Tapas Dinner for New Year's Day

To celebrate 2012 (despite the coming apocalypse), we made a bunch of tapas for dinner.

Patatas bravas: I modified this recipe to use more garlic. I got Spanish-style smoked paprika in my Christmas stocking, so the timing was perfect.

Bacon-wrapped dates in a tangy, slightly spicy sauce. This is my mom's recipe.

For my parents' last St. Patrick's Day party, Oscar rolled three full cookie sheets of these. What a guy!

I also tried stuffing some of the dates with an almond and cream-cheese. I'd do it again if I was missing the ingredients for the sauce, but the added complexity just gets lost with the sauce.

Stuffed tomatoes  are something new to try. It's kind of hard to stuff them without getting stuff on the side. The idea is similar to deviled eggs, but I like these better.

Getting a good picture of this was really difficult.

I had to make an ailoi sauce to make the stuffing for the tomatoes. It was so tasty it almost made me wish I ate sandwiches. Instead I gave it to Oscar to make sandwiches at work. 

Here's the whole meal:

We had enough for two separate dinners.

After dinner, we bottled our first home brew. All in all, a good (albeit messy) start to the new year.