Palmiers

Palmiers also known as elephant ears, are a quick and simple cookie recipe to add to your holiday collection. It's really just three ingredients that make these crisp and flaky cookies come to life. With the addition of various spices you can turn simple into sparkling. Use your imagination and add spices you have in your pantry like ground ginger, ground cloves or pumpkin pie spice. Here is my recipe for palmiers....

1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
Pinch salt
2 sheets of puff pastry, defrosted
*optional pinch of your favorite spice ( ground nutmeg, glove, ginger, cinnamon..)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In a bowl combine the sugar and salt (if using a spice, also combine). On a clean work surface or large cutting board, pour 3/4 cups of the mix down on the surface and spread out. Lay one sheet of puff pastry sheet down and spread 1/2 cup of the mix. Using a rolling pin, press down and roll the sugar into the dough. The idea is to have the sugar almost become part of the dough and work the dough into 12 by 12 inch piece. Fold the sides to meet in the center, then repeat this and repeat again until you can bring the dough together in the middle. You should be able to get six layers. Using a serrated knife, slice the 3/8 inch thick and place onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Repeat with other piece of dough. Bake for 5-6 minutes on one side and then flip them over when caramelized and bake on the other side until golden. The cookies will be light, crisp and golden. Perfect for sharing at you holiday table. Enjoy!

Countdown to Christmas

It is December 13th and it is officially 12 days before my favorite holiday, Christmas. I love Christmas, not for presents, but for that feeling of family, tradition and of course food. In every family there is some kind of tradition to this holiday and my family is no different.

Coming from an Italian American family we always celebrated Christmas with tons of food, wine and laughs. I love sitting around the table listening to stories about the "old days" and even now I can remember some of those days. Like the night my Uncle Augie fell in the shower after drinking a bit too much or the Christmas Eve Stacy and I finally decided to try fish. Then there was the funniest Christmas morning when my dad gave us all fake scratch tickets and my brother thought he won thousand bucks. It was priceless and I can still hear my dad laughing.

Then there are the food memories. Christmas was special when my grandmother cooked. She would make everything for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and boy she never skimped. Christmas Eve was filled with lots of creatures from the sea. Grandma made a delicious lobster gravy using the claws and legs of the lobsters and making a tomato sauce with them in which she would pour over spaghetti. The bodies of the lobster were used for stuffing actually there was a lot of stuffed seafood, quahogs, scallops and shrimp to name a few. She also made fried broccoli, to have some kind of vegetable on the table. Christmas Eve was a night full of eating and we didn't stop there, the next day would also be a feast. On Christmas day, Grandma would always make soup with homemade cappelletti, which are meat filled pasta. They are meant to resemble little hats when they are shaped properly. I can remember these quite well as a child. The pasta so thin and delicate and the filling beautifully balanced with a variety of meat and nutmeg. We haven't had these in many years, probably since Christmas day was at Auntie's on Frankfort st. I thought it was time to challenge myself to the test of figuring out the recipe and bringing a family tradition back to Christmas day.

The filling has not been mastered yet, but it will have the staples, nutmeg, chicken, veal, pecorino Romano and others. I will of course call on my kitchen goddess, which is my grandmother and ask for her help as I try this recipe out for the first time. I will share the recipe when I have gotten it down, but for tonight let the 12 days until Christmas countdown begin and here's to the next couple days of recipe testing!

Enjoy!