New Year's Dinner

Because the UK generally has a decent fireworks show during the New Year, we decided to hold a dinner to group up before going off to watch the fireworks. It's stretching out our pockets a little, holding TWO big dinners in the space of a week, but oh well. Its the holidays, and its our final year. When else will we get to do this? :(

Because we were a bit short of time (not so good planning this time, argh!) our menu was pretty much the same as Hadi's Birthday Dinner.

Appetizers:
Greek Salad
Roast Potatoes
Roast Parsnips

Main Course:
Roast Baby Chickens
Macaroni and Cheese

Dessert:
Maltesers Cake
Blueberry Tart
Tiramisu
Apple Crumble
Trifle

As you can see, there was a HUGE overload on the dessert side. Worse than our double chocolate cheesecakes, hehe. We didn't manage to finish the desserts this time round (that is probably a good thing :P), but that means that there's a lot left for the people of the house! Gah! The Maltesers Cake and Apple Crumble were home-made, while the rest were store-bought.

And again, I tried out Mac and Cheese. Not quite as bad as last time was, but not very successful yet either. Sigh, I'm not sure what went wrong! :( We also had baby chickens, hehe. Our original plan was to have one for each person, but the butcher's didn't have enough. That was a good thing though, since the chickens were quite big. More to spring chicken size, hehe. We marinated them with salt and pepper (Original Roast Chicken) as well as honey and herbs (Herby Honey Chicken) overnight. Unfortunately, I underestimated the cooking time by a LOT and the chickens were not quite done when people started eating! Gah, I feel so bad about that!

As for the actual dinner... well, the weather stayed good at midnight, but started HAILING cats and dogs about half an hour after. Unfortunately, we were still out at that point, so it was a miserably cold walk home. :( The fireworks were also not that worth it this year, how sad! :(

Um, well, no offense to anyone who came last night, but I much preferred Hadi's Birthday Dinner. It was much more fun and games (no cold walks, hehe), people stayed for longer, and the food production went a lot smoother. Mostly because of the food. I am NOT satisfied with last night's food. :( Oh well. At least it was an experience, I guess. :) Cooking SIX chickens at once! Whoo~!

Quote of the day: Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.