New Years

If you are not serving Prime Rib for New Year's Eve, but still want to be a little bit fancy, this Pepper Crusted Pork Tenderloin with Savory Mustard Sauce is the perfect choice. It's reminiscent of crusting our rib roasts and encasing them in salt, pepper or spices, except it's a lot lower in calories.

It's also perfect if you have already started your New Year's resolution to better health and fitness. However, I will admit the mustard sauce is not low in calorie. But, you can easily control the amount of drizzle to enjoy on your portion. Don't skip this wonderful sauce.

I also used my trusty meat thermometer to cook the tenderloin. It's hard to imagine making pork tenderloin without it. It's so easy to overcook.

I used a medley of peppercorns to make my crust. Does using a variety of colors make a difference? Absolutely! All colors offer a slight variation in flavor and heat and are easily ground in your spice mill.

We haven't cracked the champagne but the table is set and we are ready to celebrate! This was such a great year and it deserves a celebration in style. I have to admit I enjoy a New Year's Eve filled with pomp and circumstance. My kids are finally old enough where I can get back to the New Year's Eve parties we enjoyed so many years ago. 

When the boys were little, we celebrated New Year's Eve "East Coast Time". We'd watch the ball drop at 9 PM here, blow some horns and off to bed they went. My husband and I would vow to stay up and crack the bubbly at midnight, but when you have little ones, you are just tired. We would usually fall asleep on the couch and wake up at about 1:30 AM...New Year's long gone.

One of the best New Year's Eve celebrations we've had was when we were in the Carribean on a cruise during the New Year's holiday. What a party. Everyone was dressed formal, the champagne was flowing freely, bands were playing on every deck, club and bar and dinner was formal and amazing. There was no worry about driving or getting home. We had a babysitter on the ship and my kids were fast asleep while we enjoyed the night. I highly recommend taking a cruise during this time, it was lovely. And warm.

I always like to put the word "easy" before the word "entertaining," because I think entertaining should be easy, fuss-free, and uncomplicated, especially for the host or hostess. Making foods that are easy to put together, simple in their essence, and even easier to clean up are the key when entertaining on easy street. That the holidays are still in full swing and New Year's is just around the corner means that there is still time to flex your easy entertaining muscles. Any recipe that can go under the broiler and be done in minutes is my kind of easy. This shrimp hors d'ouevre is just that.

We all are familiar with the old-school appetizers of bacon-wrapped chicken livers, scallops, or dates. Well, there's also bacon-wrapped shrimp. Basically anything wrapped in bacon tastes good, right? These shrimp are jacketed in strips of flavorful applewood-smoked bacon. A dusting of hot paprika also adds to the smoky flavor of the finished bar bite. Clean-up is also made simpler since the pan is lined with foil. These hors d'ouevre are great for parties, especially on New Year's eve. They pair well with a variety of cocktails or a simple glass of bubbly. Now wasn't that entertaining made easy?

“Now, I go on a diet.”

It is eight days into the new year when my temporary house dad in Rome has turned to me and said this. I look at his wife and I joke, “That is possible in Italy?”

Both laughing, “Yes it is.”

I think to myself, ‘Diet…in Italy. Maybe.’ Then I think, ‘Maybe if I don’t eat along my tour of the north which I will be leaving for in a day, I can do an Italian diet—on both my calories and my wallet.’

Not possible. I repeat—Not possible, especially when Torino, Italy, home of the best chocolate in the world is on the list—especially when the 12th day of the 2011 means being barricaded by city walls of chocolate, cream, pastries, and gelato, especially when I have a sweet tooth that I don’t think the tooth fairy will ever collect from me…and especially when the city of Torino even has something called a chocolate pass which allows you to tour all the chocolate of the city within two days. Keeping to my wallet diet, I avoided the chocolate pass…but still didn’t avoid the chocolate. This is how I broke every basic New Years Resolution in the first fifteen days of the year.