the whiteboard

We don’t generally go out on New Year’s Eve. There are too many crazy people out, and we’d rather stay in and have a peaceful evening at home. We’re homebodies at heart. Sometimes we have people over; this year, it ended up being just Jeff and I.

As I’ve already stated, I’m a list maker. In general, if it’s not on the list, it doesn’t get done. Since I was making a fairly big meal last night (at least for us - we do a lot of one pot meals around here), I made a list of what needed to get done for supper on the whiteboard that lives in the kitchen. I had the luxury of spreading out the tasks over the course of the day so that I didn’t feel like I had spent all evening in the kitchen. If you were trying to do something like this after work, on, say, a Friday night, I’d make as much of the food as possible (the salads, roasting the garlic, the potatoes up until the baking, prepping the green beans, and the cheesecakes) a day or two before.

The first thing I needed to do was make the cheesecake. My trusted cookbooks featured recipes fit for 16, not two (the Betty Crocker one called for 40 ounces of cream cheese, and was going to be difficult to cut down), so I went to the Internet. I’m particularly fond of All Recipes, and found a recipe that looked just about right here. I followed the recipe almost to the letter, except that we didn’t top ours, I substituted butter for the margarine in the crust (we avoid margarine because of trans fats) and I crumbled up graham crackers instead of buying crumbs. One and a half crackers made up the 1/3 cup the recipe called for. I had enough filling to make two small crust-less cakes in addition to the six with crusts. I used a cupcake tin to bake them. I found the time estimates with the recipe to be about accurate (I wasn’t eying the clock terribly closely yesterday). I made them up around 1pm, so that they’d have plenty of time to chill in the fridge. I was delighted with how these turned out; often, when you use a mini-cheesecake recipe, you’ll end up with a result that tastes of cream cheese but doesn’t have the right rich, creamy texture; these did.

The next thing I did was to bake the potatoes for the twice baked potatoes. I bake my potatoes in the microwave, since baking them in the oven takes upwards of an hour, and twice baked ones end up being finished in the oven, anyhow. I threw 6 medium potatoes in the microwave for about 10 minutes and then let them cool.

I made up the salads sometime around 4:00pm. These were very simple salads, since they were just an appetizer for the meal - red leaf lettuce, carrots, and green and yellow bell peppers tossed together. The result went into a large Tupperware container and into the fridge.

Next, I pulled out the green beans, washed them thoroughly, and cut off the ends.

After that, I put together the potatoes. I cut the cooked potatoes in half and scooped out the insides, leaving just a bit of flesh on the shells. The potato flesh got mashed and then mixed with about two ounces of grated muenster and two ounces of grated vintage (a local sharp cheddar), a little bit of butter, and generous helpings of garlic and onion powder, salt, and pepper. The resulting mixture was spooned back into the potato shells, the shells placed in a baking dish, and the baking dish in the fridge.

About 6:00 I remembered that I’d wanted to roast some garlic to eat with the steaks (notice that it’s not on the whiteboard; I’m glad I rememberd). Cut off the tops of a head of garlic, put it in an oven safe dish, pour a little olive oil over the tops, and throw in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes. I used my toaster oven and the tops burnt a bit; 30 minutes would have done. Turn off the toaster oven; the garlic will sit until dinner is ready.

We sat down to eat the salads and watch some West Wing on DVD around 6:30. At 7:00, we paused and I pulled the potatoes back out of the fridge; they were in a glass dish and I wanted to bring it to room temperature before putting it in the oven. I also pulled the steaks out of the oven to thaw in a bowl of cool water. Around 7:15, the potatoes went into a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven, and the steaks were still thawing. They were mostly thawed by 7:45. I heated a stainless steel skillet (cast iron would have been better, but ours needs seasoning) on 5 on the electric stove, and in the meantime, doused the steaks with Worcestershire sauce, rubbed them with a cut garlic clove, and then sprinkled salt and pepper on both sides. When the skillet was hot, I added a tablespoon of butter, waited until it was melted, and then put in the steaks for three minutes on one side, then three minutes on the other. (These were about 3/4 inch thick sirloin steaks, and I left the fat on them for flavor. How long yours take just depends on how well done you like your steaks, and the meat itself. I’m actually not very good with steaks yet; I was a vegetarian for a long time, and beef was the last thing I added back. I was fortunate that in having a few friends who could tell me what to do with the steaks last night.) Then the steaks went into the oven on the second rack underneath the potatoes. The cleaned green beans went into the skillet with a little more butter, and were cooked with a lid on for about ten minutes, which resulted in beans this side of crispy and coated in beef juices and butter, which was just lovely. At this point, the potatoes had been in for about 45 minutes, but anything after 30 would have done; the cheese was melted and the tops were browning. The steaks were mostly done with a little pink inside. I would have preferred mine to be less pink, so I’ll probably go four minutes to a side next time.

And that was it. We feasted on the steaks, potatoes, and green beans, and then followed it up with the cheesecake. It was a restaurant quality meal at home without having to deal with the nuts and crowds that are out on New Year’s Eve. I spent some time in the kitchen, but I like cooking, so it was hardly a hardship. I did most of the dishes as I went along, so the pile this morning wasn’t too bad.

Happy New Year!