I've had a love affair with tapas from long before I ever set foot in Spain (for the record: April 29, 2003. Madrid. Honeymoon. Met or exceeded expectations). I first started noshing on shrimp and romesco sauce, blue cheese-stuffed olives, and little toasts with jamon serrano when I was still just a budding gourmet in my early 20s. Tapas first entered my life in a party, and I feel that nothing says cocktail food so much as a good tapas spread.
I can't recommend these salty Spanish bites enough as the menu for your New Year's party (whether it's for a formally-dressed crowd or just one or two in your jammies with a good bottle of bubbly). They are easy to make at the last minute ('cause if you're like me you haven't planned, much), they don't require much in the way of recipes or thought, they're highly-flavored, they're often packed with protein to counteract the effects of your tipplin' ways. They're pretty, too.
The recipes aren't much more than a list of ingredients. Pimiento cheese toast with green olives. Mushrooms stuffed with bread crumbs, garlic and cured ham. Blue cheese-stuffed olives. Deep-fried anchovies and sardines and calamari. Cocktail shrimp with romesco sauce. Tomatos stuffed with tapenade. Crostini with serrano ham and manchego cheese.
Here are a couple of great sources for recipes if you need more instruction. Make sure you serve the bubbly cold (and pink, if you're in the mood) and the martinis dirty. And be sure and invite me.
What Can I Get You Folks? - Eating Out for Thanksgiving
In Defense of Guy Fieri
'Top Chef Vegas' - And Then There Were Five
