Dinner

2004 already? Wow. Anyway, this was New Year's Eve dinner:

From top, clockwise:

• Steamed asparagus.
• Cucumber salad. Inspired by this recipe from The Food Section, but simply soaked in rice vinegar and served with pine nuts.
• Basic sauteed/stirfried ginger shrimp. If I've ever made you dinner, there's a very good chance that I've made you eat this.
• Haricort Vert (that's French for green beans). Blanched for three minutes, then plunged into cold water to stop the cooking process, then re-heated in a pan with butter to finish the cooking process.
• Sliced beets. Nothing fancy, just vacuum-packed beets from Fairway.
• Roasted pepper. Just put the bell pepper directly on top of a gas burner, turning ocassionally, until the entire skin is charred black. Rinse under cold water—the charred skin will come right off under the running water.

And in the middle is an ouef cocotte, as inspired by Chocolate & Zucchini (careful viewers will note that it's actually somewhat overcooked, an easy mistake to make with this dish). Creme fraiche on the bottom of the ramekin, some mushrooms (next time, more mushrooms), a slice of summer sausage, and an egg, all baked in the oven. Even overcooked, it's really tasty.

Serve with a nice dry white wine (my dad, red-wine man that he is, was shocked), and enjoy!

The rest of the evening was taken up by watching the Iron Chef marathon on Food TV.

Happy 2004 everyone; here's hoping that it's better than 2003...