I had my last annual New Year’s Day brunch in Memphis back in 2006. A lot has happened to me since then, and I wanted to have another one and welcome 2012 with a lot of love because, for sure, I am looking forward to this year! I have many blessings … one of which is my food lovin’ man who likes to get in the kitchen and create fun stuff.
Joe and I started talking about brunch a couple of weeks before Christmas and, as happens with food loving people, the menu just grew and grew. I nixed a couple of things because he can get very creative … way beyond my elementary palate, but we came up with a pretty good mix. I covered the true brunch food and the desserts. Joe was in charge of the after noon hour food … which left him much more leeway for his creativity.
I made a brie, hot sausage and egg casserole and a hash brown casserole. These are always delicious staples for brunch! I used sour cream and onion potato chips for the potato casserole and I made the egg casserole in two parts … one that omitted the meat. The recipe for the brie and egg casserole is here: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/brie-and-sausage-breakfast-casserole-10000000407846/ and the hash brown casserole is Paula Deen’s version: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/creamy-hash-brown-casserole-recipe/index.html. Both of these dishes are rich and decadent and also super efficient when you are having a brunch because they are make ahead for the most part.
Not so efficient was my dessert extravaganza … it was pretty labor and frustration intensive. I started with Barefoot Contessa’s Coconut Cupcakes – search for the recipe at foodnetwork.com … “Ina Garten coconut cupcakes” and there you have it! I followed this recipe except I made little baby cupcakes which end up being two bites of incredible goodness and makes somewhere around 6 dozen. I have made these several times before and they always turn out great and so pretty! And I love a two bite dessert. Makes me feel like I am watching my calories!
The real story here is going to be about tarts. I bought Joe several tart pans and tart cookbooks for our first year of dating anniversary in October because he is my Sweet Tart/Heart and I decided for New Year’s Day that I had, had, had to make tarts. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for Pecan and Walnut Tarts. I’m sorry but you are going to have to buy the cookbook here: http://www.marthastewart.com/338752/martha-stewarts-new-pies-and-tarts-cookb. I will not violate Martha’s copyright.
I have never actually made a pie or tart crust before having availed myself of the refrigerated grocery store version which shall remain unnamed; however, I would cheat in a heartbeat because this was really, really hard for me! I was excited to start. I don’t have marble countertops, but I had parchment paper and flour and my Mom’s rolling pin, which I felt sure would be blessed. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I followed the recipe down to the letter including cutting the butter in literally. This was actually not a bad way to do it, but next time I think freezing the butter for 30 minutes would have made this work better.
I made the required two little lumps of dough and covered them in plastic wrap as instructed and let them rest in the refrigerator for the required amount of time.
Once the dough had “rested” I learned that the rolling pin was be-deviled. No matter how much flour I rubbed on it and what I said while I was doing the rubbing, the crust stuck. Things were not going smoothly. I wanted to scream, maybe I actually did and perhaps my neighbors did not hear … I’m not sure about that part. So I rolled out one blob of dough and cut it and fit it into the tart pans and then I had a brilliant thought … “this is much too hard! and I tossed all of that first blob into the trash. ”I will just make a graham cracker crust instead! Wouldn’t that taste so much better with a pecan and walnut tart anyway?” And how easy is that … crumbs, butter, a food processor and pressing it into the tart pans (12 small square tarts) with the pestle from my mortar? Sounds simple really. And it was and I baked the little graham cracker shells for 8 minutes and they were so pretty. And then I filled them with the beautiful pecan and walnut mixture and put them in the oven.
Not fire and brimstone, but definitely there was a whole lot of smoking going on! All of the yumminess was leaking out into the bottom of the stove. There was a nice plume of nasty smoke coming out of my oven when I called time out and tossed everything into the trash can.
That Martha, she is smart and had me make two blobs of dough after all. I brought blob number two to room temperature, got out more parchment paper, more flour and this time I avoided the bedeviled rolling pin and used a smoothed edged glass to roll out the dough. It worked perfectly and I ended up with 12 beautiful tarts … not too sweet – no Karo syrup… real maple syrup … so awesome that I will do them again in spite of myself.
So … enough about me and more about Joe. Joe was in charge of the New Year’s Day staples … black-eyed peas, cabbage … but I had some requirements. We were good on the Hoppin’ John for the black-eyed peas, but I hate cabbage unless it is almost raw … so Joe decided to make little pork slider with a nice, raw slaw of napa cabbage and carrots … so pretty and crunchy and so not slaw like. He used a red dressing on top, similar to a Catalina dressing but Joe style.
Joe made some awesome gumbo with chicken and sausage. I bought a bunch of these little ramekins at World Market – like $3 for 4 and those were our serving dishes.
He made duck burritos. OMG … seriously? Very tasty treats tied with Chive Flowers. Beautiful and delicious!
Joe made Chili Bean Dip; I made some goat cheese platters with honeyed walnuts and bacon and there was other stuff … we had a lot of fun … everyone had fun. The majority of the crowd hung past the 1 pm brunch ending and watched the Titans win what turned out to be their last game of the season. Geez … Life is good! Happy 2012!
