NEW YEAR'S BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday to my oldest son!

He was born on New Year's Day

31 years ago in New Jersey

temp was -10 for 10 days!

He has been such a joy and is so much fun to be around!  He's my daredevil

so I knew he would like to try something new

on his birthday.

I like to try out new recipes every once in a while.  Since I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner and my husband's birthday on the 21st I was in the mood to try something new.  When I found the recipe for Fig and Balsamic Glazed Quail in this month's (Dec 2011) Southern Living, I knew I wanted to try it.  I called Kroger to see if they had quail.  The guy in the meat department had to check and came back and said, "Ummmm, actually we do!"  I said, "Save me 8".

The glaze is made out of fig preserves, red wine, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and pepper.  It had a rich, wonderful sweet and sour taste.  The quail was a lot smaller than I had imagined, but they actually had a fair amount of meat on them.  I was afraid they would taste gamey, but they had a nice duck/chicken taste and the fig glaze was perfect!

I also had Hoppin' John's for good luck in the New Year, Greens for $$$$, buttermilk mashed potatoes (since my youngest just had his wisdom teeth out a couple of days ago), and glazed carrots.

The glaze for the carrots consisted of chicken broth and a jar of hot jalapeno pepper jelly.

I know my son doesn't like cake very much.  So, I decided to try Bananas Foster.  Years ago (1986) when we lived in Greenville, SC, our neighborhood had a New Year's Eve potluck dinner.  One of our neighbors, The Gibbs who were from New Orleans made Bananas Foster.  First you make a syrup out of sugar, water and egg white.  As it boils, you skim off the froth, see below.

You slice the bananas and poach them in the syrup, add rum, and light it.  Everyone says, "Oh Wow!"  When the flames die down, you scoop up the bananas, sauce and pour over vanilla ice cream (or in my case vanilla fozen yogurt).  Yummy!

Watching the flames !

Perfection!

Happy New Year to all and I pray you all have a very healthy and prosperous and Blessed year ahead!