Christmas at our house is elaborate, to say the least. Starting with dinner for 27.
This year’s menu featured 22lbs of porcetta, homemade gnocchi with sage butter, marinated carrot salad with cilantro, stuffed mini bell peppers, orange, olive & fennel salad, bread sticks and cheese bread with pepper spread and for dessert a glorious bouche de noel, kourabiethes cookies & fruit. Simple, right?
Image captions above tell the story.
My kids are 6 years apart. I don’t meet a lot of people who have a big age gap like that, and I have to say it’s real mixed bag. But I’m sure there are pros and cons to any age difference.
For example, my friend’s kids are 16 months apart and she said every time she’d finally get the newborn to latch on, the 16 month old would do something like throw himself into the fireplace (with a fire in it).
The way it worked for us was that Rose was finally at the relatively low-maintenance age of 6, and then—like the totally nutty folks we are—we went and threw a newborn in the mix.
And now I’m 46 and have a rambunctious, energetic preschooler who wakes me up in the middle of the night. And I’m tired. So tired. All. The. Time.
But there are also times when it’s totally magical. Like when Sid is having a tantrum and we’re at our wits end, and Rose implores us to try to remember what it’s like to be a little kid, and then somehow soothes him out of his rage.
And like today, when they decided to make cookies for Santa, on their own with no adult supervision. I listened to them from upstairs:
“Sid, if you eat too much batter you’ll get a stomach ache.” “And then I’ll DIE and go back to the EARTH!!!” “No Sid, you won’t die from a stomach ache, but you will die someday, everybody does. But you don’t have to worry about that for a long, long time. OK?”
So for today, I’ll say I wouldn’t have it any other way. And now I have to go and bake the rest of those cookies because apparently 4 & 10 year olds only have enough attention span for one batch.
It was my turn to cook tonight. This meant dinner would be on the fly, because you know, work, kid pick-up, walking home with a four year old takes forever, Christmas-is-a-coming etc.
I looked in the fridge and found asparagus. I looked on food52 and found the recipe for Pasta con Asparagi for which I had all of the ingredients except the fresh herbs. This qualifies as a miracle in my book so I got to cooking.
(Don’t shame me about the fresh herbs.)
As I read through the recipe I thought to myself “I’m pretty sure I’ve always wanted to make this dish.” Then, at dinner things started to feel kinda deja-vu-ish.
Fortunately, I’ve got the blog to pick up where my memory leaves off. It turns out, I have made Pasta con Asparagi before. It’s quick, easy and my family has enjoyed it twice. I call that an endorsement.
• Pasta con Asparagi •
from Craig Claiborne via food52
Serves 4-6
1 1/2 pounds fresh asparagus
3 tablespoons butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 cups canned Italian plum tomatoes, put through a sieve or grated coarsely
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
3/4 pound penne, rigatoni, or other tubular pasta
2 eggs, plus one yolk, beaten well with a fork
1/2 cup grated parmesan
Have all the ingredients for this recipe prepared and ready to cook before beginning. Bring about 3 quarts of water to a boil and have it ready for the pasta. Cut the asparagus into lengths about 2 inches long. If the stalks are thick, cut them in half or quarter them. Leave the tips in tact.
Heat the butter in a large, deep skillet and add the asparagus pieces, salt, and pepper to taste. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, or until crisp-tender and lightly browned. Transfer the asparagus to a plate and reserve.
In the same pan, add the oil and garlic. Cook until lightly browned and remove and discard garlic. Add the tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, add the pasta and salt to the water and, when it returns to a boil, cook for about 7 minutes or until tender. Do not overcook.
Just before the pasta is done, turn off the heat under the tomatoes and add the beaten eggs, stirring vigorously so that they blend without curdling. Do not boil the sauce after the eggs are added. (If you are nervous about curdling the eggs, you may temper them in, by stirring a ladleful of the hot tomato sauce into the eggs, then whisking the mixture back into the pan.) Add the asparagus to the tomato sauce and stir to blend.
Drain the pasta immediately. Add the tomato sauce and asparagus, and toss with half the cheese. Serve piping hot with the remaining cheese on the side.
I wanted to post this on Instagram with the hashtag #noexcuses but I realize that’s kind of a fitnessy hashtag, and Fennel Baked in Cream is decidedly not a fitnessy dish. I may do it anyway.
But seriously, no excuses! This is low-maintenance/high-pleasure dish, particularly on a frigid cold day like today in goddamned New England. Prep time is virtually nothing and the recipe is forgiving. If you don’t have two bulbs of fennel (which I never do) just add the equivalent of a fennel bulb’s worth of peeled and quartered carrots. If you don’t have enough heavy cream* add some vegetable broth.
*I was super-excited to find that Trader Joe’s is now selling shelf-stabilized heavy cream. This is fantastic news for my family, now that we no longer live across the street from a bodega where we can pick up anything we want at a moment’s notice.
If you’ve been following Friday Finds for the past few weeks since it’s inception, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that this Friday’s treasure is tiny, metal and old.
What I’ve got for you today is a very small (see my fingers for scale) old mercury thermometer reading accurately at about 73 degrees. It’s got gorgeous detail for something so small, with engraved numbers and a scalloped motif around the edge. 
It’s also got an incredibly pleasingly round bulb full of mercury (!) which is somehow extremely satisfying to me.
Meanwhile, Shane made a delicious and very lemony pasta tonight from Cook’s Illustrated. It doesn’t look like much but it was a creamy, lemony, shalloty delight.
• Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil •
from Cook’s Illustrated
Serves 4 to 6
Table salt
1 pound spaghetti
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
1 medium shallot, minced (about 3 tablespoons)
¼ cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons finely grated zest and ¼ cup juice from 3 lemons
1 ounce finely grated Parmesan cheese (about ½ cup), plus more for serving
Ground black pepper
2 tablespoons shredded fresh basil leaves
Let the dish rest briefly before serving so the flavors develop and the sauce thickens.
Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large Dutch oven over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon salt and pasta to boiling water; cook, stirring frequently, until al dente. Reserve 1¾ cups cooking water, drain pasta into colander, and set aside.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in now-empty Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add shallot and 1/2 teaspoon salt; cook until shallot is softened, about 2 minutes. Whisk 1 1/2 cups of reserved pasta cooking water and cream into pot; bring to simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Remove pot from heat, return pasta, and stir until coated. Stir in remaining 3 tablespoons oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, cheese, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.
Cover and let pasta stand 2 minutes, tossing frequently and adjusting consistency with remaining 1/4 cup reserved pasta water if necessary. Stir in basil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve, drizzling individual portions with oil and sprinkling with cheese.
This is kind of the perfect meal, if you ask me. Pasta with perfectly spicy, olivey, capery puttanesca sauce (no tuna) and tangy, lemony, roasted broccoli.
Truth be told, this picture is from a week ago, but I felt like I owed you something since I’ve been too busy, tired, working and generally pre-Christmas-swamped to post lately.
I missed Friday Finds last week because I was too busy getting ready for Sid’s 4th birthday party. Worry not, this week I’ve got a real gem to share with you.
It’s a bank shaped like a bank. A little bank bank!
It’s made of some kind of really heavy painted metal and has pretty much all the fantastic detail. 4 year old finger on left for scale.
I realized as I prepared with increasing excitement for Sid’s 4th birthday party that this would be the first party I’d had in my own home since Rose’s Rainbow Thomas Buzz Lightyear 4th birthday party. That was 6 years ago, way back before this blog even existed but you can see some pics here on Apartment Therapy.
It was such a familiar exercise, decorating with paper streamers and sparkly letters, setting up the bar, digging out the serving dishes and tchotchkes I haven’t used in 3 1/2 years. The party was at 11am so we served bagels from Kupels, with most of the trimmings, some fruit, coffee and juice (also mimosas which nobody was in the mood for).
Sid had to take a break in his bed, about 45 minutes into the party because it was “too noisy and messy”. Gotta love a guy who knows his limitations. After 15 minutes or so under the covers, he said he felt better and we served the cake. His birthday request was that people not sing, he wanted to sing the song himself, which he did very sweetly and quietly before blowing out his candles.
No matter how banany things are in life, I will always be able to find the time to make the cake of my kid’s dreams. In this case, a purple and blue vanilla cake. I used Martha Stewart’s white cake recipe from her Baking Handbook to get a pure purple cake (a yellow cake would have muddied the color), and a classic butter and confectioner’s sugar icing, tinted blue.
We don’t have a baby anymore. I’ll stop there before things get messy.
Love you Sid!