An old adage holds that how you celebrate New Year’s Eve reflects how you’ll spend the ensuing year. If that’s true, 2011 will be relaxed and full of wonderful meals prepared with the kind of friends who find utter bliss in a platter of 12-year-old cheddar. It will also be filled with experimentation, as we threw caution to the wind and filled the menu with brand-new recipes (and lots of carbs).
On the table:
- Caramelized Carrot Risotto with Watercress Pesto The humble carrot really shines in risotto, and in this case, home-made vegetable broth provided extra depth of flavor
- Lobster Mac and Cheese Start the diet tomorrow. . .
- Warm Sticky Toffee Cakes Individual servings baked in ramekins make easy work of this comfort dessert, but just try to resist dipping a spoon into the ridiculously delicious toffee sauce while the cakes are in the oven
- Chestnut Flan From My Sweet Mexico by Fany Gershon, one of the loveliest, most inspirational dessert cookbooks in years
Three Points Kitchen 
An embarrassment of riches. Not only did we have 12-year-old cheddar (so divine that adjectives are insufficient to describe it) but also an unpasteurized bleu cheese that somehow outshone it.
OMGoodness! Your feast sounds as if it was super fantastic. That mac and cheese is awesome!
Will you (have you) posted the recipe for the Toffee Cakes? I’d love to try them.
Just click on the recipe name for a link.