Happy New Year!

We had a filling, yet quiet New Year celebration.  Early in the day we had family and friends over and enjoyed a delicious meal.  Everyone left around 6:00 to catch flights back home or get to other celebrations and since we ate so much, so early it was a struggle to stay up and ring in the New Year, but Marshall and I managed to just make it.  Since we were feeding a large number we wanted to keep our menu simple so we went with a New York strip roast (we got the roast at Costco and it was beautiful, they have wonderful meats), roasted potatoes and green beans.  This tends to be our go to menu when we need to serve a lot of people and while I always worry that it is not enough, it is always well received.  Marshall and I did not agree on the prep of the beef.  I wanted a simple salt and pepper rub, while Marshall wanted to kick things up a little.  After much debate and the fact he was fixing the meat, we kicked it up.
The rub consisted of coarse salt, peppercorn, rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, onion powder and garlic, mashed in a mortar.  Oil was used to bind it all together and we then put a thick coating covering the entire piece of meat.  After about 2 hours in the oven our 14lb roast came out a perfect medium rare.  We kept the potatoes simple, just a quick toss in olive oil some salt and pepper and tossed them in the oven.  Green beans were also equally simple.  Some day I will learn not to stress just because the meal we are serving is basic, and I will just enjoy the process,  they really are the best meals.
Hope you all had a wonderful New Year.  I am looking forward to a great year with hopes of continued development of this little blog and meeting more of you out there in the blogosphere.   Happy 2011!!