Man, I’d be grumpy about this. Hosting is a lot of prep work! One of our friends was violently hungover on NYE and it put a damper on her whole day. Blergh.
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That looks good! Do you follow a recipe? Is it fully pureed?
I don’t understand their appeal, or why anyone would buy them. They are practically flavorless.
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And just so accessible and low pressure, I guess. Who doesn’t like dip?
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My head is spinning from all this deliciousness!
At first I thought you meant b/s chicken breasts 
What the gain in convenience they lose in palatability (the carrots).
Nah, they get a bad rap. People who hate on b/s chicken breasts just don’t know how to cook them.
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You’re my food crush these days.
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New Year’s Day was another mostly appetizers meal. Also a green salad of arugula, pomegranate seeds, sliced apple (tossed in lemon juice to prevent browning), dressed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
The big square pastry is a purchased tiropita (Greek appetizer pastry filled with cheese), baked from frozen. Plenty of leftovers from that. Not pictured are scallops wrapped in bacon and TJ’s olive bites filled with blue cheese.
One thing I learned: I really should visit the Greek market in the next town to source such pastries. When I try the supermarket ones, either the cheese isn’t what I’m expecting or the pastry isn’t.
Back to non-holiday meals next. Actually looking forward to it.
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That sounds and looks SO good. Would you mind snapping a pic of the ingredients list and/or sharing the method?
I agree. They’re such a good vehicle for sauce and/or crunch.
Last night I made ATK’s “comfort black bean soup”, and I’ll never look back. I usually am so disappointed with black bean soup but this was not sludgey or grey and we all loved it. My kiddo said he prefers it to chicken noodle (a fave of his)! The Rancho Gordo ayocoba negro beans didn’t hurt. 
I reduced the water, onion, and lime juice and omitted the chipotle chili (but not the adobo sauce) for sensitive palates. I added the ham only at the end (and supplemented with a dash of liquid smoke – so sue me). Pre ham, I pureed for a few seconds with the immersion blender just to give it some body and left a lot of it intact – probably more than the recipe calls for. No cornstarch; I like a brothy base.
Served over white rice. Really good. ETA: tiny bowl, normal tablespoon.
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Oh, those “baby” carrots.
When my nephew was a little guy, I served carrots for dinner in their natural form. His young eyes had only seen uniformly processed baby carrots. He wanted nothing to do with the alien carrots on our table. 
Now he’s interested in trying lots of different foods. Even the stuff that I make/eat.
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I don’t know why I feel the need to defend “baby” carrots but I do. 
We buy the big bags at Costco and they disappear. I put them out with celery and various pickles before dinner to fill up the crowd. Son takes them in his lunch box and snacks on them. I use in veggie stock, no need to scrub or cut. I keep them in a tub in water to snack on instead of cheese and crackers. Ok, they are not wonderful but serviceable for lots of purposes.
In season at the farmers market I buy local fancy carrots and love those when flavor is more important and crunch and mere presence
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I hear that. As a busy parent I do understand why people buy them. I just don’t like 'em much. They end up being a “convenience” food that I chuck into the stock pot if I buy them because no one eats them.
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I mean… they’re clearly super-popular with lots of folks, otherwise they wouldn’t be around. Wegmans also adds a lil water to their packages (one of my clients has them on their list all the time), and it doesn’t seem to help the already subpar texture.
To be fair, I don’t often buy ‘regular’ carrots either, unless I’m making chicken noodz soup - although I have my mind set on roasting a bunch, bc if done well that’s some good eatings 
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Agree that carrots making it onto the table in any form is a good thing. Probably should have noted that. A further point in defense of “baby” carrots is that larger carrots that are unmarketable get processed into a sellable product.
We go through a lot of carrots in our house (as a function of our CSA share). The ways in which carrots can be blemished, split, or grow into odd shapes is surprising to me. It’s kinda cool but I can sure see that slowing down the process of getting meals prepped.
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I get it. Definitely good for kids’ lunches.
But when a (former) employee buys SEVEN BAGS over a period of time and then forgets about ALL of them and I go through a pre-holiday work fridge cleanout because there’s too much shit in there that are starting to form legs and will soon be able to leave on their own and end up finding FOUR unopened bags have liquified (yes, liquified! Not a crunch in the bunch!), and 2 others have gone moldy, I say enough is enough.
Let’s just say that I was that Friday-afternoon-before-the-holiday-cleanout’s entertainment for the rest of the employees, as they sat there at the lunch tables with their beers and/or cups of wine and saw me go on a tear. (Yeah, I had some help.)
One person saw me throwing away a really good Tupperware and said “Wait - shouldn’t we keep the container?” I turned, opened the container towards him, and said “Do YOU want to clean out whatever this was that has gone moldy?” He said “Oh. No. Carry on.” Yeah, I thought so. 
Thankfully Baby Carrot Person no longer works for my company.
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Finally getting around to posting our New Year’s Day meal. It was a spiced Quorn roast, duck fat roast potatoes, stuffing, homemade veggie gravy, marinated olives, devilled eggs and my partner’s steamed carrots.
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Lovely!
How do you top your deviled eggs?
I gotta ask about the juxtaposition of Quorn with duck fat… (also: yum to those potatoes!)
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