Happy 2010!

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Happy 2010! I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years celebration!

When I worked nights as a registered nurse I always requested to work New Years Eve and Day so that I could have Christmas Eve and Day off, so I was never able to go to Times Square to celebrate with all the other revelers. Now that I am no longer working I don't think I'd be able to wait in the immense crowd for hours and hours in the freezing cold for that experience. If my husband and I don't go to a party on the eve we snuggle up at home to watch the ball drop on TV...we both prefer it!

I never make a formal list of resolutions, but I do reflect upon the year that has passed and look with hope to the year that is beginning, so full of possibilities. Always aware of how fleeting life can be, I try to keep a promise to myself to do something each day that makes me happy, to find joy in the little things and to put my faith and family first, above all else.

This New Year's Eve I made a delicious ragu which I served over a special pasta imported from Italy. My husband always associates this pasta with celebrations as it was often served at weddings in his hometown in Calabria, Italy.

We opened a nice bottle of robust red wine that my husband had received as one of his birthday gifts this summer, which we saved for a special occasion.

For a second course I made a savory smoked salmon and goat cheese tart, and roasted cauliflower with red peppers and capers. Both were served with the meat from the sauce.

Dessert was a tangy sweet lemon tart.

I will blog some of these recipes in a few days, as they were all scrumptious, but I'd like to take the time to give a big THANK YOU to a fellow blogger, Jenny Matlock, with the blog of the same name, who sent me a big box of lemons from her backyard tree in Arizona! I used some of them to make the lemon tart.

Just look at all these luscious beauties!

Thank you so much, Jenny, for sending a box of virtual sunshine my way this cold and snowy winter!

If you don't know Jenny please pay her a visit -- you'll be in for a treat! She is a wonderful writer with a delightful sense of humor, and every now and then she reveals a part of her life on her blog that will bring a tear to your eye. She is brave, honest and strong beyond belief. I am so happy to have found her, and I think you will be too!