Christmas Eve - the success and failure.....food wise.......

Success:  Cousin Jim's fish soup which he had tweaked since this new recipe was first sampled last year - it's outstanding.  Jim brought all the ingredients and made it here at our house. My grandmother's traditional fish soup recipe is how we start out our Feast of the Seven Fishes.....sorry Nani but Jim's soup is much better, if she were still with us I think she'd agree.  Recipe for this incredible soup is at the bottom of this post - I'm thinking we may have to try it sometime adding some shrimp, crab, mussels & clams - yum.  We'll be eating leftover soup tomorrow - yum.

Failure: Cousin Jim decided to try his hand at Sugar Plums because he'd never had them.  These were not good - list of ingredients sound like they should be super yummy......but they weren't, they really weren't, they really really weren't good........leftovers were going in the trash if he couldn't find any takers.  But we tried something new.

Bailey had a grand time opening a present from Cousin Jim last night - hard to get a picture of him he was so excited - we think he's as excited at carrying around a wrapped gift as actually getting the gift.

He sat still for a picture with it this morning.......that was until he saw what Santa brought overnight.


FISHERMAN'S SOUP

6 rashers of bacon, chopped (learned a rasher is a slice)
2 tbs butter
1 large onion, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic minced fine
3 tsp Old Bay seasoning
3 tbs fresh chopped cilantro
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
1 pound tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
2/3 cup dry vermouth or white wine
2-3 cups fish stock
11 oz potatoes, diced
1 1/2-2 pounds skinless white fish fillets cut into chunks (he used cod)
Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon to browned but not crisp. Remove from pan.

Add butter to pan and cook onion and celery until soft, add garlic and herbs and cool for 1 minute. Add tomatoes, stock and wine and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add potatoes, cover again and simmer for a further 10-12 minutes or until the potatoes are almost tender.

Add chunks of fish and bacon pieces. Simmer gently uncovered for 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked and the potatoes are tender.

Garnish with additional fresh cilantro and lime wedge if desired.   I throw on a few spoonfuls of oyster crackers because I love them and rarely eat them......