Cioppino for Feast of the Seven Fishes

Holy cannoli! I almost forgot. Joe at Italyville.com is hosting Feast of the Seven Fishes and the deadline is (gulp) tonight.I made something to bring.... I just didn't bring it yet.

Cioppino!Or as Aunt Fay said, "Neopolitan Stew." She hosted the Feast for decades. All "us" cousins looked at the sumptuous Christmas Eve platters of fish and pushed the seafood aside and ate the pastas. This is where age has its advantages. I know better now - as did my aunts, uncles and grandmother!

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Since I do not live in the "seaport of the world," I made do with what Minnesota has to offer. The meal was quick and easy to prepare and I had a short vacation to Naples this evening. All for the price of some shrimp, a few mussels and clams.

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INGREDIENTS: (serves 4)

1 fennel bulb - chopped

1 large shallot - chopped

4 T olive oil

2 cloves of garlic - chopped

1 rosemary sprig

1 can vegetable broth

1/2 small bottle clam juice

1 cup white wine

1 large can of peeled tomatoes in juice

1/2 cup tomato paste (sometimes I leave it out when I don't want it sweet)

8 clams - scrubbed

3/4 pound mussels - scrubbed

1/2 pound shrimp (peeled, deveined)

1 tilapia fillet - can use any white fish

1/4 cup Italian flat-leaf parsley

1 pound spaghetti (optional)

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In large stew/soup pot, heat olive oil. Add chopped fennel, shallots and garlic. Saute till fennel is soft (about 4-5 minutes). Add vegetable broth, clam juice, tomatoes, wine and rosemary. Let simmer for ten minutes and break up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon. Add mussels and clams and let them simmer for 8-10 minutes - until they open. Discard any unopened ones. Add shrimp and tilapia or other white fish and let it simmer for five minutes. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve as a soup or over spaghetti. Savor. Alternate play Volare in the background with Christmas songs. Go to Italy for Christmas Eve - even for just one hour.

Shimmering Candied Orange Peels and a Cast that Glistens

Yes. He's adorable. He's also hard-working and talented. He carries the show in a cast of 22 adults and kids and he's ten years old. When you work with kids, you know that's as good as it gets. In between the frenzy of opening Stuart Little, baking an Italian cookie a day for The Examiner and you know - the Christmas stuff, I took an evening off to concoct some candied orange peels.

But first Stuart - that's the mouse with his mother - having just rescued her engagement ring from the bathtub drain.

In one of my favorite scenes, some cats menace a pigeon. (Conflict in a children's play!) They glowed opening night. The show is a confection, a sweetness and they had all of that plus humor, insight into acceptance and finally - a responsive, grand audience. So I could go back to my kitchen.
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I am planning on making an almond-ricotta pudding and some panettone bread. Both call for candied orange and lemon peels.

My orange peels were thick - I cut the peel off - and sliced them into 1/4 inch pieces. I then boiled them for one minute - four times (you drain the water and start anew) until they were soft.

Some recipes have you cut the peel off with a vegetable peeler but then they are too flimsy to hold up to the sugar syrup.

Add 3 cups of sugar to one cup of water. Stir to dissolve and then heat to boiling.

Add your peels and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. You want the coating to be thick and shimmer on the peels. The peels should start to look translucent. Mine took an hour.
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Put wax paper under a wire rack, drain the sugar syrup and let dry for 6 hours. I let them dry over night.
They will adorn my Italian Cookie Christmas platter, be eaten from their airtight container at whim and be put into Italian Christmas desserts. They glisten also. Just like my cast.

I had a heavy hand when I dipped them into chocolate.

But no one minded. Because they're gone.

I hid a few to use for baking. My tree remains undecorated, my Christmas decor are in boxes - but the shimmery, glistening days are here. Onstage and at home.

A Mandelbrot for Hanukkah

Menorah photo: AP photo by Larry Crowe

On Friday, December 11th, latkes will be fried, menorahs will be lit and at sundown the Festival of Lights known as Hanukkah begins. Growing up in New York City in the 60's, I hailed from a neighborhood of Jewish refugees from WW II, Italians, Greeks and a smattering of Chinese (fleeing the Cultural Revolution), African-Americans and Hispanics. My birthday parties often resembled a United Nations, Junior. I have poignantly sweet memories of spending Hanukkah with friends. While not one of the most significant of Jewish Holidays, the lit menorahs make it one of the prettiest.

Mandelbrots are a cousin to the almond biscotti. Oil is used instead of butter and chopped almonds replace ground almonds. Everything else is the same. And equally delicious.

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Mandelbrot Recipe

2 cups flour

1/4 t salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

1 cup coarsely chopped almonds

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Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl combine flour, salt and baking powder. In another large bowl (or stand mixer) beat eggs. Slowly add sugar to eggs and mix on high for about 3 minutes until mixture is thick and creamy. Add oil and extract and beat till combined. If using a stand mixer, change whisk attachment to dough paddle. Slowly add flour (in fourths) and then chopped almonds until mixture comes together. It will be thick.

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Put dough on baking sheet. Using lightly oiled hands, mold into a log - about 12 inches by 3 inches. Bake for 45 minutes till browned and bread-like. Cool for ten minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut log diagonally into 1/2 inch logs. Bake cut-side down for five minutes. Turn cookie over and bake for an additional five minutes. Cool on racks.

"To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle." Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

"I ask not for a lighter burden but broader shoulders." Jewish Proverb

"May the lights of Hanukkah usher in a better world for all of mankind." Author unknown.

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May your burdens be light, your shoulders broad and your life filled with light. As with the shammes (servant), the 9th candle used to light the other candles, may you know that giving light and love to others does not take away from your own radiance. Happy Hanukkah!

Panforte Recipe and a Mouse

Don't you just love looking at ingredients. They are welcoming - just waiting to be used. And then the miracle of chemistry begins. My father was always bemused about my choices in life. He is retired but was a chemist. Daughter #1 (that would be me) did not seem to have a science or math gene in her body. But if you think about it - I did. It just mutated. For cooking is chemistry. Where the theatre gene came from - is a mystery for the ages.

Meanwhile I cook. And bake more than I used to - or it's the season. Lately I've been craving panforte. Not the $25.99/per pound panforte found in the specialty shops. They are too sweet, too cloying for me. I want dense, rich decadent chocolate - without tons of honey. I do want the sweetener! But I really want the chocolate ... and hazelnuts.

So I made some. Except for warming the honey, it all comes together in one bowl.

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Panforte Recipe

1/2 cup flour

2 T cocoa powder

1 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1/4 t ground cloves

a bit of pepper

1 cup chopped (or whole) almonds

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

1-1/2 cups dried cherries

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet; altho' tempted to use bittersweet)

1-2 T orange zest

1 T almond extract

1 T Marsala wine

1/2 cup (little less actually) honey

Panforte Preparation

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Coat a nine-inch brownie pan with cooking spray. Mix your cocoa with the flour. Add the spices and mix, then the nuts and then the zest and dried fruit. Add the chocolate chips and coat with mixture. Warm the honey in a sauce pan till almost boiling. Add your extract and wine and mix thoroughly. Pour warmed honey over prepared mixture and stir quickly to cover all. Spoon, scrape, pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Panforte is done when edges pull away from pan and become a bit "cake-y."

Dense and rich, a little bit goes a long way.

And it went down well with a glass of wine.

Meanwhile, I am spending my eves with this mouse. His name is Stuart Little and I have an assortment of 17 young performers and five adult actors. It's - busy, high-energy, filled with giant ping-pong balls, huge combs, a gargantuan engagement ring and chock full of Stuart's adventures. I've been having a few adventures of my own with them!

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Lovely bloggers have presented me with two awards which I shall happily display - after we open on Friday! Missing costume pieces, parents schedule for kid-wrangling, pot-luck for after the matinee and before the evening performance, publicity, shifts, photo call and oh yeah - the directing part have consumed me. And then there's this cookie-a-day I've been baking over at the Examiner. Which I know makes me certifiable for something...

Pomegranate Molasses for World's AIDS Day

I know I am a few days late. There are reasons - silly and serious - but that's for another post. Ever since I say 5-Star Foodie's post linking to Angela of Spinach Tiger and her Cooking Red to Remember I knew I had to participate. I was still living in NYC when this "unknown" disease fiercely struck. I sadly remember those lost, the panic, the fear and so I post. Angela's story is filled with love and compassion and worth your time.

I've had a hard time finding pomegranate molasses - and when I did, I found it to be about the price of a car payment, so I "surfed" at home looking for a way to make it. The recipes are similar but most remain too tart for my family (I've upped the sugar; you don't have to). I now put this all over pork roasts, add to chicken sauces, glaze roast vegetables with it and add a drop to a vinaigrette. I know there is a gelato in its future.

2 cups pomegranate juice
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
generous squeeze of 1/4 lemon

Put all in a saucepan and simmer till reduced to 1/4 cup and thick and syrupy. It took me about an hour and I checked and stirred every ten-minutes. Enjoy!