A White Christmas

This is what we woke up to this morning, still snowing hard......looking like we'll have a white christmas this year. Looking at the forecast for today we had decided to postponed our traditional Italian Christmas eve dinner as getting to our house will be difficult as it is, and cousin Jim would be coming from 45 miles south having to come over a pass to get here. We'll try for Saturday as the weather should be better by then.......should be.......

Now to think about what to do with my new found time since I'm not cooking today.........maybe getting a painted warp on the loom and hope the power stays on so it's not too dark to weave...........

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......

Feast of the Seven Fishes

Theresa asked about Feast of the Seven Fishes........here's a link to a brief explanation of what it is. The tradition comes from the Italian side of my family (mother's side). The religious aspect is totally lost on my family these days - my immediate family, as in aunts/uncles, etc. have converted from the Catholic Church to whatever/nothing or are non-practicing Catholics. But the tradition carries on. These days it's a challenge to come up with 7 fish/seafood dishes for those of us in Oregon, only 5 these days, so 7 dishes is way too much food. Many times small appetizers help fill the bill.

Back east this was a huge evening for my big extended family with plates of fried shrimp in the frito misto batter (we forgo that now for a lighter panko crumb coating), fried oysters, scallops, incredible fish soup, calamari in a tomato sauce, teaila (fish casserole), cocktail shrimp and whatever else we could come up with. I will never forget my father going down to the wharves in DC for the oysters and then working down in the basement at the laundry tub shucking them - he and one of my aunts would also eat a few raw (gross). Dad always saved some for oyster stew a day or two later.

These days the menu consists of the fried shrimp, we don't like west coast oysters so none of those, calamari, shrimp cheese ball appetizer, crab dip, smoked salmon and sometimes fish soup, scallops, crab cakes. We always have roasted peppers - my grandmother and mother were roasting peppers when I was very small, decades before you ever heard of it being done mainstream. Me - I'd be happy with a big bowl of cioppino and a loaf of crusty bread. I am so out of it this year I haven't even given any thought to the menu - with Christmas two weeks away it's time for a family discussion on the menu and who will make what.

On Christmas Day dinner - we never used to have much of one - it was always leftovers from the night before with a pasta dish on the side. Oh, and Christmas cookies with coffee for breakfast while waiting for everyone to wake up for present opening. My grandparents lived next door so between the houses and family visiting there were a lot of people to wait on in the morning.

Oh, and the Christmas cookies - dozens of kinds - trays and trays of all different kinds of cookies, traditional family recipes. That's another thing we don't need tons of out here with only 5 of us and two of them diabetics- I'd be finding Christmas cookies still in the freezer 10 months later! If I make one cookie this year it will be an accomplishment.