Box it up

Here's to...

-Leaving 2011 in the past where it belongs.  We have a few more hours left to self-reflect on the year and everything it brought or what it didn't bring.  For everything that was accomplished and for the things that are still on the "to-do" list of life.  For the fabulous people you surround yourself with everyday, for the people you can do without and the people you just want to hold onto in whatever way you can.  For every great moment that you knew was unfolding right in front of you and for every lesson that it took awhile longer to learn the significance and strength of.  Spend however much time reflecting that you need but then put the year and all it's elements in a box and label it what is it...history. 

-Welcoming 2012 with all the pomp and circumstance that it deserves.  To throwing away the resolutions and the plans and just letting life unfold how it should.  To pushing the boundaries of your life too far everyday so you can know what they actually are supposed to be.  To firing your "representative", freeing your mind and just being your one true self.  To stop caring what everyone else thinks and start focusing on what you believe in and what you know is true.  I can think of 1000 different things to toast to and hope for that are all well and good but the most important thing is to face forward, don't look back and be ready to run as soon as the clock strikes midnight and the new year unfolds. 

Bring it on 2012.  I'm more then ready for you and all that you've got in store for me this year!

Christmas Wrap Up and the Buche Off

It has taken a few days to recover from all the events and meals of Christmas but here we are and I have to say that I really enjoyed the holidays this year.  I'm sure that it helped that I wasn't a slave to all of the fun, retail holiday madness but I got to spend quality time enjoying activities such as wrapping presents, baking and most importantly planning my Christmas Eve dinner.  We have always hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our home throughout my entire life and it has always been a combination of Polish and Italian classics that were shared amongst family and friends.  Through the years certain elements have always held true such as having Pierogi, the Polish Mushroom Soup and some sort of seafood dishes to celebrate "La Vigilia" which is feast of the seven fishes, a traditional Southern Italian event.  We've never had quite seven and this year we tapped out the menu at 6 different fish dishes but I knew that this year would be the time to go all out with a menu.  It was like I was getting an opportunity to dig deep into my fantasy Christmas playbook and make things that either I believed always belonged on our Christmas Eve table or recipes that I wanted to tackle that would just take the meal to the next level (considering I feel like now that we throw all of these dinner parties that you just can't skimp out when it comes to really special dinners like Christmas Eve).  Here is our menu rundown for Christmas Eve:
-Cold Lobster Spread (for guests to pick on as they arrived)
-Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
-Fried Calamari
-Roasted Shrimp Cocktail (Thank you Ina Garten for revolutionizing the way I make Shrimp)
-Traditional Polish Mushroom Soup aka Barszcz
-Baccala (Salted Cod in Red Sauce) based on my Grandmother's recipe with a few added additions to give it my own touch.  I have to tell you that I was really nervous about making this dish...I kept dwelling on all of these doubts as I was making it of "would the fish be to salty, would it taste anything like my Grandmother's, or would I miss the mark completely on this one like the infamous meat sauce incident of 2009?"  But once I served the dish that night, got the baccala seal of approval from Ray and continued to watch as they scraped the dutch oven clean I knew that I has mastered the art of the baccala).

-Potato and Sauerkraut Pierogi
-Scallop Gratin
-Clementine Granita (you knew that there would have to be a Martha touch in there somehow.

-Buche de Noel (the French Chocolate Log)

One could say that I was borderline obsessed with making the Buche.  I have seen them in magazines for years and always loved the way it looked and thought how it would be this amazing culmination of a holiday dinner.  One day in talking about Christmas dinners, I made mention of making a buche to my fellow "fabulously domesticated" friend Carmina who got just as excited as I did about making one and then I knew there was no backing out.  There are always 3 elements to making the buche - The chocolate sponge cake that needs to be baked to a perfect consistency for rolling, the mousse that acts as the filling and then the ganache frosting.  I used a recipe from The Canal House for my cake and frosting but wanted a little bit of a lighter element for the mousse so I used Denise's wonderful white chocolate frangelico mousse instead and it was perfect.  I'm still picking at the leftovers 4 days later but it was a huge hit and once you were in the thick of it rolling the cake and piping the chocolate frosting on, it wasn't as overwhelming as I thought it would be.  Carmina's came out just as nice and was as big as a hit at her family's Christmas Dinner as well.  We did realize though...that next year we are going to make them together along with half of the other elements of our Christmas Dinner recipes that we traded off. 

the buche after a successful role

after the icing

  

about to be devoured.



I Love Pierogi...

This past Sunday we celebrated what is probably my most favorite day of the year...Pierogi Night.  For those of you that don't know, I'm half Polish and therefore eat pierogi on Christmas Eve every year as part of our traditional half-Polish, half-Italian dinner.  Probably one of my most earliest cooking memories as a kid was every year making pierogi with my Mom and grandmother MeMe.  MeMe would mix the dough by hand using a wooden board that would come out once a year for this purpose only and would be able to just feel the dough and know if it was the right texture and consistency.  She would then roll out the dough by hand using a rolling pin and then my brother and I would have the job of cutting out the circles using a special metal cutter that was crafted by my grandfather probably 50 years ago.  Then my mother would fill them and pinch their edges together since she has always had the magic touch or fingers to do the job.  With what I believe was over 15 years ago when we moved into our new house, our friend Marc wanted to come over to learn the art of pierogi and with him he brought some modern day cooking techniques to the process.  We now mix the dough in a KitchenAid mixer and the dough gets rolled out using a pasta machine which gives you perfect long strips for cutting out the circles.  MeMe still always gave her final approval on the feel of the dough before it went into the rollers and my mother continued to take up her roll as the filler/pincher.  That first year there was a small amount of dough left over and Marc suggested that we make some homemade pasta with it and from there the "Pierogi Party" was born.  This tradition has continued every year and has grown in size and caliber because as you all know by now, we do nothing small in our house and  embody Jane Austen's quote when it comes to entertaining that "one can never have too large a party".  Some years we have broke out the accordion and sang rousing renditions of Christmas carols, usually the bottle of limoncello comes out, people have come and gone but the same things hold true that its so many of my favorite people, great food, lots to drink and what always feels like is the kickoff to Christmas week.  Some people refer to it as a scam party because we don't actually eat pierogi but instead loads of homemade pasta and meatballs.  And while MeMe is no longer with us, it kind of acts as this wonderful memorial to her every year because you can always remember her standing over the stove and the pots of pierogi, handing them out to whoever endeared themselves to her (Greg you were always the chosen one!) and she would just take in all the hoopla well into her eighties. 

Aaron showing off our new aprons while rolling dough

I couldn't wait for this year's  Pierogi Party to come along because I knew that I would no longer have to be running from New York to get here on time and that I would really be able to celebrate and enjoy it.  And now that another year's party is behind us and pretty much all of the flour has been cleaned up I can truly say that it was truly an amazing evening!!!  We started in the afternoon with our core group of pierogi workers that includes my Mom, Aunts Monica and Sandy, my cousin Aaron and Greg and Cathy Russo and this year we even had the added surprise of these FABULOUS aprons that Aaron had made up that stated "I love Pierogi" with the Polish eagle and all.  From there the pasta making continued with the pasta team who by that point totally took over which was great so I could run around playing host making sure everyone was having a good of a time as I was.  I wish I could tell you how much pasta we actually made but as you can see from the pictures it was a lot and at 44 guests strong we went through a sleuth of wine, 50-60 homemade meatballs made courtesy of the Soda's, porchetta from Marc and many bowls of pasta.  And all I could keep thinking to myself through the entire night was "how lucky am I" that I get to be surrounded by all of my favorite people, get to help prepare this amazing meal and host this phenomenal party that everyone looks forward to every year.  You realize all of the things that are so important to you, that you get to carry on this tradition in your family that continues to grow and evolve every year and I know MeMe would be so proud of what great pierogi makers we have all become. 

the infamous falconette cookbook that gets referenced every year

the dough recipe hand written in

 tossing the pasta

ready to hit the pot

June Cleaver would be proud

Last night we had what you can call a "throwback" kind of dinner.  I was looking for something quick and easy to make for dinner with what we already had in our fridge and freezer and actually surprised myself with how good it ended up coming out.  When I was still at WS, I had a customer that would order mass quantities of this special Parmesan grater at a time where I would always happily place the order and finally I inquired how all of these graters were going to use.  After a little hemming and hawing, the customer explained that she was a PR rep for Hellman's Mayonnaise  and that she was setting up cooking demos on national talk shows like "The View".  They were going to demonstrate making Hellman's Parmesan Chicken which had become this pretty popular recipe for them and therefore were giving the Parmesan graters away in the swag bags to go along with the segment.  At first thought even though I'm a girl who is a big fan of mayonnaise I was somewhat on the fence of actually cooking chicken with mayo on it so I never thought to make it at home.  Well fast forward to a few months later where I now have some free time on my hands to expand my weeknight dinner rotation and I had a bag of frozen chicken legs leftover from the CSA chicken freezer special.  The legs could have good slathered in barbecue sauce cooked on the grill but I was somewhat intrigued and mystified by the whole breaded chicken leg "shake and bake" concept considering we never ate meals like that when I was younger.  I also didn't know how my family would react to this new foreign concept but I figured if I could make it my own then I would have happy eaters at home. 

Call it Hellman's, call it "Shake and Bake" or a combination of both but June Cleaver would have been quite proud of the chicken I made last night.  Here is my riff on the concept:
-Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and line a cookie sheet with foil (this will help keep your cookie sheets clean for all of the baking you'll be doing in the next few weeks).
-In a small bowl, mix together 2-3 tbs of mayonnaise and 2 tbs of mustard (I had honey mustard open at home so that's what I used but any variety will do).  Using a pastry brush, give each chicken leg a good coating of the mayo/mustard combo that is going to act as your glue for the crumbs.
-In a shallow bowl or plate, mix together 3/4 of a cup of seasoned bread crumbs with 1/4 of a cup of Parmesan cheese along with salt and pepper to taste.  Roll each of the chicken legs in the coating so they are covered all around and then arrange on the foiled cookie sheet.
-Bake for 35-40 minutes until the juices run clear when you cut into your chicken and the bread crumbs are a nice golden brown color.  (I'm still one of those people that can't eyeball when chicken is done so there will always be a piece of chicken with a cut down the middle).

I served our chicken with farm stand carrots and glazed white turnips and then a simple orzo tossed with butter, fresh herbs I had leftover, and the zest from one lemon. 

How it's been...

First off before I can go any further I just need to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone for all of their support, well wishes, encouragement and all around positive thoughts that have come out as a result of my big news of last week.  With any big decision that you make you are always going to waiver a touch with whether you are making the right choice or not and just seeing every one's words and cheer surrounding this really helped push me over the edge.  A few years ago I borrowed a mantra from Tom Daschle (for all of you none politic buffs: the former Senate Majority Leader) which is "that your windshield is larger then your rear view mirror" and these past few days, I just keep on "wind shielding it" and looking forward to what the future will hold.  Don't get me wrong, I still have the "holy shit" moments of "what the hell have I done?" but I just keep trying to remind myself of whether I would rather be getting up at 4am to go to a job that I no longer found fulfilling and because of that usually become OK with this new stage in my life.

So I'm sure you have been asking yourself by this point...well what is Catie up to with all of this free time on her hands?  Well I can tell you it's been a little bit of an adjustment realizing you have all of this free time now on your hands especially after always dreaming and joking that you really just wanted a few free days to get things done.  The first few days have been filled with some home organizing, some general housekeeping and of course a new string of stay at home dinners.  Our Christmas cards are already written and sent out which is a major accomplishment for this house considering we never even mailed cards at all and I've already started making the cookie baking list which is going to kick off next week.  There is a lot of things I'm looking forward to accomplishing in the next few weeks but the nice thing is that they no longer have to be done at a marathon pace like they used to be.  And if it ever stops raining, then maybe I can get outside to run my own little marathon of a couple of miles before I'm destined for a winter of treadmills.

One funny coincidence of being home these first few days has been that 2 different people have inquired about "cooking questions for the chef" and they both happened to do with roasting beets.  So if 2 people have already asked, I'm sure there are more home cooks out there who have the urge to roast some nice beets as well and here is my preferred method: roasted beets with balsamic glaze.  I follow the recipe up until they are fork tender and ready to be peeled and then they just get a quick toss of good balsamic before they get sliced over a salad.  And nothing beats a nice roasted beet salad over some field greens with crumbled goat cheese and whatever nuts you have around your kitchen as a nice simple dinner.  So to make a long story short, if you have a burning cooking question that you are looking to find out whether it be simple or complex send it on over my way and I'm sure with all of this free time I can come up with a good answer and solution for you. 

Putting on your own oxygen mask

I'm sure all of you are about to fall over at the sight of the new blog post but just stay seated for a moment and read on...yes, I'm actually updating the blog for the first time in over a month today.  I can go on and tell you all of the things that I did in the last month between work, and catering jobs and everything else that your head would probably spin and then you would understand why this girl hasn't sat down in from of a computer or I can just tell you this.  Today I submitted my resignation at my job that has become effective immediately.  This is something that I have been thinking about doing for a long time and some things changed at work and then you start to realize that you are just not happy anymore and a lot of people are seeing that and something just needs to change.  So you start to do that gut check of what actually feels right in your life anymore and as someone once told me "you and you alone need to be the one to put your own oxygen mask on because no one else is going to do it for you".  After 7+ years with the company and 3 and 1/2 years in New York of working a minimum of 12 hour days which included that lovely 3 hour commute, I'm regaining control of my life.   Part of me just thinks that I need a break from everything considering I started working full time 3 days after I graduated from college and never looked back which was 5 years ago and part of me knows that I just need a change and to move onto the next chapter in my life.  For months now I kept thinking to myself that I didn't want to do this anymore because there was very little joy or excitement that came out it.  I was no longer passionate about working so much and never having nights and weekends free and retail is a completely different animal that it used to be.  And as your life plate continues to get fuller from all of the many things that you throw onto it, you can never give any one thing that attention that it really deserves so you can either start to feel like an octopus where you try to cover everything trying to go in in every direction or you can decide what truly is important to you. 

So, I'm sure the question that is on every one's minds is "What the hell is she going to do now with her life?"  Well first off I'm actually going to celebrate the holidays like a normal person for the first time in however long that I can remember because I will no longer be so exhausted that I can barely stand up and not have to feel like I'm actually running from place to place and have my holiday joy sucked out of me from the bright lights and pleasures of retail at Christmas.   I'm going to cater and bake and do things that actually bring true joy and passion to my life and then I'll either get another job or I'll figure out at way to get a business off the ground.  I said to someone last night, "look I'm going to be more then OK.  If I have to sell cupcakes off the side of the road or work a bunch of different jobs, I will figure it out because I know that I can do this".  I'm going to reshuffle my deck of cards, figure out what kind of person I want to be and be that person.  I'm not going to be afraid to try something new because as the story goes "Noah had never built a ship before he built an Ark, but a group of professionals had built the Titanic and we all know how that turned out". I'm going to recreate myself, as my mother always reminds me that people need to do in their lives and it's just going to happen sooner rather then later and I know that this is just one of many chapters that will make up my adult life. 

I have never felt so sure and so good about a decision that I have made then I do today and it is such a beautiful, liberating feeling to have.  Friends who have left retail keep telling that the grass is so much frickin greener on the other side and I CAN NOT wait to see the bright side even though it feels like I'm there already.  This is no where near an end but only a very big beginning.