New Year's Eve

 I decided I was going to cook a meal for us on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. I want to make this a tradition for my family if we are home for this holiday and not traveling.  So I headed to HEB with the rest of the town knowing it was going to be a crazy trip to the grocery store. Matt and Hodge headed out to the ranch to visit some of Matt's friends who had come into town to hunt at our place, I headed to the store to enter the New Year's Eve grocery store madness. It always seems like I go to the grocery store on New Year's Eve and it's a wild experience. I went into HEB with a good attitude so it was not that bad. I took my time and bought everything I would need. I don't cook very often but this is something I would like to change in the new year. The first thing I made right after I got home was a sparking punch. It was yummy and it was kid friendly. We sipped on it all afternoon. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com. The dinner I made was pretty simple, I made a venison meatloaf. I had never been a meatloaf fan but back in my days as a pharmaceutical representative I would travel to Alpine, Texas to call on physicians. I always enjoyed my trips to Alpine. I would eat lunch at the Reata Restaurant if I did not have a lunch scheduled with one of the offices. On day Reata had a lunch special that was venison meatloaf. Everything is good at that place so I tried the meatloaf and liked it! This was probably back in 2004. I did not eat venison meatloaf again until Feb. 26, 2009. I remember exactly when this was because I made it for Matt, Matt's dad and myself and that was the same night Hodge ate banana baby food. He was almost 7 months old and he was still nursing majority of the time. He was not interested in baby food at all until that night. He ended up nursing for thirteen and a half months but he started eating more baby food and table food after that night. So back to the venison meatloft. I have not made it since that Feburay night back in 2009 so I decided I would make it for us this New Year's Eve. We have several freezers full of deer meat so I better start cooking it. We had a simple meal of meatloaf and rice. We had a relaxing New Year's Eve at our house. I enjoyed cooking our little meal and I hope I can keep it up in 2011. 

Sparkling Punch Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 lemons
• 3 large oranges
• 1 (6 ounce) can frozen lemonade concentrate
• 1 liter club soda
• 2 (750 milliliter) bottles sparkling apple cider
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 2 trays ice cubes

Thinly slice the lemons and the oranges and place in a large punch bowl. Pour in the thawed lemonade. Gently stir in the club soda and the sparkling apple cider. Add sugar to taste. Add ice.

 

My glass, Matt's plactic glass, and Hodge's little glass of sparkling punch.

I know the venison meatloaf does not look to appetizing in this photo but I promise it is good!

Venison Meatloaf Recipe

1 lb. ground venison

1 egg

2 T. parsley, chopped

1 T. butter, softened

1 T. bread crumbs

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 T. dried onion flakes

1 cup water

1/2 packet Lipton Onion Soup Mix

Combine all ingredients except the onion soup mix and water; shape into a loaf. Place in a lightly greased loaf pan. Bake at 350º for 1 hour, basting about every 10 minutes with a combination of 1 cup water and 1/2 packet dried onion soup mix.