With the end of the year always being a marathon eating contest, I have come to several conclusions. First, I am seriously thinking about joining the Y this year. And second, there are countless photo ops! For a while now I have thought food photography and/or food styling would be an amazing profession. Meh – here’s hoping. And here are some photos of the good eats I’ve had for the last several months. Prepare to be hungry…

First, there was Beaujolais Nouveau night. Yeah, I know. That was a while ago. But I’m playing catch up now that I’m home more than 7 hours a day… The third Thursday of November marks the release of Beaujolais Nouveau, a red wine that is fermented for only a few weeks prior to its release. We were curious about the wine but mostly we were super excited to partake in the festivities of the day!! We lit a fire in the fireplace, plopped down with our wine and smorgasbord of snacks and went to town. Course I bugged Mur to pose with the food for some photos. 

It was delicious!! Originally I was planning on whipping up something scrumptious from Ina’s Paris cookbook in the spirit of the event, but got home late and consequently was tired, so instead we came up with my new favorite snack. Ever. We had sour cream with dill (lots of dill) with smoked salmon and kettle chips. I have now had this ‘snack’ for dinner on 3 separate occasions. And that right there is another reason the Y is calling my name.

Second, there was Thanksgiving. This year we decided to give deep frying a turkey a try. Mur was in charge of that part of dinner (no pressure, hun) and in the end it seemed like a big hit! Now if you combine hot oil, a turkey and night time, you do not get a good recipe for photos. Ha. Get it? Recipe? Thanksgiving? Deep fried turkey? Meh….

Therefore, instead of turkey photos to show, I have this …

Mur decided we might as well start a glutinous day off with a huge breakfast. … Yeah, ok – I’m game.

He asked what I wanted to eat and I did say something ‘different’ which I would say fits with this! He cooked up bacon, lined a muffin pan with this bacon, cracked eggs into each cup and baked them. Yeah – mmmmmm is what I thought too!

After this we scooted over to dad’s to help get all of our different dishes ready to go while all sharing one oven. Note to self: next year we really need to plan out a crock pot Thanksgiving! With 5 crock pots in the family we would be set.

And for dessert we had these scrumptious cupcakes my cousin baked. They were so good even a week later when they resurfaced from the back of my fridge. What a delightful breakfast!

Third, is the feast that is called New Years! For the last several years I have ventured down to Iowa for New Years celebrations. Usually it’s pretty wild and crazy – 2 years ago we stayed up hanging out and celebrating until 1 or so before crashing and if I recall correctly, last year we saw the ball drop on TV and by 12:05 I was in bed. Party animal. So the festivities do vary from year to year. This year we celebrated the East Coast ball drop (ie: 11pm CST) and then by 12 we were all so tired we didn’t even recognize it was 12. Again – another raucous New Years!

Somehow it didn’t dawn on me to take photos until we were all very stuffed and the remains of all our snacks was all that was left. Oh well – there will always be another year of New Years festivities in Iowa to capture!

So in conclusion, I hope your New Year leads you to skip the resolutions and appreciate all the AMAZING food, drink and company we have all year! Happy {belated} New Years!!