Christmas 2010

Happy New Year!  I apologize for my month long absence from blogging.  As soon as December arrived, life got a little busier than usual and my blogging fell by the wayside.  I didn't even have a chance to read any of the many blogs I like to follow.  Now it's mid January and I feel like things are finally calming down.  Even though I wasn't blogging I did do a lot of cooking and baking.  Unfortunately I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked so you'll have to use your imagination.  Here are just a few of the meals I enjoyed as well as prepared while home in New York.

We didn't start our Christmas until the 26th so on the 25th my mom, Tom, and I steamed a few dozen clams and three 1 1/4 lb lobsters.  That was it, no salad before the meal, no side of vegetables, just a plate filled with delicious seafood.  Growing up my mom loved having lobsters and clams for her birthday even as young as 10 years old.  Luckily she carried that tradition on with me and we started celebrating my birthdays with clams and lobsters.  I'm a little nontraditional in the sense that I don't like to dip mine in melted butter.  I prefer the distinctive taste they offer on their own.  By the end of the meal I had enjoyed my fair share and was ready for a nap.  We still had our Christmas dinner the next night...how was I going to eat anymore food?!

The next morning we woke before the sun was even up, I believe it was 5:30am.  With two little ones running around, my nephew Ethan 2 1/2 and my niece Addison 14 months, I knew it wouldn't be a day to sleep in.  We started our morning off as we have since I was a little girl, with my mom's homemade Cherry Coffee Cake and a large cup of coffee.  My grandmother was the one that started this tradition many moons ago and my mom and my aunt continue to this day to make this coffee cake for their Christmas mornings.  I have to say I've never had this recipe during any other time of the year.  As much as I love it and usually go back for seconds and sometimes thirds it just wouldn't seem right to have it on any other day.  Despite our very early start I think the coffee cake helped keep me going through hours and I mean hours of opening gifts.  My mom has always had one rule at Christmas, we open our gifts one at a time.  This way she can see what everyone's received and the expressions on their faces.  It did not work too well with my neice and nephew this year but maybe in a few years when their old enough to sit still for more than 30 seconds.  Nevertheless it was a great Christmas morning.

Cherry Coffee Cake
Recipe from Mom's Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk (we use fat free milk)
• 3 eggs, beaten slightly
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (we use walnuts)

Directions: 

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and butter with a fork or pastry blender like you would if you were making pie.  (You'll want to have pea size pieces of butter).  Save rounded 1/2 cup for topping.
2. Take the remaining mixture and add the milk, eggs, and vanilla.
3. Pour into a greased pan 14x9x2. Spread the cherry pie filling on top. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup topping and 1/2 cup chopped nuts.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
5. I recommend eating this warm with a large cup of coffee.

After a busy morning and afternoon playing with new toys and some of us taking naps it was time for our Christmas dinner.  Another tradition at my mom's is having Prime Rib for dinner.  However, I don't eat meat anymore so my entree of choice was salmon, which I pan seared with just a little bit of EVOO and salt & pepper.  I was also put in charge of preparing the sides and dessert.  I went through my long list of recipes and came up with Roasted Cauliflower with Fresh Herbs and Parmesan, Wild Rice Stuffing, Sauteed Carrots with Sage, and last but not least the traditional Mashed Potatoes.  With all of the rich and decadent foods I had been eating and would continue to do so I thought I should at least make these healthy so I pulled all of these recipes, except the Mashed Potatoes, from Cooking Light.  All of the recipes were fairly easy, nothing too complex, and the end results were delicious!

To top off this healthy meal I decided to go with something decadent, extra sweet, and chocolaty.  With that in mind I reached for my Dorie Greenspan cookbook, Baking: From My Home To Yours, and picked out a recipe I knew everyone would love.  Gooey Chocolate Cakes, known to some as Chocolate Lava Cakes.  They were just what we needed to top off a great meal.  My only complaint and it was my fault for not being more careful with an oven I'm not used to, I baked them just a couple minutes too long so they were not as gooey as I would have liked but they were still very tasty!  Top them off with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream like we did and you have yourself a decadent, extra sweet, and chocolaty dessert!

Gooey Chocolate Cakes
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's dark unsweetened cocoa powder)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 4 ounces coarsely chopped, 1 ounce very finely chopped (I needed to find a chocolate free of any nut products due to my sister's allergy to tree nuts so I went with Baker's Bittersweet Chocolate)
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
• 6 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 6 cups of a regular-size muffin pan, preferably a disposable aluminum foil pan, dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. Put the muffin pan on a baking sheet.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together.
3. Set a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the coarsely chopped chocolate and the butter in the bowl and stir occasionally over the simmering water just until they are melted – you don’t want them to get so hot that the butter separates. Remove the bowl from the pan of water.
4. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until homogenous. Add the sugar and whisk until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and, still using the whisk, stir (don’t beat) them into the eggs. Little by little, and using a light hand, stir in the melted chocolate and butter. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and sprinkle the finely chopped chocolate over the batter.
5. Bake the cakes for 13 minutes. (I would suggest 10 minutes depending on your oven.) Transfer them, still on the baking sheet, to a rack to cool for 3 minutes. (There is no way to test that these cakes are properly baked, because the inside remains liquid.)
6. Line a cutting board with a silicone baking mat or parchment or wax paper, and, after the 3-minute rest, unmold the cakes onto the board. Use a wide metal spatula to lift the cakes onto dessert plates and serve immediately.

Gooey Chocolate Cakes

Fresh out of the oven and patiently waiting 3 minutes for them to cool

Up close and personal with the decadent cakes

The next day was our second Christmas at my dad's house.  Being part of a divorced family at the holiday's can seem difficult to some and I would be lying if I said it wasn't a little hard but it's pretty much all I've ever known and oddly enough something I've learned to love.  Of course, it's not the ideal situation and not every memory is a happy one but since when has everything in life been ideal or everything been perfect.  As a family I think we've all grown to appreciate what we have, though it may not be traditional, it's what I love about both my families.  Now enough about me and more about the food. :)

Traditions seem to be the theme of the blog so I'll continue on with a tradition my dad started, preparing made to order omelets for everyone on our Christmas morning. This year I was his designated Sous Chef and helped prepare some of his best omelets yet.  Before we got started, the ingredients were chopped and divvied up into bowls.  This year's ingredients included green peppers, jalapenos, onions, Canadian bacon, mushrooms, olives, and cheese.  My job was to saute the ingredients in my omelet pan and mix the eggs for each portion.  Once the ingredients were sauteed I passed them onto my dad who poured the eggs over top and had the difficult job of cooking the omelet and flipping it oh so carefully so that it turned out looking like an omelet and not a veggie scramble, which I am known to do.  While he worked that pan I started on another pan of sauteing the next lucky customer's omelet. This process went on for a total of 9 omelets.  To finish off our omelets we had a choice of dad's leftover homemade guacamole and homemade salsa canned just a few months ago.  We ended our Christmas with a big meal of delicious lasagna, one vegetarian version and one for the meat lovers and a night filled with copious amounts of wine and games galore.  I will not get into the details but it was certainly a night to remember!

Overall this Christmas was filled with a lot of good food, fun, and quality family time and it was sad to see it end.  However I was glad to get away from the frigid temperatures and head back to the more mild weather of North Carolina.  My Christmases may not be traditional and they may just be a little crazy but I certainly look forward to them every year.  Here's wishing everyone a very happy 2011 and many more happy years to come!