New Year's Brunch......

Working is really cramping my blogging style. The LAST thing I want to do when I get home from work is cook a meal. Last week I worked Friday-Monday( NY DAY) preparing for the big New Year's day brunch we serve at work. On Friday we also prepared food for a dinner party and on New Year's Day we made even more food for another clients's own private brunch. I was soley responsible for numerous items on this brunch. I prepared all of the Jewish food using my mom's recipe for cheese blintzes and her recipe for chopped liver( gag). I also made rugelach and potato latkas. Additionally I prepared black magic cupcakes and we planned on yeasted waffles, but we ran out of milk on New Year's eve and no stores were open so those waffles became plain waffles.

I really didnt think the Jewish food would go over as well as it did, but people were raving about it. I won't touch the chopped liver with a ten foot pole, but my boss said it was fabulous. We even bought Matzah to serve with it. I only wish my mom was here to taste everything. Those blintzes were so labor intensive. I now know why I request those from my mom when I go back to Florida. I had some trouble with the crepe part until I read another recipe for Blintzes from The Joy of Cooking and saw that the batter needed to rest. My mom left that part out.

I made a really wonderful mixed berry sauce to serve with them. My boss was surprised when I informed her that the blintzes needed to be pan sauteed in butter since that is what my mom always did. She assumed once they were made, that was it. I also made homeade apple sauce to go with the latkas. My boss uses a recipe for chinese latkas( using cornstarch) and she said she thought mine were better. I also made 5 huge batches of wild mushroom risotto. I pre-cooked it the day before and finished it off the morning of the brunch. We had a lot leftover which will make wonderful arrancini( risotto balls).


Some of the other items on the brunch that I did not make were; Macaroni and cheese, creamed spinach, seafood casserole, parmesean chicken, prime rib, roasted vegetables, spinach salad, lemon raspberry trifle, caramel pot de creme, rice pudding and black olive tapenade.

I was so exhausted on Monday that I slept for almost 12 hours. In fact, I'm still tired!! Thankfully, I don't have to work for the caterer again until the end of January. However, I start a new job on Jan 11th cooking for 50 seniors twice a month. That will be an experience for sure.