New Years Eve used to be one of those holidays that I felt obliged to participate in.  I never really thought staying up until midnight lived up to what I felt it should.  Then about 6 years ago my husband and I were invited to join 3 other couples, who happen to be very good friends here in our neighborhood (our kids all went to grade school through high school together), in a ‘progressive dinner’.  For those  of you who have never heard the term—each couple are assigned a course of the meal and then, beginning with the appetizer course, we move from house to house as the meal progresses.

This happens to be a really compatible group with similar interests in wine and food.

This year I was assigned the appetizer.  I prepared Roasted Shrimp Cocktail using Ina Garten’s (Barefoot Contessa) Back to Basics cookbook.  This is easy and delicious.  I also prepared Cheddar Puffs from Pioneer Woman Cook’s site.

http://the pioneer worman.com/cooking

The nice thing about the Cheddar Puffs is that you can make them well in advance and freeze them and then just place the number you plan on eating on a cookie sheet and bake.

The picture attached to his post doesn’t really have anything to do with New Year’s Eve but because of our visit to Austin at Christmas (with a side trip to Wemberly, Texas in the hill country) I thought I would post it—we were shopping in this quaint little town before our visit to the Salt Lick, a famous BBQ restaurant, in Driftwood, Texas