Goodbye 2011, you were so good to me...

Another year has passed, and what a year it was. We had our second baby, beautiful Nellie May, complete with Mummy drama; Jack started at CPEC and in kinder; and my husband suddenly lost the job he'd had for 16 years, only to then accept one based overseas. Eventful, challenging and rewarding.

To celebrate we had dinner with some very close friends who also have a couple of very young children and had our traditional epicurean seafood dinner. Nothing too elaborate, but always a bit decadent and lots of fun.

I went to my growing collection of Delicious and Donna Hay magazines for inspiration when the two modest salmon fillets I ordered were slightly bigger than intended. I had planned a lemony, sandwichy filling between the two, held together with twine and baked in the bbq. When the fillets presented to me at the fish shop were from a distant cousin of Moby Dick, I opted to take just one of the enormous fillets and do something else and have a go at tea-smoking. I was so suprised at how easy it was with really impressive results. Definitely doing again.

Tea-smoked salmon from Donna Hay issue 40.
This one is entering my repertoire and is my new go-to technique for cooking salmon.

Prawn & asparagus salad with coconut dressing.
I used the recipe from Delicious magazine Nov 2011, but it's also available at http://blogs.abc.net.au, as was this image.

Salted caramel and vanilla baked cheesecake from Donna Hay magazine issue 58.
Georgia's faithful reproduction was sinfully delicious.

Combined with my lovely friend Georgia's very excellent dessert prowess (baked cheesecake is my favourite), throw in a couple of dozen oysters (Daniel makes THE BEST Kilpatrick oysters I have ever had anywhere) and a couple of kilos of prawns and we had ourselves a New Year's Eve feast to savor and remember.

I wish you all a peaceful and happy 2012.