I usually make something a little festive on New Year’s Eve, and for New Year’s Day, it’s ham, black-eyed peas, and collard greens as the base of the midday meal. We have given up on ham since local online grocery shopping has failed to get us ham without celery juice added, and my lovely wife can’t have celery. Therefore, NYE/NYD is shaping up like this:
New Year’s Eve: Composed salad, organized on the plate in single-item wedges, e.g., tomato, cucumber, artichoke hearts in dressing, olives with a scoop of tuna in the middle); Tortilla Española (potato and onion pie with EF egg replacer, possibly with DF “cheese”); Salmorejo (Spanish chilled tomato soup), more or less (garlic, dried bell pepper, jalapeños, olive oil, sherry vinegar); and crackers with manchego (for me) and membrillo (quince paste). We may or may not have a good wine to go with it, but probably a vino tinto.
New Year’s Day: Sirloin steak, tomatoes, perhaps air fryer potato wedges, apple crisp, teas received at the holiday. I’ll consider this a general symbolic expression of, and wish for continued, good fortune.
One thing I haven’t had in quite a while is roast beef, partly because I’m becoming less of a meat-eater, especially of red meat. But if I can find a nice marbled prime rib that’s not too large, a prime rib dinner with Yorkshire pudding and homemade mashed potatoes made with butter and cream, and hunter gravy or demiglace, sounds nice for New Year’s Eve and leftovers for the next day. If I feel ambitious, maybe homemade shepherd’s pie made with the leftovers. Leftover roast beef by itself is great stuff if the roast is done medium-rare and you save the rarest middle portion for reheating. But here I am thinking like a carnivore again!
We usually do a lobster casserole for New Year’s Day, because by this time we’ve already had turkey, prime rib, and ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
This year we were thinking about getting whole lobsters. Our local supermarkets will steam them to go.
A nitpick with respect to the thread title, BTW: New Year’s Day 2020 was nearly a year ago. This will be New Year’s Day 2021. And aren’t we all glad to see the last of 2020?
Here in the South, the ham/collards/black eyed peas thing is traditional, but my husband doesn’t care for 2 of those 3 things, so we don’t do it.
New Year’s Eve this year will be Greek (pastitsio and salad) and New Year’s Day will be breakfast for dinner (French toast, bacon, eggs, fruit) because I don’t want to do another big morning breakfast a week after Christmas Day, and it makes a good start to the New Year no matter what time of day you have it.
Raised in the South, we’ve always had Hoppin’ John (for good luck, y’know.) Last year was the first time ever I didn’t do that. I will not be making that mistake again.
This will be New Year’s Day 2021. And aren’t we all glad to see the last of 2020?