3rd Annual New Year’s Day Lunch

Well, we have survived yet another New Year’s Day Lunch!

As usual, there are TONS of leftovers. Not because the food sucked, but because I am my mother’s daughter and made way too much food for fear that I would run out of food.

I wish I had remembered to take pictures of everything before we ate, but I was busy bustling around and everyone was enjoying themselves.

I farmed out the appetizers and desserts and did the entrees. For appies we had spinach and artichoke dip with pita chips, mozzarella sticks, pizza rolls, and a cheese/salami/olives/cracker platter. Sadly, no pictures of any of this.

I made 2 batches of baked cheesy rotini, garlic bread, crockpot barbecue pulled chicken served on mini-slider rolls, my “famous” sausage rolls, and salad.

On top of all that we had some awesome desserts! Excuse the crappy picture.

We had key lime pie, 2 different cheesecake sampler trays, vanilla creme cake, dark chocolate-croissant bread pudding, and bourbon vanilla ice cream and Godiva white chocolate liqueur for those who wanted it. The liqueur was the bottle I won at our office party and I ended up just giving it away. The bourbon vanilla ice cream was brought by the person who brought the heavenly bread pudding — I sent the ice cream home but kept the leftover bread pudding. >:}

I originally was going to do a mix of American and Indian foods like I’ve done in the past but since this year the crowd was bigger, I didn’t want to stress myself out too much. I kept the entrees easy and did them all this morning.

The crockpot barbecue pulled chicken was EASY. Dump boneless skinless chicken thighs and barbecue sauce in crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours. That’s it. Then towards the end take the chicken out, shred it, and dump it back in the sauce.

The baked cheesy rotini was easy too. Boil pasta, drain, mix with sauce, put half in a baking dish, layer of cheese, then another layer of pasta/sauce, and then top with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes until the cheese is melty and gooey. I even have a “before” picture of the pasta.

My sausage rolls are deceptively simple as well. Just thaw some puff pastry sheets, cut each sheet into sixths. Cut pre-cooked chicken sausages in halves. Put a sausage half on a pastry piece and roll up. Do this with all the sausages and pastry pieces. Bake for about 20 minutes.