Lazy New Year's Eve

Happy Almost New Year!

We made reservations months ago for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  We're renting a little house in the middle of a vineyard in Los Olivos (inland from Santa Barbara in the Santa Ynez Valley).  It has a fully equipped kitchen so we are going to stay in and cook up a storm with our new tagine on New Year's Eve and then we're goin to dine at Petros, the most amazing restaurant in Los Olivos with Greek-fusion food.  We once stayed at Fess Parker Inn.  Petros is their restaurant and we cancelled our previously made reservations at another restaurant because we stopped to have a glass of wine and some hors d'oeuvres and were blown away.  Breakfast was outrageously amazing too.  We ended up eating all but one meal there over a couple of days because it was so deliciosa!

As excited as I am about Petros, I'm pretty excited to get the tagine goin'!  I've been to Morocco a couple times in the last couple years and was blown away by all the tagine dishes.   As a pescatarian, there are so many amazing recipes out there, including these two: 

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/moroccan-fish-tagine-with-tomatoes-olives-and-preserved-lemons

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Root-Vegetable-Tagine-with-Sweet-Potatoes-Carrots-Turnips-and-Spice-Roasted-Chickpeas-361252

In preparing for these two recipes I found out how easy it is to make your own preserved lemons!  I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooove preserved lemons -- thanks to my Morocco trips.  I can't wait to start jarring these up.  What a great lazy gift too!

Will post pics of the dinner when we get back!

Happy New Year to all!