Christmas Eve dinner

As in most Catholic families as far as I know, Christmas Eve is the big night in our house. Growing up, we would sometimes have 15 to 20 people over for Christmas Eve dinner. My mom did all the cooking and when my brothers and I were young, we got to open almost all of our presents on that night too. Christmas morning was reserved for the presents that Santa brought.

It's still the night that my family celebrates with a big dinner. When my mom was alive she did the cooking and it was always traditional Italian fare: stuffed manicotti or shells, baked ziti, breaded chicken cutlets, and always an assortment of beautiful homemade cookies and desserts.

Now that I am the cook, I still make something Italian. One year I did baccalà (it was a disaster, but some day I'll try again), and last year I did a Sicilian pork roast with olives and grapes. But the family's favorite is probably my Cioppino.

In the South of Italy it is traditional to eat the "Feast of Seven Fishes" on Christmas Eve -- usually seven courses all with a different seafood ingredient representing the seven holy sacraments. I have not been that ambitious (yet) so I make a seafood stew and throw all seven (almost) fishes into the pot. This year it was shrimp, scallops, mussels, halibut and clams.



My recipe is from Michael Mina and the best part is this little spicy basil oil that gets drizzled on at the end before serving. It's also nice to bake some large crostini with garlic and olive oil to serve alongside the soup.

And this year, we had my brother's slow-roasted Heritage Farm pork as a second course with the most delicious orange-glazed sweet potatoes. It was one of our best Christmas Eve dinners to date. It was fun to cook together with my bro this year. I hope that's a tradition that continues.



And, for dessert, I made the special almond-orange cake with pears and creme anglaise pictured above. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful meal. Our family chose not to do gifts this year and there was something really refreshing and simple about that. Everything then revolves around the food, which is fine with me! To cook together and eat together as a family was the best gift we could get.

Nocino + Holiday wishes

As I said in the last post, this is the year for making homemade gifts. Some people have always made fruitcakes (which I happen to love). My family always made Italian "pizzelles" (white snowflake-like cookies made with a kind of waffle iron) and my mom's sugar cookies were the favorite gift of all of my friends. My Aunt Kate made the best toffee and peanut brittle which we all looked forward to each year.

It's not surprising that these kinds of gifts are so much more appreciated than something you picked up at the mall. And this year they have a special significance I think. Not only because we're all in this "economic crisis" together, but because perhaps this downturn will make us focus more on inventive things we can do ourselves--even if they take a little more time and effort.

This year the one new thing I made that I'm really, really proud of is something I hope will inspire all of my friends and family to try their hand at making homemade gifts: Nocino.

In addition to the baking which is something I do every year, this year I wanted to try making one of my favorite things that friends in Italy give me-- homemade walnut liquer. In Italy it's a common "amaro"--an after-dinner drink--and it's almost always homemade. It's dark black and tastes like nuts and spices. It's the perfect winter warmer.



I gathered the walnuts from a neighbor with a huge walnut tree this fall. He didn't have a use for them so I went over there and took as many as I could carry. I followed a recipe I found on-line and then put it up to age for 40 days down in the crawl space of our house. Every once and while we would go down there and shake the bottles to mix up the alcohol, sugar and spices, each time more eager than the last to take a little sip. But we waited patiently.

And when it was time to strain it and pour it into little bottles, each with its own gift tag, I have to say it made me proud to write "homemade walnut liquer" just for you!

So in the spirit of giving from the heart and not the wallet, here is the best Christmas wish I could find. It's from Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall of River Cottage:

"And so it is with great pleasure that I wish you all, first and foremost, a sumptuous, delicious and yet highly relaxing Christmas; but thereafter, and not without a fairly eager sense of anticipation, a truly abundant and rewarding new year,

Or, to put it more succinctly,

Cheers!"

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Recipe for Nocino:

(The best is to have access to a walnut tree --either yours or a neighbor's. If not, try to ask your local farmer's market for about 30 nuts with their rinds. They should be dark green which means the nuts are immature, and almost the size of tennis balls.)

wash the nuts well and assemble these ingredients:

1 1/2 quarts of grain alcohol (available at most local liquor stores)
1 1/2 lbs (3 quarts) of sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
10 cloves
1 pint of water (plus another pint at the end if too strong)
rind of 1 lemon, cut into strips

Begin by quartering the nuts with a heavy bladed knife or cleaver. Wear gloves and do this outside on some newspaper as the walnut juice will stain. Put the nuts and the remaining ingredients in a jar, cover it tightly, and put it in a cool, dark place for 40 days, shaking it every two or three days.

Once the nuts have steeped, taste the nocino. If it's too strong, dilute it with some spring water. Then line a funnel with filter paper and strain the nocino into bottles of your choosing. When giving away, tell people they can age it for 6 more months in a cool, dark place or enjoy immediately.

(from italianfood.about.com, based on the recipe from Pellegrino Artusi's The Art of Eating Well).