Daniel and I seem to be developing something of a New Year's Eve tradition of staying at home for the evening, aided and abetted by the generally icky weather we always seem to have around New Year's Eve. (I know, I know - it's very Californian of me to bitch about our weather, but after a solid couple of weeks of intermittent rain, I'm tired of dealing with it. Guess I'll never be able to move to Seattle.)

Anyway, last year we ordered in pizza, watched anime, and played Grand Theft Auto. This year, we were a bit more culinarily ambitious, and I made dinner: a salad of mixed baby greens with olives, sweet piqante peppers (a.k.a Peppadew), and feta, dressed with a roasted red pepper vinaigrette (recipe from Myra Kornfeld's The Healthy Hedonist, which is making a strong bid to become my new favorite cookbook), a wild mushroom and farro risotto (also from The Healthy Hedonist), and sauteed chicken breasts in a white wine, butter, and caper sauce (from Mark Bittman's ever-reliable How to Cook Everything, ably defending its status as my current favorite cookbook). Yum.

I've been cooking up a storm this past week. (Probably in reaction to having been on vacation the week before, and having eaten most meals out of necessity.) I've now reached the pleasantly awkward state of a) my fridge and freezer are crammed to the gills, and b) I have virtually no unused tupperware. Time to eat leftovers.

Maybe that can be one of my New Year's Resolutions. I'm a big believer in setting written goals, so normally I'm big on resolutions, but this year, I've been at a bit of a loss. My most immediate goal is too keep doing various good things I've already been doing, like exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet and losing weight.

Perhaps that's enough of a goal. It's certainly easier to keep doing these things than it is to start, but it still takes work.

I've also realized that I don't remember what my New Year's Resolutions from last year were. Duh. So much for the importance of setting written goals. Oh well.

Hope everyone had a wonderful turn of the year. Looking forward to 2006!