Fish pie for a nontraditional Feast of Seven Fishes

Up until a week ago, when a coworker friend of mine mentioned wanting to hold one, I didn't know anything about the Feast of the Seven Fishes; now, I still don't know anything about it, besides what I just read on Wikipedia. (Isn't it strange to think that there are now generations growing up who will probably never have to learn how to do research in a library because of the ready availability of information on the Internet? Am I showing my age, or what?) But anyhow, it is apparently a mostly Italian-American tradition to celebrate Christmas Eve. I couldn't find anything too concrete about whether there are specific dishes that are supposed to be eaten, but the general idea is that they should be fish-themed, and there should be seven of them. And, anyway, a cocktail party consisting of fish-themed nibbles?? Sign me up!


Of course, I offered to bring dessert. I had initially kicked around the idea of bringing a stargazy pie but I didn't have enough time to buy fish (thanks to all you can eat/drink happy hour in Koreatown) and didn't feel like lugging a fish pie around all day! So I made apple pie instead, and shaped it like a fish. Cheating? Perhaps! Tasty? Naturally! I went with the less filling more crust version because it lent itself to shaping much more readily than a traditional pie, and because I love this recipe so. I think this is the 4th or 5th time I've made it now, incidentally.


Okay, so I didn't pack the apples down enough, and so the eyesocket looks a bit frightening, but aren't the scales neat? I cut them with just a regular old round biscuit cutter from the scraps and stuck them on with milk. I wish I had gotten photos of the other fish food (taramasalata, latkes with salmon, salmon pinwheels, crab dip, shrimp & pesto on endive, pissaladiere with anchovies...) but frankly, I was too busy stuffing my face. And the pie, though not fish flavored, seemed to go down well.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! It is pouring down rain here, perfect for a day of going through photos and drafting recipe posts for my Christmas Cookie Boxes this year!

LES Girls Club Holiday Cookie Swap--the results!

Well this past weekend was very busy--as I mentioned before, I participated in the first Lower East Side Girls Club Holiday Cookie Swap and Bakeoff on Saturday and had a GREAT TIME. I did not win, but I didn't even care--it was a super fun time and I sold every single cookie I brought (about 120) and all in all, the event raised quite a bit of money for the Girls Club. Above is my display; I brought Totoro along to act as mascot (although no one recognized him!) and preside over my green tea shortbread and pineapple tarts. The judging was a bit disorganized and I wish I had had a chance to chat with them but it was so busy that I didn't chat much with anyone except for the lovely ladies on either side of me. I mostly got positive reactions to my cookies, except for the two girls who walked by and said "oh, these flavors are too...mature...for us". I'm still trying to figure out if I should be offended or not :) And, enough of my babbling, here are some photos of the other cookies on offer:


Candy cane meringues from the lady on my right! These were the only cookies I got to taste, and they were delicious.


Cherry Garcia cookies from the lady on my left! I really really wanted to try these, but she said they tasted just like the ice cream. Does that sound awesome or what?


Apparently I was having shaky hands (probably from lack of sugar) when I took this, but how cute is this display? Pecan tassies! They won third place or honorable mention, I can't remember which.


Multiple flavors of macarons. Yet another cookie I wanted to try. (Oh, let's face it--I wanted to try every single one.)


Gorgeous biscotti!


Monster cookies! The baker who made these also has a blog, complete with recipe, so at least I can make these myself and taste what I was missing out on. Cute name, cuter cookies!

I missed out on taking photos of the winning cookies, the ingenious Pie Pops made by Blondie and Brownie, but I have been assured by a friend who was lucky enough to score one that they were delicious. Besides, who DOESN'T want a pie on a stick? I hope someone was around to help them cart their enormous gift basket home--congratulations!!! :) The full set of photos from the event is here


Anyway, afterwards, we headed across the street to DBGB (and ran into several fellow bakers--great minds think alike!) and I had a Tunisienne. It was a fab day. Special thanks to my friends for coming out and supporting this event! Hope you had as much fun as I did. And here's hoping that they make this an annual event!

NYC area folks--Come to the Lower East Side Girls Club Cookie Swap!

Looking for something to do next Saturday? Want to have holiday cookies, but don't have time to make your own? Well then this is the perfect event for you! It's a cookie swap! And I will be there with pineapple tarts and green tea shortbread in hand. Please consider helping to support this wonderful organization; they provide a lot of great resources and services to girls and young women.

Want to see what I'm bringing??


Pineapple tarts! (Not these specific ones, obviously, since this photo is from Chinese New Year.)


And matcha shortbreads. I guarantee yumminess.

Here is the info from the LES Girls Club:
Saturday, December 19th
1:00pm-3:00pm
The new Lower Eastside Girls Club's "Celebrate Cafe"
at the Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery at 1st Street, NYC

TICKETS: $15 https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/87429

Stop by to warm up during your holiday shopping! Here's how it works:

+25 volunteer "Sweet Angel" bakers have entered the "bake off" challenge and will be donating their cookies to the event.

+A panel of celebrity chefs (and you!) will judge their recipes and creative confections. Judges include chefs from Babbo, DBGB, Suenos, Cupcakes Take the Cake, and the Sweet Things Bake Shop.

+With each ticket purchase, guests will get an empty cookie tin to fill up with delicious treats, and a drink ticket for a special holiday cocktail.

+Sweet Angels will each have a table stationed inside the event and will sell their cookies for between 50c and $2 a piece.

+All proceeds will benefit the Girls Club's entrepreneurial training programs.

Event donors include: Fiji Water, Ghirardelli Chocolate, King Arthur Flour, Oxo and Mionetto Prosecco.

To purchase tickets go here: http://www.girlsclub.org/about/cookieswap

The Bakingest Time of the Year

The other day I had an OMGI'MALREADYBEHINDONCHRISTMASCOOKIES AUUUGH moment--so, yes, here I am at 10:48 p.m., baking cookies. First up? Chewy ginger cookies, with both ground and crystallized ginger. I just pulled the first pan out of the oven, and they smell amazing. These are good keeper cookies and I'm just going to wrap them well and store them in the freezer until I'm ready to pack up my boxes.

Of course, since it is 10:48 P.M., there is no good photo light available. So...you'll have to wait until the morning. Or maybe Sunday morning, because I'm going to try to make at least one type of cookie a day so that I don't have to go on a 3 day no-sleep sprint at the end! Not that that's ever happened to me before, ahem. Tomorrow...lime sablés!

Chocolate-chocolate Cupcakes

Birthday baking is the best kind of baking, in my opinion. But maybe I like it because it gives me an excuse to make something? At any rate--yay birthdays!


Sugar star sprinkles may not be as elegant as silver dragees or sugar pearls, but they are undeniably festive looking and colorful! I feel a bit more cheerful just looking at this photo. This was my first time making the chocolate-chocolate cupcakes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours (my go-to!). I'm on a bit of a hunt for the perfect chocolate cupcake recipe, and the problem lies in the fact that I want something that is light but not spongy. Most recipes I've tried either fall into the very airy or the dense (like poundcake) camps. So far, the frontrunner is still the Old Fashioned Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Chockylit's Cupcake Bakeshop. But I have to give these a second try. Do you want to see what the frosting is hiding?


Is weird looking, right? Kind of like an all chocolate version of the popular self-frosting nutella cupcake? That is because I am a dummy! The recipe calls for both cocoa and melted chocolate in the batter, so I dutifully melted some nice 70% chocolate and left it on the counter to cool...where it stayed until I had already put the tray of cupcakes in the oven. Frickinfrackin!#$!!#$!#%!# So I tried to stir the chocolate into the already portioned cupcakes--unsuccessfully as you can see. But actually the cupcakes were pretty good, even with the screw up, and I bet they would be even better if I had made them right. So, next time. The glaze is definitely a keeper, though!

So, I just looked at my calendar and realized how close we are to Christmas--eep! Where did the time go! I'm going to have to start making batches of dough and freezing them this weekend!

Thanksgiving 2009

Well, I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! I checked my archives and apparently last year I was so overcome by turkey that I did not write anything about the meal. (Actually, what really happened is that we went to Charleston right after T-day last year, and I was overcome by South of the Border along the way.) Anyway, enough digression, you can probably guess what my brother (making his first guest appearance here--maybe I should tell him...) is doing in the photo above--yes, that's right! Setting up the fryer for our 3-year-running deep fried turkey tradition. I mean, brined turkey is pretty great, but it's got nothing on the deep fried version. But before we got to that point, there was a lot of prepping of the side dishes...


Like chopping celery and onions for the sausage stuffing...the one downside to deep fried turkey is that you can't really stuff it. Boo. Small sacrifice though!


And here's the stuffing after being packed into a casserole and baked with a splash of turkey broth over it. Not as good as last year's (a bit dry), but, pretty good anyway.


Of course, we had to have cranberry sauce....I love the colors and am always tempted to eat one uncooked because it looks so pretty. After one, I am cured of that particular temptation!


My recipe (such as it is) is super simple--washed cranberries go into a pot with a few spoonfuls of sugar, grated orange zest, and the juice of an orange. Also a splash of water (but not much!). Cook until the berries pop and taste to see if you want more sugar. I like mine mostly tart. And isn't it a gorgeous color? (You'll notice my book in the corner there--I was reading A Suitable Boy while waiting for various things to cook.)


We also roasted up some red potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are always good. I didn't get a photo of the finished potatoes or of the brussels sprouts, which I boiled and then glazed with butter and soy sauce, because by now we were almost ready to eat, the sun had gone down, and the lighting sucked. Also, I was ravenous by now! But let's back up about an hour and go out to where the main action was going on.


Lots of peanut oil coming up to temperature. I don't know why I find that Caution Hot warning so funny. I think it's because this pot was sitting over a giant flame, and, you know, self explanatory?


The turkey rests on this rack with a handle so you can lower it, versus dropping it. Now would be a good time to say that if you are planning on deep-frying a turkey, you should do it outside, probably farther away from your house than where we had the fryer set up. An oven mitt would be a good idea too, as would closed toe shoes (click here to see a photo of my brother frying a turkey in a stylish Doraemon glove a few years ago). Every year you hear about people burning their garages (or houses!) down--seriously. Don't do this inside a building!


This is about 5 minutes in, and you can see the hook I was talking about earlier.


Alright, I didn't get the greatest photo of the whole turkey because it was dark by the time it was done (damn these early sunsets!). But here is a closeup of the yummy, crispy skin (and you can click the link to see the whole bird). Surprisingly, deep fried turkey is not greasy at all, and it is my favorite way to eat it now. Hm, I just realized that I also did not get a photo of the gravy. Oh well, it wasn't that exciting, trust me.


And of course, we had dessert! This might be the first Thanksgiving I've ever had with no pie, but my brother found a recipe for Apple Bread Pudding over at Smitten Kitchen. I sort of wish I had also made a pie, but no doubt my scale will be happy I did not.


And here's the bread pudding out of the oven. I think it could have used slightly more custard (I didn't do the measuring, just the apple chopping) but admittedly, I like my pudding very custardy. Nice flavor, though! (And nice afternoon sunshine.)

Needless to say, we (or at least I) ate more than I should have. But it was sooo good. It was a fairly low key one for us this year, so some of the other stuff I had planned to make (pie! celeriac salad!) did not get made...but fortunately I came home with like, half of a turkey so I think maybe I will have to Thanksgiving v.2 in a couple of days. (And if I blog about it, I promise it will be shorter. Yikes! When did I get so long-winded?) Hope yours was good too!

Semi-failure: Banana Cake

I don't think I would describe myself as a particularly picky eater, but I AM when it comes to bananas. I like bananas best when they're still a little green--any hint of brown, and I won't eat it. I don't like the texture of bananas when they're fully ripe. However, since my Superhero Superpower is "forgetting things," sometimes I end up with a bunch of freckled, DEFINITELY too ripe bananas lounging around on the windowsill where I put them on Tuesday. Whoops! Fortunately, even if I don't like eating ripe bananas, these were just right for baking, and I do love me some banana bread--or, in this case, cake!


I used Pichet Ong's recipe from The Sweet Spot (hey, my first ever actual blog post was about the sweet potato doughnuts from the same book!) for banana cake. Of course, the actual recipe uses baby bananas, and I used regular ones. I can't decide if this substitution was the cause of my not-quite-successful cake, or if there was maybe a bit too much baking soda in the recipe, or if maybe I should not have used a round pan (the recipe calls for a loaf pan). The unbaked batter was nice and fluffy and smelled lovely, though!


Aaaand, this is what it looked like about 5 minutes out of the oven. Immediately out of the oven, it was well risen and springy (and smelled fantastic), but it started collapsing almost right away. And despite the clean toothpick that I pulled out of it, it felt wobbly, almost like it wasn't baked all the way through. I let it cool and cut into it, and while it is not the prettiest cake I've ever made, it is a pretty tasty one. It's lighter and fluffier than banana bread, but not as light as some other banana cakes I've tried. I'm going to give this one another try, so no recipe for the time being.

For those of you who are celebrating, I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving! And for those of you who aren't, happy Thursday! I'm sure there will be lots of photos to come (we are deep-frying a turkey again this year, woohoo).