Happy New Year and Some Recipes

Every year we celebrate New Years Eve by watching Fred Astaire movies and eating appetizers. 

 Green Goddess Dip

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 anchovy fillets

1 medium shallot, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 large ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, quartered

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

1/2 cup olive oil

Combine lemon juice, anchovies, shallot, vinegar, and garlic in processor. Blend until shallot and garlic are finely chopped. Add avocado, sour cream, parsley, tarragon, and basil; blend until almost smooth. With machine running, add olive oil through feed tube in thin stream. Transfer dip to small bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper.   Serve with crudites.

 Cheese Ball 


1 package of cream cheese at room temperature
generous cup of white cheddar cheese
1/4 cup of raisins
3 tbsp of rum or brandy


Soak the raisins in the liquer.  Beat the cream cheese and cheddar together and then add the raisins.   Put the cheese on plastic wrap and form into a ball.  Serve with Carr's water crackers.

Oysters Rockefeller

2 pints of shucked psters
1 1/2 sticks of melted butter
1 1/2 sleeves of Ritz crackers
white onion chopped
1/2 cup of half and half 
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 350.

Crush the crackers in the food processor and set in a bowl.  Melt the butter in the microwave  and add to the crackers in the bowl and stir to combine.

Spoon one third of the cracker crumbs in the bottom of a baking dish (I use a small oval dish that is about 8 by 11.)  Top with 1 pint of the oysters and half of the onion.   Then layer on half of the remaining cracker crumbs and the remaining oysters and white onion.  Stir together the half and half and salt and pepper and pour over the oysters and then top with the remaining cracker crumbs.  

Bake for 45 minutes.