Here are some ideas on starting 2012 with a delicious bang!

Makeover X’mas Leftovers

You don’t have to get bored with the leftovers from Christmas feasting – invent new dishes and create an entirely different meal for your New Year celebrations. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Japanese Curry Turkey: It’s a light stew that’s easy to whip up. Just throw in turkey chunks, onions, peas and carrots along with a few Japanese curry cubes and some water into a pot. Serve with rice, bread or wraps.

Fruitcake Ice Cream: Soften some vanilla ice-cream in a large bowl and stir in chopped-up leftover Christmas fruitcake for your very own holiday ice-cream flavor. For an extra crunch, throw in some roasted almonds into the mix. After that, place the mixture back into the freezer to set.

Asian Ham Salad: Mix ham chunks with some bean sprouts, shredded cucumbers, mint leaves, basil leaves and rice vermicelli in a salad bowl. For a simple dressing, add some chopped garlic, shallots, sliced red chilli and lime juice to fish sauce for a zesty, healthy dish.

Good Luck Potluck Party

If you’re up for some thematic fun with friends and family, why not organise a Good Luck Potluck Party? After all, it’s important to start the New Year on an auspicious note. To help you and your guests come up with good luck dishes, here are some foods that are considered lucky:

Fish: The scales of fish resemble silver and they are a popular symbol of abundance across many cultures.

Cooked green vegetables: Because they look like folded money notes, there is a belief that the more greens you eat on New Year’s Day, the larger your fortune will be in the year ahead.

Noodles: Long seen by many Asian cultures as a symbol of longevity.

Beans: They resemble coins, especially lentils, black beans and black-eyed peas.

Black moss fungus (fatt choy): Increase your chances of striking it rich in the new year by adding this fungus to meat stews or soups.

Shanghai Nian Gao cakes: This stir-fried rice cake dish will not just be a good filler, it supposedly elevate you to bigger and better things in the year ahead!

Doughnuts: These ring-shaped pastries symbolize the completion of a full year – you’re now on to great things in 2012!

And just for the fun of it, ask everyone to come wearing green!

One Dinner For Two You want to let that special someone know just how meaningful it is that the both of you are going into the new year together. In order to symbolize this united front, why not come up with an intimate homemade meal that both of you have to literally share together in large communal plates and bowls? Not only will this arrangement save on the dishwashing load, it will provide plenty of potential romantic opportunities – think feeding each other or gnawing on the same piece of spaghetti like Lady and the Tramp. Here are some suggestions on aphrodisiac dishes that are great to share as a pair: creamy mushroom soup with truffle shavings, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, grilled oysters with lemon and butter, Angel Pasta with creamy salmon and caviar, and chilled champagne with strawberries.

Setting Foodie Resolutions

It’s also important to start off the New Year with a sense of direction and purpose. Spend sometime thinking about what kind of culinary adventures you want to embark on in the coming year. It could be as something as simple as wanting to cook at home at least twice a week. The trick is to come up with a support system to help you achieve these goals: whether it is signing up for a new culinary class, connecting with other foodies online to swap recipes and restaurant reviews, or gathering a group of foodie friends to try new cuisines and restaurants together regularly. Don’t get too regimented with this though – at the end of the day, it’s all about having plenty of fun, food-filled moments in 2012!