New Year’s Eve Dinner 2011
Fresh Mozzarella With Fresh Tomatos aka Caprese Salad
Insalata Caprese
Prosciutto Sliced Thin With Cantaloup
Antipasto di Prosciutto e Melone
Chicken Soup With Broken Spaghetti
Spiedini: Sausage Lamb Bread Kebabs
Spiedini: Sausage Lamb Bread Kebabs
Spiedini: Sausage Lamb Bread Kebabs
Spiedini, is basically food on a skewer (aka kebab) and you can set them over the coals or roast them in the oven which is how we do it. Spiedini has been a tradition in my house for a long time for New Year’s Eve dinner…there’s no particular reason why but I suspect its due to the amount of hustle involved in everything for Christmas that we’re usually pooped by the time New Year’s Eve comes around. Our Spiedini are made with sausage, lamb, pork, sometimes chicken, and pancetta, all meats are separated by pieces of bread. With this dish it’s important to marinate the meats (omitting the sausage of course) and while it roasts it’s important to baste the Spiedini (aka kebabs) with the leftover marinade.
Torrone Chocolate With Hazelnuts and Dark Chocolate Plate
Italian Torrone is a popular winter and Christmas dessert. You can have it hard, soft, covered in chocolate, with nuts, without…the combinations and variations are endless they may also include flavorings, such as orange, lemon, vanilla, etc.
Torrone Friabile aka Hard Nougat
Hazelnut Cream Chocolate and Whole Hazelnut Bar
Fruit Cake aka Christmas Cake
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash. In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added, and the name “fruitcake” was first used, from a combination of the words “fruit” (Latin: fructus, Old French: frui), and “cake” (Old Norse: kaka, Middle English: kechel).
Fruitcakes soon proliferated all over Europe; however, recipes varied greatly in different countries throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients as well as (in some instances) church regulations forbidding the use of butter, regarding the observance of fast. Pope Innocent VIII (1432-1492) finally granted the use of butter, in a written permission known as the ‘Butter Letter’ or ‘Butterbrief.’ The Holy Father softened his attitude, and in 1490 he sent a permission to Saxony, stating that milk and butter could be used in the North German Stollen fruitcakes.
Starting in the 16th century, sugar from the American Colonies (and the discovery that high concentrations of sugar could preserve fruits) created an excess of candied fruit, thus making fruitcakes more affordable and popular.
In the 18th century in some areas in Europe, fruitcakes were made using nuts from the harvest for good luck in the following year. The cake was then saved and eaten before the harvest of the next year.[citation needed] The fruitcake also remained popular at Victorian Teas in England throughout the 19th century.
(Source)
I likes to food.