Having my family out over Christmas meant 2 things: I was relieved of John duty and we got a chance to make a bunch of yummy food. Here is a recap of the latter.
Cookies:
Aunt Dora's Love Knots
In an unbelievable fit of mental ineptitude, I took pictures of neither of those cookies being made. I will blame it on the fact that I spent most of the 23rd feeling like I could well, let us leave it at I nearly was hugging the "porcelain" god. Thank goodness Mom was there to help out. The Love Knots are a holiday must. The Peanut Butter Blossoms I did on a whim. I had purchased a bag of Christmas foiled Hershey's Kisses and noticed the recipe on the back. I had not made or eaten blossoms in years - probably back to the 3rd or 4th grade. Clicking on the link will take you to the recipe. I have not worked with shortening in a really long time. Odd huh? I think I have posted the Love Knot recipe before. If not, let me know and I will share later.
Christmas Eve - Seven Fish Dinner:
I must thank my brother, Matthew, for coming up with a plan to attack this massive undertaking and for making several of the dishes. Without him, we would not have made through all seven fishes.
Antipasto Platter
Shrimp, Meats, and Cheeses - An easy dish to knock out the first fish. Now technically there shouldn't be any meat at all during the meal but we make an exception because well, who doesn't love proscuitto, soppressata, or cappocolla?!?! The cheeses were Pecorino Romano and Sharp Provolone.
Baked Calamari
I can not take much credit for these. Kroger has done a great job with these frozen babies. Pop them in the oven and take them out when the timer goes off. I will take credit for the sauce. That is all mine.
Crab Meat
Big Secret-> Straight out of a can. But gosh it looks like I did a bunch of work right? Plus, it didn't taste half bad either.
Stuffed Clams
Yet another dish I can not claim as my own. As I was perusing the Hyvee fish counter, I came across these beauties. Stuffed with crab and scallops, I just could not pass them up. Super tasty. I was glad I indulged myself.
Blackened Tilapia and Caesar Salad
Light and yummy. We only worked the Tilapia and bought a couple of bag mixes for the salad. We snagged the blackening recipe from Paula Deen of all people. Unfortunately, I don't think we might ever be able to reproduce it. Matt threw together the seasonings without really paying attention to the amounts. I can tell you what we used - Paprika (quite a bit), thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. To blacken, dip fish in melted butter (cooled), coat in seasoning mixture, and heat in saute pan for 3 - 4 minutes until the fish becomes flaky. Simple right?
Fettucine with Clams and Mussels
My brother found some great recipes. While I am not a big mussels or clams sort of gal, this was totally yummy. Even more surprising was that we bought the live clams and mussels at the Hyvee about 2 days before and managed to keep them alive for this meal. This recipe is a Giada
concoction. Only difference here is we switched out her linguine with fettucine and shallots with some regular chopped onions.
Salmon with Puff Pastry and Pesto
Our final fish in our seven fish feast. Another yummy Giada
recipe. I actually thought that I had messed up by purchasing to many tilapia filets and not enough Salmon. Turned out that the small Salmon filet (small because all the other filets were huge at the counter) turned out to be just right once we cut it into 5 pieces. By this entree we had reached out tummies' capacity. The only differences between what you see here and the recipe, we did not add almonds and for some reason I could not find puff pastry. So I winged it and bought some pre made pie-crust. It didn't puff quite the same but it didn't turn out as dense as I thought it would once we compiled all the pieces.
Wow, I think I need to save the Christmas Day dinner recap for another entry. Lessons learned: 7 entrees requires lots of dish washing. Make sure your guests are ready to help out with that. My brother is awesome at helping in the kitchen. He has been given the okay to work in my kitchen anytime he likes - unsupervised. That's huge. I hardly let anyone in my kitchen, let alone unsupervised. He does good yummy work.
Check back in for Part 2 or Day 2 or Seriously, you are going to put the bird in that?!?!?!
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