New Year's Dinner?

Well, Riggstad asked for a menu for a New Year's buffet. Since I live to plan Riggs' meals for him, here are some suggestions.

- Prosciutto-wrapped scallops. Use a 12-month aged prosciutto and fresh scallops. A nice combination of the old year and new. These shouldn't actually be hard to make, as scallops don't take long on the pan, and prosciutto fries up quickly. In fact, baking/roasting them might be a better method, as it would be a slower, gentler cooking. But I don't generally do scallops, so you'll have to check on that.

- Smoked salmon with capers

- Butter chicken - takes a while, and involves marinading overnight in yogurt and spices and such to really get it right, but can be awesome. Throw down a bunch of roti or pitas next to it.

- Carve-your-own roast. Minimal work to roast a chunk of meat, and you can get it started with some slices, letting people cut as they want from there.

- risotto

- scalloped potatoes

- When you do the roast, toss in some beef stock and root vegetables, potatoes, onions, etc... big dish of roasted veggies.

- Dessert on the buffet as well? Either ambrosia or mousse would be my call, maybe fruit cocktail if you want a healthier option.

- And drinks - either a rum punch (I used to do a really sweet one with frozen fruit punch, canned fruit cocktail, ginger ale, and lots of white rum, no idea if I'd still like it today), or egg nog. Alton Brown's Nog recipe is a favourite of mine. I can't stand store-bought nog, but homemade is awesome.