Silver Spoon Christmas

Buon Natale! The Dutton, Meller Rizzo clan had a beautiful Christmas, a lovely time celebrated with family and friends. 

The Silver Spoon Cookbook was our inspiration for an Italian Style Christmas. A classic cookbook, it was adapted a few years back to the international market and has gained world-wide popularity. It's  filled with authentic and easy Italian recipes and known to be overwhelming in it's scope. However, if you can focus on trying a few recipes, you'll come back to those recipes again and again. A funny thing about the Silver Spoon is that it is often confused with the Silver Palate cookbook, which is equally popular and well-loved.

Sammie did a great job creating a festive Christmas atmosphere for the table. 

We also had a British feel with Christmas crackers in the mix. 

Who doesn't want to don a crown for the holidays?

There were excesses in appetizers. And, we had a bit of a healthy bent 

with a crudite to go along with a homemade hummus plate. 

Always a winner, Blue's calamari plate was polished off quickly. In fact, truth be told, we reminded Sam & Danny to be sure the guests had a chance to try this Christmas favorite. Here is the recipe for the calamari. 

We had flavored olive oils on hand for dipping, for scooping up with 

local Artisian Sourdough Hungry Ghost Bread. 

This is the Local Trinity loaf, made with local triticale, spelt and wheat. 

And we all went gaga over the Lamb Meatballs with Lemon Cumin Dip. 

Here is a link to the recipe at Chow which is on it's way to becoming an old standby in our household. 

We made it with pork instead of lamb this time as the teens aren't big fans. It's fabulous either way.

Sarah made a lovely tomato based Minestrone with Lentils for our first course. 

Our entree was Cod & Pancetta with Vegetables from The Silver Spoon, a dependable dish that we have prepared at least a dozen times or more.  

This is delicious for all of the seafood fans! 

Since it was Christmas, I put in more butter than called for and used half and half instead of milk.

Creamy deliciousness. 

I had to get a shot of these tomatoes from River Valley Market, that we added to our chopped salad. They are from Lady Moon Farms, a organic Fair Food Farm that operates between Pennsylvania and Florida. And, as you can see, they produce beautiful tomatoes year round. 

This is Dani, the veggie chopper, extraordinaire! 

The final results. Nice job Dani!

All that chopping made her sleepy? Perhaps it was all the fish & pasta!

Dessert was a Chocolate Peppermint Cake courtesy of Toni, Sarah's famous English Trifle and Indian Cookies. Here are the chopped raisins and cranberries for the cookies. 

Sailu's Indian Kitchen Fruit & Nut Shortbread Cookies

We were all happy in the end! 

Wintry Local Food Mix

As if you didn't have enough compelling reasons to love Western Massachusetts! In this snowy region of the states, we have an abundance and variety of lovely, organic, local produce. And, to top it off, we can access these local veggies throughout the winter at the Northampton Winter Farmers Market.  I have to give a shout out to  CISA's (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) dedication to growing and enhancing our local food system. CISA is responsible for a Buy Local campaign  & for collaborating with communities to bring these markets to Greenfield, Springfield, Northampton and Amherst. The Northampton Market is held on Saturdays from 9-2 at Smith Vocational High School.

Believe it or not, even teenagers love

The Northampton Winter Market. 

One of the old standbys of the Winter Farmer's Market is Winter Moon Roots. This farm is truly committed to sustainability, with a plan to become carbon neutral by 2015 and they often deliver their produce to market by bicycle. The produce is some of the best of the valley, benefiting from the rich soil along the Connecticut River in Hadley.  Just thinking about the carrots and watermelon radish makes my mouth water. I often roast them together with olive oil to bring out their flavor. Add some seasoning and herbs and you have an outstanding veggie-driven side, sure to be enjoyed by all. 

And, the Winter Moon prices are so reasonable! Sweet, sweet carrots for the same price as the whittled down & bagged commercial carrots traveling by truck from hundreds of miles away.

Winter Moon, delivering the finest

in root veggies

One very full hand of carrots. Just gorgeous. 

This Farmers Market's resident Barrista was delivering outstanding coffee to sleepy morning shoppers.  Meet Western Woods.  In the style of a food truck, they are delivering great coffee from small batch roasters at many events throughout Western Massachusetts. They are also available for catering gigs. 

We loved their business card display. 

They have a clean and simple coffee system. 

Local farmer and CSA, Kitchen Garden of Sunderland, MA, had a variety of produce available and herbs on hand. They also are producing a local Sriracha sauce. I made sure I got my hands on a bottle, especially considering the recent Hoy Fong Sriracha concerns. : ) You don't want to run out of this essential condiment! 

Fresh thyme in winter was a nice surprise 

from Kitchen Garden

You can find just about everything you need from the winter market, including superior baked goods from Bread Euphoria and El Jardin, fresh pastas, honey, cheese, grass fed meet, eggs and lots of winter vegetables. We are looking forward to enjoying our golden beets, blue potatoes and onions. And, of course, Dani couldn't resist the apples of Apex Orchards, an orchard in Shelburne Falls that has been supplying fresh produce since 1828. 

All the apples were great. 

But, Macouns are the best! 

And, last, but not least, we picked up some body enhancing gifts at Simple Abundance herbals of Northampton. I think we got everything covered. 

All of your tinctures, lotions and rubs

I highly recommend that you stop by the Northampton Market sometime soon. It's a great place to bump into old friends and to support your local farmer, food purveyor and community. Hope to see you there! 

2 Beans & Spanish Tortilla

Following the big Thanksgiving blowout (read as Too Much Pie), we thought it wise to ramp things up a bit in the veggie department. So, I had my eye keen on anything that called for bright, green vegetables.

Fortunately, we became a wee over-zealous in the holiday season with the heavy availability of organic, inexpensive green beans at our local co-op, the River Valley Market. So, needless to say, we're in a position to have a green bean extravaganza this week if we wish. In green bean recipe research, there certainly were some stunners.

A recipe that popped out amongst the others was a recipe for Green Beans with Lemon & Garlic. Dani doesn't  like things too spicy, so the red pepper flakes were replaced with a 1/2 tsp. of aromatic fennel seed, which worked beautifully.

The beans were paired with... more beans! Several years ago, soon after we moved to Northampton, we sampled the mung bean salad from Shital's Vegetarian Cuisine at the Brattleboro Farmers's Market.  And, luckily, we'll be able to continue satisfying cravings for this bright and healthy salad with this Tangy Mung Bean Salad recipe,  now an old-standby in our household.

Also on my mind was making a Mini Spanish Tortilla. I recently requested an 8" cast iron pan from the Buy Nothing Northampton/Amherst Facebook page. Lucky me! It rained cast iron pans. Down from the sky fell a 5 inch mini iron skillet a 10 inch skillet and a cast iron grilling pan. None of them landed on my noggin, leaving us able to enjoy a mini-Spanish Tortilla to go along with our green beans and mung bean salad. Thanks to Marci for the lil' cast iron pan, which I'm sure will have heavy usage. This pan is also going to serve us very well for oven-baked appetizers.

Mini Spanish Tortilla in progress

A lot of beans, a little tortilla

Turkish With All The Trimmings

Non-tradition has become tradition for our Thanksgiving Day feast. Two years past, after getting chilly at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, we came upon a fantastic free feast at Occupy Wall Street, all generously donated by chefs of New York City restaurants. Volunteers demanded our attendance for the Thanksgiving meal-really, they pulled us in. The teens were a little unsure, but once they got a taste of the delicious fare, they were more than content. Last year we enjoyed the famed Lam Zhou Noodles of NYC's Chinatown. For $25, including tip, we had 4 heaping bowls of beef noodle soup with hand-pulled noodles and a big plate of pot stickers. This place isn't fancy, but it is high on an authentic atmosphere with seriously good Chinese eats!

This year we decided to stay local, celebrating with the theme Turkish with all The Trimmings. Most of our menu came from Claudia Roden's Arabesque cookbook, a collection of classic Turkish, Moroccan and Lebanese dishes. The meal was a communal effort and luckily, we had an opportunity for a kitchen dance break.

Everyone came close to filling up on the appetizers! We savored the goodness of dipping our crusty bread in Za'atar, Egyptian Dukkah, Italian and Dark Cherry Balsamic olive oils.

Dark Cherry Balsamic from Cosimano e Ferrari,

A favorite purveyor of flavored balsamic and

olive oil in my hometown of Rochester, NY

Dip your crusty bread here

Other appetizers included Blue's ever popular Calimari Salad, Hummus Plate, Baked Feta, 

Roasted Peppers and Eggplant & Toni's Minty Pea Dip. 

Calimari Salad

Show off your Feta Bake! : )

Toni's Highly Addicting Minty Pea Dip

from Whole Living

Let's not forget the Roasted Peppers & Eggplant w/ Garlic Sauce

Following a post-appetizer frenzy, we sat down to a meal of Seared Tuna w/ Lemon Sauce, Turkish Rice & Scallion Mashed Potatoes. For salads: Cucumber Salad, Beet Salad & a Leafy Greens Salad. 

As you can see, Dani thoroughly enjoyed Beet Salad preparation. 

Beet Salad with Garlic Yogurt Sauce 

We  can't get enough of Turkish Rice!

And the entree, Pan Seared Tuna with Lemon Sauce and Scallion Mashed Potatoes...

Dinner for 5 called for 5 desserts: Persian Love Cake, Brownies, Pecan Pie, 

Chocolaty Chocolate Brownies and Vanilla Ice Cream.

We will be enjoying dessert for days. 

We were happy. We gave thanks. And, we were grateful. 

Sam Loves "Slingapore" Noodles

Sam is back from College for Thanksgiving weekend so I made one of her favorites, what she calls "Slingapore" Noodles. Yes. She is never going to live it down. :) This is a fun dish to make as you will pretty quickly be able to pull together this dish with your eyes closed! We usually use a fresh yellow noodle. This time around, we used a fresh rice noodle from the refrigerator case and the results were excellent. Although we do most of our shopping at the co-op, we get some of our Asian specialties at Trans World Market in Hadley. We really love the owners and the store has quite a depth of selection for all foods Asian and Indian.

I highly recommend these White Rice Noodles.

Red peppers, lime, scallion and a mix of herbs brighten this dish. 

Dani helped with the preparation. A popular task is beating up the peanuts with a wooden meat tenderizer. Way to go, Dani!

The wok was full of noodles, but not for long! Sriracha is generously added to the noodles. With all of the Sriracha fracas in the air, I'll have to stock up quickly. 

Speaking of Sriracha, the creaters of The Oatmeal  comics shares excellent comics for Sriracha lovers and they have t-shirts too! 

Giant Bowls of Slingapore Noodles for All

Sam's selfie of taking a break from college eats to savor home cooking

A contented Sam relaxing with Alexander the Chocolate Faced Border Collie

Another Mediterranean Meal with Friends: Featuring Potato Lasagna

This past Sunday, we pulled together a Mediterranean meal to be enjoyed with these guys. And their parents and grandparents too! Their grandma, Jill, is an outstanding cook and has invited us for many lovely meals and introduced us to many tasty and traditional English dishes. One day, I hope to be as an extraordinary a cook as she is. The baking? I'm not even going to try. I'm already thinking about her Christmas Eve event of the season.

For appetizers we had crusty bread from The Hungry Ghost Bakery, Hummus with Vegetables, Marinated Eggplant with Mint & Capers, and Red & Yellow peppers with Capers. We also tried a new dish, Tomato, Feta and Red Pepper Cazuela.

The eggplant, patiently waiting to be cooked in oil and smothered in mint, garlic, salt & pepper... And of course, more olive oil!

And, voila, the final product, which we marinated overnight. I believe I can now say I have prepared this dozens of times for gatherings of friends and families. And, it is so well-loved, that our friend Elisabeth recently made this for her daughter Rebecca's wedding.

 The Marinated Eggplant is based on a recipe from the Silver Spoon Italian cookbook. I hugely recommend the Silver Spoon cookbook. It is a staple in our household and every recipe we have tried has been dependable and delicious!

We made a couple of Bill Bradley's recipes. Bill has created many fantastic Mediterranean recipes, which are now are on a constant rotation. We made a couple of fast & easy tapas on the stovetop-Olives & Rosemary as well as Red & Yellow Peppers with Capers. The Red and Yellow Peppers pops with color and was excellent as an appetizer and with our meal. Copious garlic included!

Alas, with all of the excitement, I was only able to get a kitchen prep shot of La Cazuela. It is particularly beautiful after the feta is baked and was delicious slathered on the crusty french batard. I'll be sure to get a picture in the future as we are sure to prepare this appetizer again. Enjoy this recipe from Splendid Table. I would love to hear what you think!

We also had a store bought hummus with vegetables, which we beautified with Spanish paprika, dukkah, parsley, pan-fried chick peas and olive oil. Dukkah is an Egyptian spice mix and there are many versions. You can use store bought and there are also many versions on-line. We used store bought dukkah that was a mix of almonds, sesame seeds, coriander, anise seeds and kosher salt. Dukkah is also excellent served with bread and olive oil.

The hummus was served with colorful carrots from a local farm and English cucumbers.

For the meal, we had a main dish entree of potato lasagna. Potato lasagna is prepared like Italian lasagna, with the substitution of par-broiled potato slices in the place of lasagna noodles. Our lasagna dish included a ricotta mix with parsley, spinach and lemon zest. We also adjusted the recipe to include sliced mushrooms. We used a delicately spiced fennel sauce that Donna created using local tomatoes from our farm share at Mountain View Farm CSA in Easthampton.

My niece Dani assisted with potato lasagna assembly.

Potato Lasagna, ready to go in the oven!

I learned of this dish when we were looking at Swedish cookbook for our friend Sarah's Swedish themed Christmas dinner. The word we heard is that this dish was developed as pasta was foreign to the Swedes.

The potato lasagna was served with an addicting stove top prepared Romanesco broccoli dish using this recipe from Saveur.

And, of course, we had a platter of green salad with our meal.

Needless to say, all tummies were full. Good times were had by all. The kiddos mostly focused on appetizers and yummy giant Twinkie cupcakes from Smithsonian Chowder House in Hatfield.