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The pork shoulder we smoked in our back yard on New Years Eve with our new electric smoker. Ain’t it purdy?

I love the holidays. Especially when they occur snow-free, like the year I spent in Australia. Although it is no Australia, California hosts a decent, snow-free holiday season. Any time flowers are blooming on Christmas day, you know it’s a good thing.

Flowers…growing in my back yard…in DECEMBER!!! Holla!

It means you can use a bbq or smoker in your back yard without getting frost bite or frozen snotsicles stuck to your face, like you would in my old home, Chicago. Smoked meat for everyone! And let’s not forget Nugget the cat’s annual holiday oufit:

We thought she might be Jewish. Judging by her response to the outfit (hiding under the bed), we’ve decided: she’s a communist.

More food porn and ridiculous cat outfits after the jump, recipe links at the end! So here was the holiday cookie spread of 2009 I decided on making.

The box full of cookies I baked for the local firefighters!

The Cook’s Illustrated Reinvented Chocolate Chip cookie recipe.

Claire’s coconut macaroon recipe with almonds and chocolate.

Amanda’s soft ginger cookies with cream cheese frosting.

My favorite part of my holiday dinners: the Asian food on Xmas eve. Husband made a chicken laksa, sour, sweet, spicy and salty.

Adam’s chicken laksa.

I also fried up some pork and chicken potstickers with my caramelized onion dipping sauce.

Our Asian X-mas eve dinner table.

And because I love it so much, let’s review over Nugget’s previous holiday wear:

Nugget the reindeer, Nugget the Jew, Nugget the holiday diva. Happy holidays from Nugget the cat!

On X-mas, my husband and I tried to smoked a leg of lamb on our new smoker. It sucked. No photos survived, thankfully. On New Years eve, we had a more successful smoker experience. We smoked a bone-in pork shoulder with a Steven Raichlen mustard bbq rub, mop, and sauce. We ended with this beauty after 6 hours of smoking:

A big old hunk of smoked bone-in pork shoulder with mustard rub.

The innards of our smoked pork shoulder, pre-pulling.

The end product: pulled pork sandwich with mustard bbq sauce, apple carrot coleslaw, and homemade bun. Heaven on bread, as I like to call it. The mustard sauce was tangy, slightly sweet, and subtly spiced. It was spicy, but not hot (I used Maille whole grain dijon in my sauce). I will definitely be making this sauce again!

Smoked pulled pork with mustard bbq sauce, apple carrot dijon slaw and homemade bun.

For dessert, I wanted to get fancy this year. I took a cue from my cooking pal Claire and made two kinds of petit fours. A petit four is a small cake, typically cut from a larger cake, and decorated. I made one type of cake, a vanilla sponge cake, to make two different filled petit fours.

Mah petit fours!

The first was filled with homemade apricot jam and homemade pistachio buttercream, and the layered were brushed with a Grand Marnier syrup to help keep it moist. It was finished with a glaze of white chocolate ganache and a sprinkling of pistachios. This was by far my favorite cake.

My pistachio and apricot petit four.

The second cake was filled with strawberry jam and homemade coconut buttercream, and the layers were brushed with a Chambord (raspberry)syrup, and finished with a glaze of dark chocolate ganache and coconut flakes.

My strawberry and coconut petit four with chocolate.

The best part was that I made extra, and these bad boys lasted four days in the fridge without falling apart, making it a very happy, albeit chunky, New Years indeed. ~LTG! ****************************** Recipes I used in this post: Cookies: C.I.’s Reinvented Choc Chip Cookies Claire’s coconut macaroons Amanda’s ginger cookies Pork: Steven Raichlen’s South Carolina Pulled Pork Shoulder Recipe