2014 New Years Eve dinner

This year, Shells and I had some company over for New Years Eve dinner, so we thought we would do something fun.  We also looked for something that would burn some time so that we could hopefully make it to midnight!

We went with an Italian theme for dinner as we could make everything from scratch and we had plenty of inspiration with 3 new cookbooks.  In addition to all of this fun, I also was looking for something that would let me play with my new Christmas toy ... my Vitamix!

First things first, we were going to be making different stuffed pastas so I pre-heated the oven to 325F and put l lb of pork belly and about 3 lbs of short ribs in to cook.  The pork belly was slow roasted on a raised pan, and covered with foil, to allow the grease to drip off of the pork.  The short ribs were braised with red wine, beef stock and pomi strained tomatoes.

For the first course, I made frutti del mare with some fresh fish and calamari.  I used a light mixture of flour, yellow grits, salt & pepper to dust the seafood before pan frying them in light olive oil.

For the second course I made one of our favorite dishes from Marc Vetri's Vetri restaurant in Philadelphia: Sweet Onion Crepe with White Truffle Fondue.  We cooked down the onions for a little over two hours and then cooked the crepe.  I spread a layer of onions across the entire surface of the crepe and then rolled it.  I allowed the crepe to sit for a few minutes and then sliced it into circles.  I sprinkled the top with parmesan cheese and then cooked them in a 500F oven for a few minutes to brown the tops and then served the crepe over a bed of the White Truffle Fondue.

For the next course, I made mini "caprese" calzones.  Shells made the pizza dough and when it was time I rolled it out and made four small calzones stuffed with mozzarella cheese, fresh tomatoes and basil.  I cooked them on the pizza stone at 500F until they were nicely browned.

Following the calzone was the first of our stuffed pasta courses, Roasted Pork Belly Manicotti.  I shredded the slow roasted pork belly and mixed it in a bowl with roughly chopped red chard and a little bit of parmesan cheese.  I stuffed the mixture into cooked manicotti shells and then put the shells side by side in an oven-proof dish.  I covered with bechamel and topped with more parmesan cheese.  I cooked the manicotti for about 20 minutes in a 450F oven.  While the manicotti was cooking I got a chance to play with my Vitamix!  I made a sweet potato and sage puree by slowly cooking the potatoes and sage in milk and then adding all of the ingredients to the Vitamix and pureeing until smooth.  I served the manicotti over a bed of the sweet potato puree and a side of roasted brussels sprouts.

For the last course of the evening I pulled the short ribs from the oven and went to work on Shell's and my Short Rib Ravioli.  I pulled out all of the ribs and then moved the red sauce to a new pan (I didn't need to do this but I didn't have room on the stove for the large Le Creuset so I moved to a smaller sauce pan).  I added the meat from three of the short ribs to the red sauce and another small box of strained tomatoes.  I reserved one of the ribs to provide a topper and then shredded the rest of them into a bowl with ricotta cheese to make the ravioli filling.  I mixed the filling together well and then handed it off to Shell's to make the raviolis.  Once the ravioli was prepared, I cooked them in a pot of boiling water and then plated them over the red sauce and topped with a little of the reserved short rib and some shaved parmesan cheese.

The final course of the evening was Shell's new favorite dessert, babkallah which she will be posting about in the near future.