La Vigilia and Crab Cioppino

The Feast of the Seven Fish... Christmas Eve was once a day of abstinence in the Catholic Church - no meat - and  La Vigilia as it is referred to in Southern Italy - came into being early on. Far from being a day of fasting, it is a day of feasting. Italians know how to turn a simple meal into an extravaganza!

We're missing the Seven Fish up in North Jersey this year but we still wanted to uphold the tradition. Victor and I are home alone with Blanche, while Nonna is up with the rest of the family. But seven fish is a lot for two people - even for us. So... our Seven Fish tonight is Crab Cioppino! All Seven Fish in one pot. It's something I've wanted to do for a really long time - and tonight I have my chance! This is the first time in 21 years we've spent Christmas by ourselves. While it's not something I'd want to do every year, it's been a lot of fun, so far.

 

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I was a bit concerned about finding dungeness crab being 3000 miles from home and considering there's a massive algae bloom going on out west. There are high levels of domoic acid in the crabs and right now there is no crab fishing at all in California and Oregon. But the seafood gods were on my side and I was able to find frozen dungeness crab at our local fish market. The place was packed this morning when I went in - they take their Seven Fish really seriously around here - but there was my crab in their freezer case waiting for me.

Frozen. But t was some damned good crab!

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In fact, it was some of the best crab I've had in years! And it was frozen. Go figure. I know I'll be heading back there for more. In fact, I'll be heading back there for a lot of things. They had a great selection of all types of seafood.

The cioppino came out great. Really great. The broth was rich and flavorful with just a hint of heat. The seafood all cooked to perfection. Even the calamari was tender - and we all know what little rubber bands they can be. It really, really was good.

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There's no way one can make cioppino for two. I made enough for dinner tonight, lunch tomorrow, and dinner for Steve and Marie to take home tomorrow night when they drop off Nonna. I'm stuffed - and already thinking about having more tomorrow!

To go along with the cioppino, I also baked rolls - Pane all'Olio - from Carol Field's Italian Baker. It's one of my most favorite bread books and every recipe I've made has come out perfect! These were no exception. A nice crust and a really tender crumb. The oil really makes a difference.

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Here goes the recipe. Hopefully I'll get everything included... It's been a work in progress...

Crab Cioppino

  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 bulb fennel, chopped
  • 2 bell peppers, chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 bottle red wine
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 4 bottles clam juice
  • 3 28oz  cans San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes
  • 3 lbs dungeness crab legs and claws
  • 1 lb shrimp
  • 1 lb clams
  • 1 lb Alaskan cod chunks
  • 1/2 lb calamari
  • 1 lb scallops
  • 1 jar anchovies
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes - more or less, to taste
  • 1 tsp Greek oregano
  • 3 bay leaves
  • Salt & Pepper

Get a large pot.

Saute onion, fennel, bell pepper, and garlic in olive oil until vegetables are quite wilted and beginning to get tender. Stir in the anchovies and red pepper flakes and cook until anchovies dissolve. Add one bottle red wine - I used a really good chianti - and bring to a boil. Simmer about 10 minutes and add the clam juice and vinegar.

Add the canned tomatoes, breaking them up as you add each can.

Add about a teaspoon of Greek oregano, a pinch of salt and a hefty pinch of black pepper. Bring to a boil, and then simmer about an hour.

At this point you can turn off the heat and save it for later or bring it to a boil and carry on...

Add the dungeness crab.

Add the clams.

Add the cod chunks.

Add the shrimp.

Add the scallops.

Finally, add the calamari.

From start to finish on adding and cooking the fish should be about 20 minutes.

Ladle into large bowls - discarding any unopened clams - and serve with crusty bread.

Forget the napkins. Have several kitchen towels available. This is one messy meal as half of it is eaten with your fingers.

And it is worth every spot and stain you can make!

 

 

 

 


Pane all'Olio

This is an adaption of Pane all'Olio from Carol Field's The Italian Baker. I have used and abused this book for 30 years and love every recipe and page!

I made this bread for our Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes in 2015. It's excellent!

The dough is rolled into balls and placed on cookie sheets to form rings - or wreaths...

Pane all'Olio

Olive Oil Bread
adapted from Carol Firld's The Italian Baker

  • 2 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 1 1/4 cup warm water
  • 3 1/3 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 tsp lard, melted and cooled
  • 3 3/4 cups flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • olive oil and sea salt for topping

Sprinkle yeast over water and let sit about 5 minutes or until it gets creamy. Stir in the oil and the lard and then with dough hook and mixer on low, slowly add the flour and salt.

Knead with machine 5 to 7 minutes or until dough is velvety and elastic.

Place dough in a lightly-oiled bowl and cover with a kitchen towel and let rise until doubled.

Punch down and divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll into tight balls and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet - 6 per sheet - in a ring - about 1-1 1/2 inches apart.

Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise again until doubled.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Lightly brush rolls with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake 30-35 minutes.

 

 


Christmas Cookies 2015

 

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It's beginning to look a lot like Diabetic Coma...

That means it's the Annual What Were We Thinking I Thought We Were Going To Cut Back Christmas Cookie-A-Thon!

Yeppers... we done did it, again. More cookies than we planned on making - which only means more cookie-eating. We'll worry about the diet in 2016.

We made several of the traditional cookies, starting with Aunt Emma's Apricot Cookies and four different Biscotti. Victor makes the Biscotti - and he has it down to a science! A triple batch of Aunt Dolores' Rum Balls... Almond Cookies made into Thumbprints...

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And a couple of new cookies for us. We made a Soft Sugar Cookie this year - rolled in colored sugar. Festive. These came from The Food Network.

 

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Something fun and a bit of a different take on a traditional Sugar Cookie.

The real fun cookie, though, is the Cuccidati!

These are a Sicilian Christmas Cookie that we've both had in the past, but where or when escapes us... I had done a Google Search for Italian Christmas Cookies - note that we have been trying to cut back so I did a Google search for more recipes - and found dozens of recipes for the cuccidati that all had pieces or parts that sounded good - but not quite what I wanted - so I took the best from many and came up with a pretty darned good filling - if I do say so, m'self!

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These will be topped with a milk and powdered sugar glaze and then topped with either sprinkles or colored sugar. The Italians really like their sprinkles - me, not as much - but tradition is tradition.

There's also a version where they're dipped in egg and rolled in sesame seeds before baking. I thought I might do some of them like that and ended up not. Oh well. An excuse to make them, again.

Cuccidati

The Filling - should be made a day or two in advance

  • 1 lb dried figs
  • 1 lb dried dates
  • 1/4 lb raisins
  • 1/4 lb dried cherries
  • 1 seeded tangerine-peel and all
  • 1 1/2 cups pistachios
  • 1 small can crushed pineapple
  • 1 cup Marsala
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

Working in batches, finely mince the dried fruit, tangerine, crushed pineapple, and nuts in a food processor. Transfer to a large bowl and mix well. Add the sugar, Marsala, and cinnamon, and mix it all together. Filling will be sticky but should hold together if pressed. Place in container and refrigerate for a day or two to meld the flavors.

The Dough

  • 5 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/4 cups lard
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • pinch salt

Cream sugar and lard until light. Add eggs one at a time and then vanilla and milk and mix well.

Mix flour with baking powder and slowly add one cup at a time until a reasonably-firm - but not sticky or dry - dough is formed. Refrigerate about an hour.

To Make Cookies

Preheat oven to 350°F. Take a piece of dough and roll into a rope about an inch and a half around. Roll into a long, flat shape.

Take a piece of filling and roll it into a rope and place down the center of the dough. Brush one edge with egg wash and roll dough over filling to seal.

Cut on an angle about every half-inch and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.

Bake 13-15 minutes or till lightly browned.

Cool and frost, as desired, with milk and powdered sugar glaze and sprinkles.

 

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And just because one does not live by cookies, alone, I made a big tray of Fudge with Crushed Peppermint Candy topping.

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We still have a Greek Walnut Cookie to bake off - dough is made - and then we need to chocolate-dip and/or decorate and then start making trays.

It really is a fun tradition...

 


Starting the Christmas Cookies

Oh the weather outside is delightful...

It's 72° today in beautiful, sunny Pennsylvania. 72°. On the 13th of December. About 30 degrees higher than normal.

I think we'll grill, tonight.

It's funny... I never really associated Christmas and cold during the first 20 years of my life, but I've lived in the snow for a large portion of the ensuing 43... The Tahoe years were some of the most fun - and irresponsible, I might add. Illegally cutting down trees to fit in the living room with the 20' ceiling was always fun. Recreational drugs and copious amounts of alcohol were usually involved. Really... Have you ever seen what a 20-foot Christmas Tree can do to a room? It fills it up, that's for damned sure. Not to mention the ropes needed to keep it from falling over. It's not like we actually cut a flat base or had a proper stand. We tried stringing popcorn one year, but you can't string too much popcorn when you're stoned and eating it faster than you can get in on the thread...

Ah... sweet youth...

As I moved back and forth across the USofA and pretended to mature, more times than not I ended up in another snow-place... Quite a few Christmas' in Boston. That was always fun. Boston had been a city for some 350 years when I moved there - and every time it snowed, they acted like it was the first time they had ever seen the white stuff fall from the sky. Truly incredible. Buffalo, on the other hand, just kept moving. It could be blizzarding outside and folks just went about their business like it was a balmy spring day.

I began to equate Winter with Cold, and Cold with Cookies. Not a bad association in the grand scheme of things...

While I always baked Christmas Cookies, the real cookie-baking didn't take off until Victor moved west in 1994. Then it got serious. At our peak, we were baking thousands of cookies. Really. Multiple thousands. We baked, wrapped, packaged, and shipped cookies. We were nuts. Totally insane.

We'll probably barely break a thousand this year. We've cut way back. We're still nuts, but it's much more manageable, now...

There's definitely a benefit to having the windows open no matter what the time of year, so while I would prefer the weather to be seasonal, I'm going to enjoy every shorts-wearing day we get.

And keep making cookie dough.

Mele Kalikimaka.

 


Billowing Clouds of Smoke

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I did it, again!

There's just nothing like filling up a kitchen with billowing clouds of smoke. I've gotten pretty good at it over the years. I've set off many a smoke alarm - and even had the fire department come out on a snowing Christmas Day. When you have a talent, you have to use it. What can I say?!?

Tonight's billowing cloud was brought to you by scalloped potatoes that bubbled over in the already-not-spotless oven. I should have put a sheet pan under the casserole. I know better. I didn't do it. My bad.

But billowing clouds or not, the potatoes came out great! I did something new this time, layering the potatoes with a thinly-sliced fennel bulb. I must say the dish came out pretty darned good. Even Nonna ate them!

I found the recipe in an old Bon Appetit. Naturally, I didn't follow it verbatim because right off the bat it called for 3/4 teaspoon of white pepper - which would have made the dish pretty much inedible as far as I'm concerned. A little of that stuff goes a long way. And I baked it at a higher temperature - 425° and not the 350° called for in the recipe. Not on purpose, though. I was cooking off a par-baked roll and just forgot to turn down the oven. And while that one simple act was pretty much the reason for the billowing clouds, the potatoes and fennel were perfectly cooked in under an hour. Next time I make them I'll cook them at 425°F and make sure they're on a sheet pan.

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The poor casserole dish... It's soaking, right now...

And if you don't have a mandoline for slicing the potatoes and fennel - go out and get one. Put it on your Christmas List. It is worth having. Trust me on this!

Scalloped Potatoes and Fennel

adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine

  • 6 garlic cloves, peeled, smashed
  • 4 2-inch-long fresh rosemary sprigs
  • 2 1/4 cups heavy cream
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • 3/4 tsp ground white pepper
  • 2 large fresh fennel bulbs
  • 3 1/2 pounds medium russet potatoes
  • 1/4 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Butter 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Place garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs in bottom of dish. Combine cream, salt, and white pepper in large bowl.

Thinly slice fennel bulbs. Layer half of fennel slices evenly atop garlic and rosemary in baking dish. Thinly slice potatoes into rounds and add to bowl with cream mixture, coating them well. Arrange half of potato slices evenly over fennel slices and then repeat with the remaining fennel and then a final layer of potatoes. Pour the remaining cream mixture in bowl over fennel-potato mixture in baking dish. Dot with butter cubes. Place a sheet of parchment paper over potatoes and then cover with foil. (You don't want the foin to touch the potatoes.)

Bake scalloped potatoes until almost tender when pierced with knife, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 425°F. Remove foil and bake uncovered until potatoes are tender and top is deep golden brown, about 20 minutes longer. Remove from oven and let rest 15 minutes.

I cut the recipe in half and we still had plenty of leftovers. They'll be great tomorrow for lunch!

And the kitchen is almost smoke-free!

 


Lentil Soup

As much as I want it to be, it's not snowing.

I know, I know... snow is a hassle and it makes it difficult to get around, but I really do like it. We're going through unseasonably warm weather right now which is really putting a crimp in my seasonal cooking. I want soups and stews and it's prit-near grilling weather out there.

What's a boy to do?!?

Well, for one, I got another propane tank for the grill - and I made a pot of Lentil Soup. I'm covering all bases.

The soup was a clean-out-the-refrigerator-and-freezer soup. I had a ham bone and a couple of containers of frozen turkey stock and I had some carrots and celery that had seen better days - and about a third of a head of cauliflower I bought a couple of weeks ago. The cauliflower was huge - a real commitment - and I had cooked it for at least three meals - but still had a ton left over. I just cut it up and added it to the broth and then hit it with the immersion blender. No one knew it was there...

The end result was pretty good - and made all the better by the bread Victor made - a spin on his pepperoni bread. He took some nduja - a spicy salame spread - and peppers I had canned this summer and made one hellava spicy bread.

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It was seriously good and was perfect for dunking into the soup!

So cold weather or not, we're eating like it is - and loving it.

And I think there's gelato for dessert...


About Us

Hi there!  My name is  Tim and this is what I do in my spare time.  It's mostly me talking about what we had for dinner, but it's also a fun place to gather a recipe or two and glimpse a picture of that dinner, too.

My husband of almost 30 years, Victor, and I cook at home most nights but have been known to hit the local brew pub or neighborhood watering hole for a meal now and then.  We both love food, love to eat, and have a great time in the kitchen together.

I've been involved in the food business for nigh on 62 years and still manage to enjoy it most of the time!

I started out in a small donut and pastry shop in San Francisco, circa 1961. I was a little kid with a Saturday morning job washing sheet pans for the baker - flying under the radar of the Child labor Laws. In the ensuing years, I cooked and baked in Uncle Sam's Yacht Club on the USS Ranger and at bases in San Diego. I also worked in restaurants all over San Francisco and Lake Tahoe's North Shore (with a brief stint in Portland, OR) before leaving the professional cooking end of things and getting into Hotel F& B Management.

I spent close to 14 years in the hotel business, opening hotels all over the USofA, returned home to San Francisco in 1989 where I got into health care - first at San Francisco General Hospital, and then at The University of California San Francisco. I moved to a small hospital in San Leandro, CA for a couple of years as Director of Nutrition Services before we moved to Pennsylvania, in 2001.

 

Victor owned his own restaurant in Philadelphia's South Street, spent several years in Atlantic City hotels, and, after moving to San Francisco with me, got into the travel industry. He's also an accomplished cook, leaning heavily on his Italian heritage to create fabulous meals.  His Monday Pasta Night is out of this world.

There are now eight cook books and/or recipe collections on the site as well as the blog.  It's a labor of love.  No ads except for the occasional political stuff since I'm a left-leaning liberal - but no click here and save stuff.  Just fun recipes from some pretty fun family and friends.

Life is good.