Good Things Happened - January - December 2012

Wow!  It's the end of the year again - how did it all go by so quickly?  I was going to post the 12 favorite photos again from each month of the year, but just didn't have good ones from all the months - particularly the first part of the year.  However, I noticed that each month had a food photo, so this post is the year in food, along with the words that went with the photo!  Here goes:

January.  Spotting a recipe for this Tomato-Cheddar Strata with Broccoli in the February 2012 issue of Country Living magazine.  I made it yesterday (halving it since it was for one.)  After describing it to friend Kim in an email, she said that it sounded "beautiful and delicate" and that fits it perfectly.

February.  Realizing I have everything for my stew except dried rosemary, but remembering there is a rosemary bush that the condo owner downstairs planted a couple of years ago.  (I have an open invitation to pilfer at will.)  Is it still there?  Yes it is.  I clip a little, take the knife and cutting board to it and in several minutes my home smells fragrant from a slow cooking stew.  And my fingers smell awesome.

March.  This recipe came from Simply Recipes - a wonderful blog of family recipes they share so you can make them your own.  It started with making Colcannon (mashed potatoes with kale) on Saturday - delicious with a couple of sausages, and then these Colcannon Cakes on Sunday morning.  A couple of them with a poached egg were wonderful.  You can click on the recipe here. 

April.  This is Red Lentil Soup with Lemon, made from a recipe from Joanne's delightful blog, "Eats Well With Others."  Here's the link to the recipe.  You are supposed to use an immersion blender or food processor to puree the soup, but my experience in doing that turned comical.  I was holding the bowl of the food processor next to the pot of soup, filling it up, when the blade floated out of place and soup started running out onto the countertop and floor.  Oh my!  After some fast salvaging, the soup remained unpureed. :)  But it still tasted just as good.  As you can see, from the line around the bowl, I had already eaten a little before photographing it.  The rest went into individual portions in the freezer and I had some for lunch at work just yesterday.  Blissfully good. 

May.  Making this yummy Spring Onion Pie after work on Monday.  That might have been a better weekend project, but I never got to it and so when my walk on Monday was rained out, my thoughts turned to dinner.  As so often happens, I was distracted and a little disorganized this day.  I didn't have any all-purpose flour and had to run out and get, but finally got it in the oven.  Hmmm - as delicious as the pie tasted, the crust seemed a little chewy.  Forehead smacking moment - I forgot to put the milk in the batter!  Next time.  :)  Here's a link to the recipe if you'd like to try it.

June.  The poet Pablo Neruda in his Ode to the Watermelon, called it a "fruit from the thirst-tree.  It's the green whale of the summer."  I love the cold, crisp feel of it as I snack on it at work.  It tastes like summer!  Even without seeds.

July.  More peaches - this time some from Georgia!  Friend Janice arrives for our walk with a bag of peaches for me from a box someone gave her husband.  She was off to make peach bread after the walk.  Me - I just like to eat them over the sink or with vanilla yogurt and granola crisp cereal for breakfast.

August.  Saturday morning.  There had been toast and poached egg on the plate.  And of course, there was good coffee.  A light breeze carrying the lyrical voices of my Asian neighbors to the back, who were working their garden.  You can just see the roof of their house beyond my mosquito repellent device there.

September.  Sitting with friends on a back porch, a cool breeze blowing.  The host chef has made paella and is cooking it on the outdoor grill in an enormous pan.  The sign that it is done is the sound of the rice crackling.  It was delicious.

October.  The November issue of Cooking Light is a celebration of the magazine's first 25 years and they included their most celebrated recipes.  And out of all of them the staff loved this one the most:  "Rich Chicken Soup with Fresh Noodles."  It was delish and perfect for a windy, drizzly Sunday night.  Here's the recipe.  And I only had to go to two stores (Publix and Whole Foods) to get all the ingredients.  :)  I never did find Fresh Poultry Mix Herbs, so made a bouquet of sage, tarragon and thyme.

November.  this bowl of deliciousness was my dinner.  My sister asked if I had any special requests for Thanksgiving and I said, "brussel sprouts."  She replied, "But then you would be the only one eating them."  Sigh.  They don't know what they are missing.  I roasted them in my grandfather's cast iron skillet per the Simply Recipes blog.  Click here for the recipe.  I roasted them about five minutes longer than the recipe says to get that extra brown color.

December.  Aha!  A new photo - taken just now of the Indian River (Florida) Tangelos that were put into my car on Christmas Day, along with all that broccoli.  I always seem to have an avocado in the bowl, too.  I do love them. 

So Happy New Year's Eve, my friends.   May next year be good to you.  And in the words of a wise man named Brooks Atkinson, "Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go."  Imperfect, it was, but I still loved it.  xo