Happy Easter

Hi! I am re-posting last year's Easter photos because I don't think I am going to be cooking or making treats this year. I made these pretty cupcakes last year. My cupcakes came out too dry, but basically you can make any cupcake you want, then, pipe frosting in a circle around the edge of the cupcake. Color some coconut with green food coloring in a bowl, and then place that in the center. Top with a few tasty candy eggs and you have some lovely little nests! Have a great Easter everyone! = : )

I'm Still Alive People! Plus, Christmas Eve Wrap-Up and Tiramisu Recipe

Apologies for the MIA status. I was working on a super-hectic work project in December, then I took a couple of weeks off for the holidays and now I am just being lazy.

I went to Boston for two weeks over the holidays. My mother, my nephew and I cooked the Italian seafood Christmas eve dishes we usually make, as part of La Vigilia, the feast of the seven fishes. I counted them up and it came to six fishes this year as opposed to seven. This is because no one made the delicious salted-cod antipasto, Baccala, that I love so much. Thanks a lot! This recipe at the Boston Globe comes close to it. I just realized I have an eerily similar post from last year where I did post the Baccala and Stuffed Squid recipes. So, check it out.

The fishes we made were:

• Scallops wrapped in bacon (bacon deviates from the tradition because it's meat)


• Stuffed clams


• Fried smelts (I really perfected the frying method this year - yes!)


• Salmon with farfalle (bow-tie shaped pasta)


• Grandma Phyllis' shrimp casserole


• Stuffed calamari with spaghetti

Most of the dishes we make are some combination of the fish/seafood, tomato sauce, garlic, and Progresso bread crumbs. I swear we use like three containers of those breadcrumbs every Christmas.

We don't really do much of a meal Christmas day; we usually just eat leftovers. We do however have plenty of Panettone in the house for breakfast Christmas week. I looooove Panettone.. the best way to describe it is a light Italian fruitcake but it tastes nothing like regular American fruitcake. It is very difficult to make, so even most chefs don't recommend trying to make it at home.

My mom also usually makes her homemade cannoli but I talked her into letting me make tiramisu which came out awesome! I'll even post the recipe below. It is kind of a fake/poor man's tiramisu because it doesn't use marscapone cheese but it is awesome nonetheless. I got it from a Better Homes and Gardens magazine a few years ago. It's actually one of the reasons why a roommate and I parted ways.. but that's a story for another day.

Poor Man's Tiramisu

• About 2 packages of lady fingers (cookies)


• 2 cups of heavy cream, freshly whipped. This will make the 3 cups of whipped cream which will be used for the filling and frosting.


• Grated chocolate or sifted cocoa for topping/garnish

Filling:

• 2 8oz packages of Philly cream cheese, softened


• 1 cup sifted powder sugar


• 3 Tablespoons Kahlua


• 2 cups of the whipped cream

Frosting:

• 1 cup of the whipped cream


• 1/2 cup sour cream


• 2 Tablespoons Kahlua

For soaking the lady fingers:

• 1/2 to 3/4 cup strong, fresh coffee


• 1/4 cup Kahlua
  

1. Now, you can make this in 2 or 3 layers depending on the size of your dish, but you'll need one that's a few inches deep. You can use a longer dish with less height, or a smaller one with more height. The more cookies you use, the more coffee you'll need to soak them. So, go choose your dish and decide how many layers you'll be doing before you get started.


2. First you should make your coffee and whip your cream.


3. Prepare the filling: mix together the cream cheese, sugar and Kahlua. Then, fold in the whipped cream. Set aside.


4. Prepare the frosting: mix together the sour cream and Kahlua. Then, fold in the whipped cream. Set aside.


5. Combine the coffee and the 1/4 cup of Kahlua.


6. Now, you're ready to start layering. With the exception of the frosting, if you are doing two layers, use the cookies, coffee mixture, and filling 1/2 at a time. With three layers, use 1/3 at a time.


7. Arrange your first layer of cookies at the bottom of the pan evenly. If you need to chop off some ends of some cookies, do so. Pour the first part of the coffee mixture evenly over the cookies so that they are all covered.


8. Spread your first layer of filling over this.


9. Repeat with the remaining layers. With each layer, arrange the cookies in the opposite manner so as to build strength into the Tiramisu.


10. After the last filling layer, spread the frosting on top.


11. Chill until ready to serve. Sprinkle shaved chocolate or sift cocoa over the whole thing right before serving.

Halloween Cupcakes

Check out these adorable "mummy" cupcakes I made last year. I don't have time to make any this year : ( These mummies are super cute and pretty easy. I used the recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, but you could really use any cupcake flavor with any white frosting. Get some mini-M&Ms for eyes. Use a flat ribbon piping tip make the mummies wrapping, then place two of the M&M's for eyes on each one. I used a small tube of the stuff you buy to write on cakes, black seemed to work best, and just dotted each M&M with that to make a pupil.

BOO!

Peppermint Cupcakes

Since it's the holidays and all, and I LOOVE peppermint, especially when it's around chocolate, I decided to make two different minty-inspired cupcakes: candy cane cupcakes and peppermint cookies and cream cupcakes (the latter won for best cupcake at the LA Cupcake Meetup.) You can make either of these vegan as well! I actually used the cupcake recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for both cakes.. even though I used butter frosting on the cookies and cream cakes. I did this because the vegan recipes are just easy to make.. and a little cheaper, since you don't have to buy all that expensive butter. I don't like to reprint recipes from folks' books, but, all you really need to do is use your favorite vanilla recipe for the candy-cane cakes and your favorite chocolate for the cookies and cream cakes.

Peppermint Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Start with your favorite recipe for 12 chocolate cupcakes.

• For the cakes and garnish, you will need about 16 of Trader Joe's Candy Cane Joe-Joe's cookies. If you can't get these, regular Oreos will be OK. For vegans, you can use Newman's Own vegan cookies. You'll need more cookies for the frosting if you can't find the cookie crumbs.
  
• For the frosting, you'll need 1/2 cup of chocolate cookie crumbs. I think the crumbs you buy in the baking section would be best, but I couldn't find those, so I scraped the cream out of some more cookies and crushed them with a rolling pin.


• A few candy canes, crushed up, for garnish
• Real peppermint extract and real vanilla extract

1. Coarsely chop/crush 10 cookies and stir this into the batter before baking.
2. Stir the 1/2 cup of the crumbs into your favorite butter or vegan frosting, along with 1/2 t of vanilla extract and 1/2 t of peppermint extract.
3. Frost generously when the cakes are completely cooled.
4. Top each cake with 1/2 a cookie (from the remaining 6) and then sprinkle each with the candy cane crumbs.

Candy Cane Cupcakes

For these, I just used vanilla cupcakes and took a small portion of he batter and colored it red. Then, I swirled this onto each cake before I baked them.

Then, I mixed 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract into the frosting and sprinkled the top with crushed candy canes.

Our Christmas Traditions

Since there isn't any point now in posting the vegan pumpkin chocolate chip mummy cupcakes or the Thanksgiving leftover stromboli since they are so yesterday, I thought I'd get a jump on the whole Christmas thing before it is too late.

First, I'm Italian, so our Christmas tradition is the "seven fishes" feast on Christmas eve. So, we've never had turkey or ham or any of those things. On Christmas day, we have Panettone for breakfast and then leftovers the rest of the day. Panettone is a very light and tasty cake with small amounts of dried fruit. It is NOT like an American fruitcake. It usually has golden raisins and citrus peels. I found a cranberry version at Trader Joe's this year. My mother likes her piece toasted with butter. I just eat mine plain. We've never tried making these, we just buy them. Do NOT pay $34 at Williams Sonoma for these. You can get them for $7 to $15 at Italian bakeries or grocery stores with ethnic foods.

My absolute favorite dish for Christmas, and possibly my favorite dish EVER, is my mom's stuffed squid. She basically buys cleaned squid, cuts up the tentacles and makes a stuffing out of it, and then shoves it into the bodies. You bake it all up with tomato sauce. Here is the recipe:

Stuffed Squid

• 2 lbs cleaned squid bodies (get BIG ones) plus 1/2 lb tentacles.
• 2 cloves garlic sliced fine
• 1.5 cups Italian seasoned breadcrumbs (like Progresso)
• 1/2 c grated parmesan or romano cheese
• 1/4 c olive oil
• a few cups thick, homemade tomato sauce
• 3 T chopped parsley
• 1 large egg beaten
• 1/2 c dry red wine
• 1 medium onion, minced

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Wash all the squid and chop the tentacles.
3. Mix the tentacles with all the other ingredients EXCEPT the tomato sauce
4. Stuff the squid bodies with the stuffing. Secure each body with a toothpick.
5. Spread 1/3 of the sauce in the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan, place the stuffed bodies on the sauce.
6. Cover with the remaining sauce.
7. Cover pan with foil
8. Cook for about an hour, remove toothpicks before serving.

For some reason, we got into the habit of stuffing everything and we ended up with stuffed squid, stuffed clams and a stuffed shrimp casserole. I could post those recipes if you want.. so post a comment if you want me to. There is usually a pasta dish, it could be linguine with clam sauce, but recently my mother started making a really good salmon with bow ties and peas, probably because my nephew and brother are picky about things. Again, just leave a comment if you want these recipes.

I will post my other favorite, and that is Baccala, which is an Italian version of dried, salted cod. Sounds delicious, huh? Well, it is! My grandmother (rest her soul) always made this as the first course and served it cold with big chunks of tomatoes, artichokes, peppers, and olives, like an antipasto. My sister is usually the one to re-create it. You need to do this ahead of time, because the fish needs to soak in water for about 12 hours to get most of the salt out. Unfortunately, like many family recipes, I don't have measurements here. But I feel you can prepare it to your own tastes.

Baccala

• Dried, salted cod
• Vinegar peppers (these come in the jarred section).
• Black Olives
• Roasted red peppers and/or big tomato chunks
• Artichoke hearts
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Pepperoncini (if you like them, these are hot)

1. Soak the cod in water for 12 hours, then poach.
2. Break the cod up into 3 inch chunks
3. Add veggies with some vinegar from the peppers.
4. Add olive oil and lemon juice.

OK, finally, there are the cannolis. We make the shells from scratch, no boxed, yucky shells. I'll get to those in the next post.

Well, I hope you enjoy some of these recipes. Why not try a traditional Italian christmas this year? : )