Paella Party

With guests from San Francisco and Mexico, it's been a busy holiday season, a blur of shopping, cooking and entertaining that left me exhausted but happy.

For New Year's Eve, I decided on a paella party with tortilla pizzas for starters. I made three different pizzas based on Elise's recipe: roasted bell peppers and mushrooms with asiago and ricotta cheeses, pepperoni and mushrooms with a four cheese combo and bruschetta-style -- tomatoes, olives, pine nuts and fresh basil -- with mozarella and parmesan.

"Ohmigahd, these pizzas are like crack", our friend K.T. said.

True enough, I barely had time to take this shot before this bell pepper and mushroom pizza was snatched up. Good thing the pizzas only take 5 minutes to make. They were such a hit I actually had to send D. to get more cheese and toppings so I could make more.

I was a bit worried our guests wouldn't have room for my shrimp, chicken and smoked sausage paella, but they did. In fact they even had room for Foodaphilia's fabulous coconut toffee almond crunch cookies which I made for the first time. Those were gone even before I can whip out my camera.

As we waited for 2008, we watched Neil Gaiman's adorable fairy tale movie Stardust and took turns playing Guitar Hero III. I was surprisingly good at the game, with a personal best of 97% on easy mode for Sunshine of Your Love even though I'm not familiar with most of the classic rock songs.

We finally did the countdown and toasted the New Year flushed with the warm company of family and friends. It was such a fun night we didn't want it to end.

Label(s): Food, Life
Tehcnorati Tags: food, pizza, paella, party, guitar hero III, stardust, neil gaiman

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