Proud Italian Cook

Last Minute, Holiday Appetizers

December 21, 2012 by Marie 19 Comments

If your looking for a quick holiday appetizer to pull together on a moments notice have no fear, these bite size bundles are the perfect thing!

Providing you have a box or two of puff pastry tucked away in your freezer. You have some don’t you? If not you should!

Take it straight out of the freezer, lay it on your counter, in ten or fifteen minutes you’ll be able to separate the sheets. Then sprinkle a little flour on your counter and with a pizza cutter, cut the sheet into thirds, then each third into four slices, for a total of 12 per sheet, if you cut into the other sheet you’ll have a whopping 24 appetizers!

Now place each square into a mini muffin pan, I didn’t have to grease mine but it has been called to my attention that you might have to depending on the type of muffin tins you might have. My tins are not non stick but they are fairly new so maybe the butter in the pastry was just enough.

Now the fun begins, the fillings are endless! I had less than a cup of caramelized onions sitting in my fridge so I took a bowl and mixed the onions with gorgonzola cheese and toasted walnuts, that’s how I made mine here.
Each puff pastry cup only requires a heaping tablespoon so you don’t need much filling at all.
Think, tomato, basil and goat cheese, roasted peppers and fontina, spinach, artichoke and feta, crabmeat and cream cheese, gouda and apple, roasted mushrooms with gruyere, Do you have a jar of fig jam or even chutney in your fridge? How about a little brie and fig? You get the picture, use what you have, it’s all good!
They take 20 minutes in a 375 oven, in the meantime open a cold bottle of wine, they’ll be done in no time!

I know this is a busy time for everyone, myself included, I’ve shopped, wrapped, planned my Christmas menu and baked my last cookie, with a little help from my granddaughter!

Puff Cookies, they’re tradition in my house! One bite brings back happy memories to me.
Now if I could just stop at one bite, that would be a good thing!

But what I really wanted to do was to take this opportunity to thank you, all my readers, for the wonderful support you’ve given me, and to wish you all a very Happy Holiday filled with an over abundance of happiness, amazing food, surrounded by those you love!
xox

19 Comments Filed Under: Appetizers, Party Foods, Winter Tagged: christmas, holiday appetizers, puff cookies, puff pastry

Dinner Party Worthy, Shrimp and Artichoke Risotto

December 12, 2012 by Marie 17 Comments

I made this recently and it was such a big hit I wanted to share! Succulent tiger shrimp with fresh artichoke hearts, sitting on a bed of creamy risotto.

The flavor was super enhanced by this fabulous roasted garlic olive oil I received from Colavita. I love their olive oils but I never tried their roasted garlic version, all I can say is you need a bottle of this in your kitchen! I had a few fresh artichokes ( you could use frozen, I wouldn’t use canned) that I cut, quartered and steamed, then tossed them into the garlic oil and placed them in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes, the flavor is addicting!

I did the same thing with the shrimp, tossing them into the roasted garlic oil, sprinkling them with salt, pepper and a little peperoncino. I roasted the shrimp Ina’s way on a baking sheet for 5 or 6 minutes at 400 until the shrimp are cooked through. This method is full proof, cooks perfect every time!

The risotto itself was made with 1 box of chicken stock that was warmed in a pot on my stove and
1 1/2 cups of arborio rice.
In a heavy bottomed pan heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, sweat 1/2 diced onion. Add the rice, stirring and coating it with the butter and oil. Saute for a couple of minutes but don’t brown it, then add 1/2 cup of white wine and let it absorb. Add a ladle of hot chicken stock to the rice and let all the liquid absorb, then add another ladle and repeat the process stirring constantly.
I tossed in a handful of frozen peas along the way, added fresh snipped basil and parsley and a touch more butter in the end.
Pour your creamy warm risotto on a nice big platter and lay your roasted artichokes and shrimp all around.
The roasted garlic flavor took the risotto to another level, there wasn’t one grain of rice left!

17 Comments Filed Under: Party Foods, Rice and Risotto, Seafood, Uncategorized Tagged: artichoke, Colavita, risotto, roasted garlic olive oil, shrimp

Holiday Baking has Begun!

December 5, 2012 by Marie 19 Comments

I don’t consider myself a baker, using exact measurements is a difficult thing for me to do, as regular readers of my blog well know, but there are certain things I must bake every holiday season and one thing is Italian fig cookies or Cucidati, they’re truly a family favorite.

I’ve posted them a few times before but since my blog chronicles my life in food I thought I’d share some recent pic’s of the day we made them. I say “we” because I never make them alone, always with family, we make a day of it, we start early, I usually always make a pot of soup or chili to eat for lunch because we go way beyond lunch time!

I have a big dining room table, I clear everything off and cover it with wax paper, after they cool on racks they get placed there waiting to be frosted.

There were four of us, we ended up making a little over 400, we started at 9:00am and ended at 4pm, not bad! We each took 100 plus for ourselves.

We started off drinking coffee as we worked.

But as the day went on we were sipping this! Have you tried? Dumante, it’s a pistachio liqueur, luxurious, smooth and might I add, it went very well with our cucidati taste testing!

I love it so much I made a zabaione with it a couple of days later, a light boozy custard usually made with marsala wine, but I replaced it with Dumante Verdenoce.

Here’s how you make it in case you happen to pick up a bottle.
1/4 cup of Dumante** 1/4 cup granulated sugar** 1/4 cup heavy cream** 3 egg yolks**
Set up a pan of simmering water** place a heat safe bowl on top of the water filled with all the ingredients** whisk the mixture continuously over simmering water, not boiling.** cook until you get a consistency of a thin pudding with the internal temp of 145 degrees** remove and continue whisking until you reach room temperature** if it’s too thick add cream or water.**

I make the same recipe every year for the fig cookies, it’s so similar to my mother-in laws except butter is replaced for the Crisco that she always used, here’s the link.
We never made them in the form of X’s but rather like above. You can change up the nuts, sometimes I use walnuts instead, and in place of orange peels I find a good orange marmalade to work wonderfully, you could also replace whiskey for the rum. As I mentioned before we never put chocolate in ours but it’s optional.
We always glaze them by using confectioners sugar mixed with water or milk, vanilla, and sometimes a little anise extract. Non- perils for sprinkling.