Merry New Year!

As the cheerfully painted window says:

(as seen on the front window of the Peking Cafe Chop Suey restaurant in North Park, late December 2013)

Happy New Year - Welcome 2014!

I actually woke up early to watch the Rose Parade (I slept through it last year) and also to prep some dinner items for later today...

Now this movie is always a hilarious holiday classic. Early Eddie Murphy cracks me up:

Recognize the other man on the train? It's Paul Gleason who played Clarence Beeks in "Trading Places" but more importantly, portrayed the power hungry principal in the 80's John Hughes' teen flick, "The Breakfast Club"!

Our midnight meal, Chicken Adobo, apple pear sparkling cider and hopia along with puto bumbong for dessert:

I haven't made chicken adobo in a long time. It is so damn easy to make. You have to be totally lame to mess up this recipe.

I didn't feel like browning the chicken (which is okay) so I just DUMPED everything in the pot (make sure it's nonreactive; the vinegar will screw up metal pots).

After nearly an hour of simmering, I removed the wings and let the sauce reduce for an additional 5-7 minutes.

Now this is what we're talking about...chicken adobo, my way.

You can find my chicken adobo recipe here.
"Two More Filipino Dishes (November 2012)

I used New Year's Eve to proof another quarter of Trader Joe's kouign amann, using the residual heat of the oven to help the dough rise overnight. Thank goodness, it worked! This was going to be part of our breakfast! Look how nice and fluffy these are!

They looked even better after 25 minutes of baking. The sugared tops were caramelized quite nicely...

Much much better than the first time I made these...

The bottoms had a gorgeous caramelized crust that was a pleasure to bite into.

The last time I checked Trader Joe's frozen section, they were out of these. I'm glad I have one more box left!

Read about my failed first attempt with TJ's kouign amann  here.

Traditionally we have New Year's Day lunch at my parents but they were out of town today, so I had my bro and sis (and their kids) over at our place for early dinner. One of the dishes was the adobo you just saw (that was 3 lbs. worth of chicken wings). I also made pot roast in the crock pot earlier this morning. I'm all into saving time when making meals.

I had some leftover caramelized onions and mushrooms from when I made my turnovers. Not wanting to waste it, I winged it with this wanna be quiche/tart or whatever you want to call it.

I looked up recipes for mushroom/onion tarts and tried to combine the elements of the easiest recipes. I used Trader Joe's pie crust. All I did with the filling was add two beaten eggs, some sour cream (because I didn't have any heavy cream), a bit of pepper and the rest of the grated Swiss and Gruyere cheese mix I had. This was poured into the crust that I so carefully molded onto the fluted pie dish (sarcasm alert) and then baked for about 35-40 minutes at 350F. It may not look that pretty (especially with the pie crust edges), but hey, most of us adults liked it.

Prior to my sibs coming over, the dessert table once again but with different stuff.

Once again, red velvet choc chip cookies (recipe here).  I didn't put out a lot this time, plus the rest of the batch would be a gift for a brunch with friends the next day. The cake stand on the upper left hand corner (above ) was a recent gift from my SIL in the OC. There's a tin full of candy cane Jo-Jo's on top. The cake stand is so nice with a foldover edge where you can change out the ribbon decor if you want.

Here is the puto bumbong I bought from Valerio's in Seafood City (Chula Vista location), a purple sticky rice dessert that is traditionally eaten during the holidays (but can actually be found year round). It is supposed to be steamed in bamboo tubes (hence the word "bumbong"); it is rolled in finely shredded coconut and eaten with either (or both) white and brown sugars.

Also from Valerios', Bulilit Ube Macapuno bread loaves ("bulilit" means "small" or "dwarfish"). These are only sold during the weekend but I bought these yesterday. They were available since it was the day before New Year's.

I wanted to make this, so here are my Mocha Mochi (recipe here, "Second Time Around" post from last year). The corners are not MIA (heh heh), those were saved for me.

This year I didn't wait to long to buy 'em, dark chocolate covered star cookies from Trader Joe's. I bought three boxes around Thanksgiving time. One box was used to decorate my cookie platters, the other was a gift for my friends's kids (they love these!) and the last box was finally used for today's party (and also to decorate some mini cookie plate gifts). These would make great cupcake toppers!

The two tiered tray held individually wrapped treats - Sky Flakes crackers that were layered with tsokolate (chocolate). I was so excited when I saw these at Seafood City! Below are Choco-Pies from Zion. One had a different wrapper (that box was bought from Vinh Hung).

My brother brought some pancit palabok while my sister made some seafood pesto (shrimp, clams and baby scallops) while nephew #3 (her younger son) made some SPAM musubi...

My beef pot roast...so easy (Chuck roast, chopped onion, celery, potatoes, and carrots with Lipton's onion soup mix and a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup) and it made the house smell so good all day today.

It may not look "pretty" but it was hearty and tasty. The meat was so soft and fell apart easily when I was cutting it up.

The other food was chicken adobo (seen earlier), green salad (which was pretty much ignored by nearly everyone), along with Deconstructed Krab wraps (chopped up fake Krab with mayo, Sriracha, a splash of soy sauce and masago) with nori squares. This time, I didn't even bother layering it with rice or adding eggs or chopped cucumber. This was made the night before. The only other "green" thing there that people ate was the seaweed salad.

It was a lot of food for just us and the kids but everyone had leftovers to take home. A belated New Year's lunch will be held at my parents' place this weekend.

Meanwhile, nephew #5 (the 3 year old) had loads of fun playing with TC's old Fisher Price doll house. The McQueen car (from Pixar's "Cars" movie) was his, haha.

I'm glad we didn't get rid of this. It's come in handy whenever we've had young kids at our house. Thor's daughter has played with this before, along with TORC's (just the other day), and now the youngest nephew. He really enjoyed moving the people around and opening and closing it.

It feels like a Saturday to me, but it's only a Wednesday!  One and a half weeks of vacation has gone by super fast! So far, it's been nice spending quality time with family and friends and exploring new places. I hope to do more of this in 2014 and to make more time to read.

I hope everyone had a cool New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!