New Year's Eve Foods?

Baked Mac and Cheese

Pita Chips and dip

Roast and veggies

Pie, fudge, or cake

Baked Ham with Baked Sweet Potatoes

Popcorn balls for the kiddos

Fruit Salad

Hope these help you. :-)

I don't know what your local or "cultural" foods are in Detroit, but we always thought the LAST meal of the year needs some love and attention.....let's go all in one last time before everyone on earth starts diets.
It depends on what we had for Christmas that year: if some sort of chicken or turkey thing, or ham, then for NYE we'd do smothered filet mignon topped with gorgonzola, garlic mashed potatoes, awesome marinated green beans, and poached pears or a cheesecake for dessert. If we had ham or beef (prime rib?) for Christmas then we'd do shrimp creole and crusty french bread, or snapper with shrimp and cranberry rice, or simply seasoned roasted cornish hens (Tony Chachere's and Louisiana hot sauce), "bbq" shrimp, dirty rice, a little cranberry sauce, some steamed green beans or collards, with a GOOD bourbon soaked bread pudding (or again, cheesecake....or anything). If you were trying to impress I'd say shrimp amandine with a beautiful smelling amaretto sauce to glaze it up and....who cares what you serve with it. Noone can get past the smell of cooking amaretto, it's a beautiful smell. (Serve the rest of the "uncooked" amaretto with pineapple juice!)
If it's a "party" you could do something a lot more simple and just have chips and rotel cheese dip in the crockpot, veggies, dips, a nice warm spinach artichoke dip with baguettes, make a fruit tray, or a meat/cheese tray, etc. Seems like a lot of people do just snacks so they can be busy with games, dancing, fireworks, etc. But you said dinner...Do you do anything for New Year's Day? Like a lot of people always have hoppin' john for Jan 1, so a honeybaked ham (or whatever ham you like, with all the fixin's, including macaroni & cheese) would make sense, then just use the leftovers to make your hoppin' john. Me? I'm scared of black eyed peas, so NO hoppin' john for us! I'm convinced they're evil. :)
I just thought that if you do not do gumbo on Christmas Eve, and Detroit is probably pretty cold, you could make a great gumbo the night before NYE, and serve that over rice with warm buttered french bread as a delicious warming meal, and then just have some easy finger foods around for later in the evening (like make a veggie/dip tray, a sausage/cheeses tray, some fruit or whatever).
If the kids aren't adventurous, you could maybe do a nice lasagna big enough to feed everyone, bread, and a good salad.....or even spaghetti and meatballs would work if you just like your company. Or you could maybe just do Chinese takeout and play games, not worry about it. We like to cook our last meal and then hibernate after all the holidays (which for us are from 10/17-1/3). After that, have a grilled cheese sandwich and stay in for awhile, we're resting from 1/4 on. :)
One final thought: a Mexican night? Then you could have easy to eat foods: a taco bar or taco salad, taquitos or flautas, quesadillas, nachos, some queso or chili con carne...there's a ton of easy options there.
Hope I didn't overwhelm with the suggestions and end up NOT helping. We just really like NYE and NYD and try to make those 2 days very special. I don't want to just microwave a couple egg rolls and hang out watching TV. Seems to me like many people are either partying to excess and starting the new year with hangovers and regret, or ignoring the night. I hope you have a great evening whatever you decide. :)

Fondue (cheese and bread for dinner, fruit with chocolate for dessert), caviar (the good stuff if you can splurge, salmon is great if you don't want to spend $$) with either crackers or blinis. Champagne and sparkling grape juice if you feel the need to include the kids. Fruit compote is also an excellent festive dessert and can be made ahead (it also lasts a long time in the fridge and can be eaten over yogurt for breakfast). If you feel the need for something green on the side - sauteed greens (I love kale but really any are great as a side for the fondue).

Growing up, my parents always made NYE a finger-food night

1 crock pot of BBQ meatballs
1 crock pot of marinara sauce meatballs - used toothpicks to eat them
Chicken wings / drumetttes
Thin-crust pizza, cut checkerboard style
Meat/cheese trays
Crackers
Cut veggies w/ dip/hummus
Cut fruit
Quesedillas -- not too filled, or they ooze too much

Onion dip and chips
Veggie tray w/ ranch dressings

Cracked Crab w/drawn butter and cocktail sauce
Salad
French bread and butter

Eye of round roast beef (med rare)
served on mini slices bagguetts w/sour cream/horse raddish mustard sauce

for the KIDS
veggies
fruit
mac/cheese and/or PBJ sandwiches

Appropriate beverages of choice and early to bed for the children and a nice champagin toast for the grown-ups. Everyone stays the night and a great brunch in the AM. Happy New Year.

Blessings....

We are doing something simliar with a few couples.....we are having buffalo wings (not too hot), stuffed mushrooms, seven layer dip, bacon wrapped filets (bite sized from Sams), some sort of dessert and we'll have lays and french onion dip, pretzels and fruit. Oh and Rum Chata to drink! Tastes like the milk from Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal!!! Delish to sip or add into coffee :)

We always had this punch for NYE.

1 bottle cranberry juice
1 bottle gingerale
1 can OJ, water added

The kids and adults will all love it :)