Our Year in Review

As we close out 2006, we look back on the year we've had at Boston Chef. We have many things to be thankful for - and many things to look forward to in the next year.

We started this blog in January of this year after moving into our new house - with our new kitchen. Moving from a somewhat run-down, old-stoved, tiny-fridged, no-dishwasher-havin', little-counterspaced kitchen to our new, spacious, all-amenity kitchen has really let our cooking abilities improve and blossom. It's amazing how much more you're willing to do when you know you don't have to wash ALL the dishes and silverware by hand at the end of the day!

As usual, we learn alot from Food Network programs and various recipe sites - but we probably learned the most about cooking this year from all of the food blogs out there that we love and mine for ideas!

We camped more this year and caught and ate our first outdoor fish and did some cooking over an open fire - and plan on more camping in 2007. We bought our grill for our new back deck - adding another dimension to our cooking that we weren't able to do before (holy crap, the grill was so clean back then!).

We'll be kicking off 2007 with a BANG, as we're having a New Year's Party here at Casa del Cocinero de Boston - featuring a whole ham on the grill, ultimate veggie platter, peas with prosciutto, famous baked mac and cheese, crab stuffed mushrooms, beer, wine, and champagne, and much more!

We read through all of our posts from this past year and decided to put together a Top 5 list. Two Top 5 lists, actually... one from Stacey and one from Michael - with action photos!!!

Stacey's Top Five:

5. Beef and Vegetable Stew - great leftovers, too!
4. (Tie) Paella - an oldie but still a goodie!
4. (Tie) Peppermint Bark - love this easy holiday recipe, we put some in old cookie tins which made great gifts for Grandmas!
3. Sausage and Bean Soup - a pleasant surprise on the list, the dark horse in the race!
2. Stuffed Acorn Squash/Eggplant Parm (both using Our Meat Sauce) - any use of Our Meat Sauce is good!

And Stacey's #1 for 2006...

1. Brined Chicken! - a new technique which we now use when cooking any poultry, we applied it to grilled drumsticks, broiled chicken legs, more grilled chicken, roasted whole chicken... basically anything with wings!

Michael's Top Five:

5. Who We Are! - our introductory post, can't believe it was almost a year ago...
4. Pork Fried Rice - this came out really, really good!
3. Our Visitor - ok, one non-cooking post on the list... our visit from nephew Jack!
2. Our Meat Sauce - looks like we have a consensus at #2 in our Ragu.

And Michael's #1 for 2006...

1. Grilled Whole Trout! - maybe our most famous post, certainly our most commented on - and definitely delicious!

Happy New Year! See you in 2007!

Love,

The Boston Chef