Friday, December 31, 2010

WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello everyone! Wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Well this is going to be my last post for 2010! Sounds strange, but it is indeed the last day of 2010!

Anyway, here I am wondering what we are going to do on this evening. Well it seems that most of my friends have managed to escape somewhere into the oblivion and disappeared from Male!

It is very nice for those who managed to escape and I wish them all a fantastic time wherever they are. In my case I had the opportunity to run away somewhere out of Male and probably would have been nice.

One other hand I like to think that these special occasions, especially the New Year is a time to be with close friends, family and love ones. To celebrate together, to hold hands and mark the beginning of a New Year with new found hopes and make wows to be even closer to each other and build everlasting bonds.

So here I am at home and decided to cook and bake some nice simple food and although some of those dearest to me are far away, I will be with those who are not so far way and we shall celebrate the New Year together.

One might think why would I do this on a New Year, I should stop all this cooking madness and go out and celebrate! I thought of this several times and came to this big dilemma I have with the majority of restaurants here in Male: Over-priced poor quality, often tasteless food topped up with really poor service carried out by bio-smelling, un-shaved and greasy looking waiters!

I took a deep look into the entire picture and said to myself it would be really sad if I took those closest to me to a restaurant and put them through the so likely aforementioned facts of food scene here in Male.

Hence, decided to cook at home and I am quite certain that I will not be depriving any of my friends or family from restaurant food! Much more to the point, I shall be cooking with passion and love as one must always do in these occasions and I am positive that we will all have a wonderful New Year’s feast! :)

For the menu I have selected few dishes from across my favourite parts of the gastronomic world and the menu looks like this:

***
Freshly made Italian Ciabatta bread
Hummus Dip (chick peas and sesame paste)
Baba-Ganoush Dip (baked aubergine with garlic and love oil)
Beetroot with orange wedges tossed in sweet and sour vinegar
Warm black eyed bean salad with olives, onions, basil leaves, oregano and olive oil and lemon dressing.
Steamed carrots with pine nuts in honey and balsamic vinegar dressing.
Chicken, walnuts, eggs and mushroom salad with fried onion with homemade mayonnaise.
Seared sirloin of beef served with roast rosemary potatoes, steamed broccoli and Yorkshire pudding.
Fresh fruits and a selection of cheese.
Lime and fresh vanilla crème caramel
Poached pears with pomegranate in vanilla and red grape juice
Tea or coffee with homemade Italian Panettone
***

For those who are interested, I will upload the recipes of the above menu over the course of the coming weeks. So my friends take care, and once again wish you all a very happy New Year 2011. :)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Sounds delicious! I can't wait for the recipes! I am an expat living in Male with my family and enjoy any new recipes which use local ingredients!

madcook said...

Thank you for the comments. Please do let me know if you have any special requests on recipes or available ingredients in Male or any thing related to food. :)

sof said...

You were in my heart daddy :) xx ps i hope vali had a nice new year :) xx

Marishun said...

Nasi, can you pls pls pls post a recipe of Baba-Ganoush Dip???
Pleeeeease
:)