New Years Eve Dinner: MMX meet I

he couch is a nice place to welcome in the New Year, especially when one has drastically altered their sleep schedule since the start of winter break. Head-bobbing by 11:15 p.m. and already hung over, dinner in was a deterrent to an unproductive morning after: 1.1.11. Truthfully, I have been in hibernation mode since the blizzard forced me there almost a week ago. Beside sculpting a concavity in the cushion, I have been eating well. Here was what was on the menu for the last evening of 2010.

I was interested in making the Vegan Foodie‘s pecan-crusted seitan buuuut not making the seitan from scratch. Picking up some packaged strip kind, I mixed up the recipe’s hearty pecan and panko blend and fried ’em up. Dear pecans, you are my favorite nut.

Twice baked potatoes. These gave me great aggravation as I jumped the gun on hollowing out their bellies. I was so anxious to utilize the left over Tofutti sour cream we picked up for snacking accompaniment. Along with the sour cream, there was some Earth Balance, Daiya cheddar and some seasoning. Despite the fumbles, potatoes are really hard to mess up and they came out quite tasty.

I was on beer duty so I had to pick one that was seasonally-appropriate. More than I enjoy craft ales and micro-brews I enjoy their bottles. It’s like art, alcohol and reusable vase all in one easy price plus bottle deposit. This beer hit me hard and made me very enthusiastic about the terrible network programming on the big screen. This was followed by a well of tears in learning of Dick Clark’s stroke. Sweet.

Dinner! Strips of pecan-crusted seitan, grilled white asparagus and cherry tomatoes and a twice-baked potato. My only complaint would be that I should have whipped up a sauce for the seitan as it was a bit dry. The larger pieces of pecans, which had roasted in the frying pan, were an a great addition. Welcome 2011! I’ll have plenty of left overs for more couch surfing on 2011’s first day.

Dessert. So what if I forgot these bad boys were picked up along with the dinner groceries at Wild By Nature… they were meant to be the sweet conclusion of dinner. Yes, So Delicious‘ coconut-almond minis, representing the evolution of dairy-free ice cream. Creamy, bright white coconut milk vanilla ice cream coated in a thin cracking dark chocolate, pebbled with toasted coconut and almond. So delicious indeed.

Ok, 2011. Bring it on.