Keeping it Real: Happy New Year (2009-2010)

Still catching up, but we had so much fun (and so much good food!) for our New Year's celebrations that I had to post our pictures, even though they're very late.

THIS is the way French toast was meant to be made, in our opinion. Homemade challah bread, made from the same refrigerated challah dough that I used for our Christmas morning ~~pecan~~ walnut sticky buns. This pre-risen, stored wet dough method is one I've been learning over the last year through the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day (we have and use both books, and love them!) Having done traditional bread baking for many years--by hand, Kitchen Aid mixer, and bread machine--this method is by far the best thing that's happened to us in the carbohydrate category. I no longer seem to have the time to babysit traditional yeast bread in it's many picky stages, so this book has kept our family from having to eat Kroger's 10 for $10 loaves (most of the time.)

And THIS is the way French toast is meant to be enjoyed, in our opinion: On a relaxed, unrushed New Year's Eve morning with coffee and lattes, seed catalogs, coloring, and family.

Everybody here loves to swing, regardless of the weather.
And I mean EVERYBODY.
See if you can find a couple of additional bodies.

See 'em now?

One of Tom's and my New Year's Eve traditions...a baked brie en croute with Granny Smith apples and Townhouse crackers.

Naughty. Fattening. Decadent, and well worth the effort and extra zillion calories once a year.

Another New Year's Eve tradition: Champagne in our crystal wedding flutes, which were a surprise gift from my Mom for our wedding toasts.

Too much champagne for Daddy snowman.
(The baby snowman in the swing lasted until late January, it was hilarious. The girls missed him when he finally melted.)

Homemade rye bread, again, made from dough that I used from the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day cookbook. Since we use rye flour so slowly in our house, I buy rye berries from my co-op and mill them every few months, keeping the fresh flour in the freezer. Eat your heart out, delicatessens.

Enjoying a hot chocolate treat after being out in the cold.

(Liesl's shirt had a taste, too.)

Daddy frying up the standard New Year's Day reubens.
Lord, but it does make a mess of our stove.

Tom's reuben. He's German, so he's gotta have sauerkraut on New Year's Day. (Thankfully he prefers to skip the pickled herring tradition. Yuck!)
I prefer Georgia-style reubens--turkey and coleslaw instead of corned beef and sauerkraut.

Last New Year's tradition in our household: Warm homemade chocolate pudding.