Potato Casserole recipe because it’s sooo reliably good. But oh my, I’m so glad I finally made this other recipe! We loved it, and the shrimp really made it special! This recipe is adapted from Paula Deen’s Shrimp Stuffed Potatoes.

Shrimp and Bacon Stuffed Potatoes

6 large baking potatoes

Vegetable oil for coating

Seasoning salt

8 Tbsp butter

2 cups grated cheddar cheese, plus more for topping

2 cups grated Monterey Jack

2 cups sour cream

Salt and pepper

1 pound shrimp, peeled and sauteed

1 pound of bacon, cooked and crumbled (my addition!)

Paprika

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry the potatoes, and prick them with a fork a few times around. Coat each potato with oil, place each on a square of foil, and sprinkle all sides with seasoning salt. Wrap in foil and place in oven until fully baked and soft throughout.

Place the butter in a large bowl. Remove potatoes from oven and slice each in half while holding with a thin kitchen towel or paper towels to keep your hands from getting too hot. Gently scoop out the potato and place in a bowl with the butter. Place the potato shells in a greased baking dish. Using a mixer on high, mix the potatoes, butter, sour cream, salt and pepper. Add in the cheeses, and then fold in the shrimp and bacon (hold out some of the bacon for topping–I forgot to do this!) into the mixture. Gently stuff the mixture back into the potato shells, dividing the mixture evenly between all shells. Top potatoes with reserved cheese, bacon, and paprika. I just got busy and forgot to add the bacon and paprika on top of the cheese. It’s a crying shame because they would have been so pretty with that color, but they were still delicious! 

Bake in the 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, or until hot throughout. 

After all the sweets we’d eaten through Christmas, and having enjoyed birthday cake for my husband’s birthday the day before (recipe to come), I kept New Year’s Day dessert pretty low key with just cookies and clementines. Chai Tea Eggnog Cookies are uniquely flavorful, easy to prepare with a sugar cookie mix, and a great way to use leftover eggnog after Christmas. This has been my favorite New Year’s cookie for many years.

Chai Tea Eggnog Cookies

(From Southern Living December 2009)

Ingredients:

1 chai tea bag 

1 (17.5 oz) sugar cookie mix

1/2 cup melted butter

1 large egg

4 Tbsp. eggnog, divided

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Remove tea leaves from tea bag and discard the bag.

Stir together the tea leaves, cookie mix, butter, egg, and 2 Tbsp. eggnog until well blended.

Use a cookie scoop to drop dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks. 

Whisk together the powdered sugar, nutmeg, and remaining 2 Tbsp. eggnog until smooth. Spoon over cooled cookies. For New Year’s, I like to add gold sprinkles. 

I hope your new year is off to a great start! Cheers to 2020!!

My blogging will slow down again now that we’re back to our homeschool routine. I enjoyed the extra time in the mornings when the kids all slept late through Christmas break and I could sit at the computer for a while with my coffee. I’m taking a break from Instagram and Facebook for a while, just to start the semester off strong, but I’ll try and post here once a week. We’ve got a lot to get done this semester, and spring soccer already starts next week for one of mine! But boy, I love these school days with my kids! The years are flying by.