Happy New Year!! 

We embark on another year of challenging our culinary creativity!! See if we can stump our dinner-mates this year with interesting ingredients, tricky themes and wild and wacky  "whatever your want" menus!

Paprika got us off to a "nutrageous" start for January's dinner club with her choice ingredient:  Peanuts or Peanut Butter. Fortunately we are all nut-free, well, as far as allergies are concerned anyway.  This is not a statement on our mental health.

Saucy kicked us off with dried figs stuffed with creamy peanut butter.  A family holiday tradition that is soon to be a new favorite on all our holiday tables! (Will try it with Chunky PB too!)

She paired this nicely with a white wine from New York's  Finger Lakes region.  For a northeast wine, it was surprisingly not too sweet.

Paprika's Fun Trivet

Paprika and Couscous should have communicated earlier to prevent duplication, as they both prepared Asian noodles with vegetables and peanut sauce.  OOPS!  Though it was "twice as nice" and was interesting to compare the dishes side by side.  Both were equally good and different from each other!

Couscous' noodle dish was Udon noodles with bok choy, carrots and snow peas with a MILD peanut sauce.

  Upon recommendation from JAW, she brought a Chateau Ste. Michelle, Gewürztraminer which also wasn't too sweet for our palates.

 Paprika's noodle dish consisted of poolee rice flour noodles with carrots, red pepper, green onions, water chestnuts, tofu and chopped peanuts also with a peanut sauce that was SPICY!  (she graciously had the sauce on the side for the wimpy, wimpy, wimpy Couscous)

"LUG LUG" ???

HOT! HOT! HOT!

Grapes completed the nutty night with a scrumptions Peanut Butter Pound Cake with Peanut Butter glaze and Chocolate drizzle.  Thankfully she persevered through not 1, not 2, but 3 cakes to bring us this beauty.  Though we would have devoured this in whatever form it came to us!

Check in next month when we transport ourselves to Paris!  Vin, Fromage, Pain..I don't see mes amis having any problèmes with this theme!!