daytona wings – Keely Marie

I’m back! And don’t worry, I have a New Year’s Resolution to blog as-often-as-possible and I am going to do everything I can to stick to it.

Since my last post I traveled to Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco, and San Diego for work. It’s so great to see such fantastic cities for my job, but of course it doesn’t always leave time for my own passions like photography, cooking, and blogging. On top of this Peter and I traveled to Fort Myers and Orlando for Thanksgiving and Christmas to see our families.

I finally had a week off last week and I had some time to myself to get back to this lovely blog of mine.

So how did we kiss 2011 goodbye? Jelena and I hosted a small party for New Years Eve at my house. Living in Miami means lots of options for parties on South Beach, but we didn’t want to deal with the crowds and chaos.

We had an amazing time partying out on the balcony in crisp 70 degree weather with lots of champagne and great music (play list à la Peter). It was a “finger food” type menu and of course all homemade. {The Merritt boys even made me substitute the canned chicken in the buffalo chicken dip!}

I actually had a whole crew helping me Saturday. Thanks Jelena, Jennifer, Peter + Justin! The Southwestern Egg Rolls and Champagne Cream Puffs were the biggest hits.

And yes you read that right…the cream puffs had champagne in them! I am obsessed in a sick way with champagne and sparkling wine (so much that I have kept myself up at night thinking of names for this blog including the word champagne), so this was an obvious pick when I saw it on TasteSpotting.

Click below each picture for the recipes.