2012 Holiday Dinners

The holidays were a slow moving blur this year. Our jet lag and my cold made me feel so slow and yet somehow the days still passed by too quickly. For 2012, my resolution is to run a half marathon and for the blog, I resolve to blog more about local San Jose eats. I realize that although the blog title and premise are about San Jose, when I'm at home I get so caught up in work and school that I don't dine out here. Thus, the blog showcases more vacation foods from other cities instead. Anyway, on to the spectacular holiday foods!

Maine lobsters at the in-laws'.

These things were huge and delicious. Everyone got their own lobster.

The dogs were not to be left out. They each got matching outfits.

New Year's Eve celebration with the in-laws was an all out Chinese hot pot dinner. mmm oysters...

My family always combines mom and dad's birthdays with Christmas dinner so we never know what to write on the cake, hence, "Happy Family Day" was the only suitable phrase. This is a raspberry butter cream cake.

My dad made a big pot of pho and packed some to-go for me and Phil too.

Ox-tail meat, thinly sliced beef shank, beef balls, and all the greens.

My bowl always has more greens than noodles and meat.

Note the smiley face made out of beef balls with the green onion nose. Phil doesn't like any greens in his bowl.

I contributed some seared ahi tuna with a ponzu chili dipping sauce. Quite yummy.

Mom's birthday flowers

Petit three cakes for mom.

Beef stew, fried quails, and chicken porridge for mom's bday.

Instead of going out for dinner with my girlfriends this year, I decided to host a girl's night dinner at my house. I tried my hand at making pizza dough and meat balls from scratch.

Using the Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook that I received from the Foodbuzz festival, I made my pizza dough. Here's the dough after rising. It was quite the success.

Making that round pizza shape is harder than it looks on television. I settled for an amoebic blob shape.

Quite the yummy amoebic blob shaped pizza. Fresh pulled mozzarella cheese from Safeway, canned tomato sauce, salami, and fresh basil toppings. Baked on 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until the bottom edge is kind of brown.

Caprese tomato bites: hollowed out grape tomatoes, seasoned with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. Then stuffed with a cube of mozzarella cheese and basil. Yums!

Asparagus tips seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper then put in the oven for 5-10 mins or until a little wilted. Wrapped with smoked salmon from Costco.

BN's mom made this clam and young jackfruit salad which is eaten with the crispy black sesame crackers above. I loved it! An authentic Vietnamese snack.

Here's the whole spread. My home made meatballs were good and juicy when I took them from the oven but I was concerned they would be cold so I cooked them some more in the pasta sauce, resulting in dry meatballs. Boo. But otherwise, successful pasta. My friends brought a ton of wine and between 6 girls, we killed 4 bottles of wine that night. Hurray for holidays!

Did you have a good holiday season? What was the best food you ate this holiday?