New Year's Feast

New Year's dinner: it all starts with a bottle of bubbly...

This year, we decided to take it easy. No family, no parties, just me and J and a fantastic meal. He's been really overworked this week, and I'm busy all day dealing with contractors and packing up our old place, so we just wanted to pamper ourselves with a night in. So I opened up a bottle of Laurent-Perrier I've been stowing away for a special night, and got busy in the kitchen.

Fire! Flambe is always a celebration in and of itself. I set some sauteed onions and parsley on fire with a healthy dose of vodka. This formed the base of our simple holiday meal. I scooped these onions into a pan with about a centimeter of water. Once the water was boiling, I got busy steaming seafood!

I went to Sun Fat in the mission to day to buy our dinner: a crab and some cherrystone clams, Manila clams, and PEI mussels (har, Pei and PEI).

Cherrystone clams, done! When steamed correctly, these meaty clams are truly divine. They're often steamed until they shrivel up into dry lumps, so if you cook these keep an eye on them and remove them right when they open wide! You might even have to remove the faster cooking clams while the slower ones cook.

The rest of the meal included a heaping bowl of mussels and Manila clams steamed in onions, parsley, thyme, and lemon; and a whole crab steamed in herbs and black peppercorns. Who could say no to all this! But...it gets better.

Had to take a picture of the aftermath.

I stopped by Tartine! J's been so stressed at work, a banana cream tart was in order.

And for me, a passionfruit coconut bavarian cake. If you like very tangy, lemony desserts, this is the one for you. Even thinking about it makes my mouth water! And a pleasant surprise: this cake is GREAT with champagne. I should have bought a whole cake!

Happy new year, and may 2010 be full of tasty eats for everyone.