Recipe Time! New Years Eve…taco soup, sausage balls and more!

For New Years Eve we had some of Larry’s family over and I decided to cook up some munchies for the evening. I’m not a fancy cook – as you’ll find out – but I always like to try new recipes. Some of these were new and some I’d used before. Here’s a rundown of the recipes and my thoughts! (And remember – this was 2010 – so I could still eat cheese back then!)

Last up I went with Honey-Chile Chicken Wings – how can you go wrong there? I’m pretty sure this recipe is from Food & Wine magazine. I got a free subscription a while back – don’t find too many recipes in this magazine. I really enjoy it but a lot of the recipes have 10+ ingredients and I’m just realistic about it. While they look good, I think “Am I ever actually going to make that?” Now my friend Sarah over at Food for Thought quite often uses F&W – but she’s a fancier cook than I am.

I only used 2 pounds of wings but made the full recipe for the sauce so I had some left over. These were pretty easy to make although my broiler charred up the ends of the wings. I cut those off for the guests – who wants charred wings? I also took the time to use my kitchen cutters and cut the wings into the easier to handle pieces (the wing side and the little leg side). They were pretty good although I’ve had a recipe that I used for chicken thighs that had more flavor. Larry’s other uncle demolished these – I think he had 1.5 pounds of the 2 pounds of them! So while I probably won’t make them again – they were well liked and easy – so I’d definitely recommend giving them a try. 

So that was New Years Eve at Casa de Johnson! It was a really fun night and took me about 2 hours to get all the food from the fridge to the table (that includes the 20 minutes needed to de-smoke the house). I think that as the years goes on I’ll get better with recipes and what insights to share.

We all had a great time and watched Kathy Griffin & Anderson Cooper ring in the new year on CNN. I love this picture because it’s a  happy family with my lovely dog sticking her nose in. And I realize – wow – my house is colorful!!!!

Happy New Year!