Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Election night, bread, chocolate and red wine

November 6, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

We’re a nervous wreck here. The race for the presidency of our country is close. I made a lovely light dinner. (I’ll tell you more about that later.) And now I made a famous Spanish dessert, a favorite for children as a simple after school snack. We served it at a small dinner party this past Saturday night, and liked it so much that we wanted to keep on repeating it and repeating it. It’s simple to make and just the right amount of sweetness, of chocolate and a little bit of saltiness. And, it’s lovely with some red wine leftover from dinner.

The basis of this recipe is from Food and Wine magazine. Use the best chocolate you can find. I used Scharffen Berger 3 oz bars. Buy two bars and put 2 squares on each bread slice.

BREAD AND CHOCOLATE
– serves 4

8 thin baguette slices
Two 3-ounce bars of bittersweet chocolate, cut in 8 pieces to fit, you will not use all of this chocolate
Extra-virgin olive oil
Fine sea salt for sprinkling

Preheat the broiler and position a rack 8 inches from the heat. Spread the baguette slices on a baking sheet and broil until toasted, about 30 seconds – 1 minute. Turn the slices over and set a square or two of chocolate on each one. Broil just until the bread is golden and the chocolate is beginning to melt (about 30 seconds – 1 minute). Transfer the chocolate toasts to plates and drizzle lightly with the olive oil and also sprinkle lightly with the sea salt on the chocolate. Serve right away.

Hurricane Sandy, Halloween and New Features

November 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

Here in NYC, we are all trying our best to weather the most damaging storm. Personally and luckily, both of our homes are fine, no loss of electricity and no loss of trees upstate. But our office has had no power, so we’ve all been working from home or cafes that have electricity. We carry on, but our hearts and prayers go out to those who were closer to shorelines and not so lucky.

Sandy visited on Monday. The howling winds were so loud and scary that evening. It was such a helpless feeling just being in the middle of it. We woke up on Tuesday morning to an eerie quiet in our neighborhood. It was over, but the damage was massive.
And Halloween was last night, in a limited fashion here in NYC, with our major parade being cancelled. Halloween is also our wedding anniversary and I made the most marvelous veal chops for dinner! I’ll share that recipe later.

Meanwhile, with all the holidays coming, I wanted to tell you about our new feature on the right hand side of this blog, listing my favorite Thanksgiving recipes. From the ginger cranberry sauce, to the stuffing and pecan pie, it’s all there, easy to access, for you.

My favorite kind of dinner

October 27, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

I’ve been wanting to share this healthy supper with you. It is quick to do as well, taking 45 minutes or so, from start to finish.

On debate night, this past Monday, I made the following dinner. One plate, eaten in front of the TV.
This really is my kind of dinner. I love salads. I eat one every day for lunch and I really think there is something to eating raw foods. I think they provide a very different kind of healthy eating. Heat must surely transform the vitamins and minerals and eating anything that you can in its purist form, raw, must be healthier for you.

We once met with a prospective client who was trying to introduce a raw health bar into the marketplace and wanted our help in packaging and marketing it. Carol Alt, the famous fashion model, was a big devotee of this. So maybe, if I eat enough raw food, I’ll look like her???
I hope you enjoy this. And don’t forget to add LOVE while you’re making it. After a day like Thursday, the world certainly needs a lot more love and you can add to it by making and serving nourishing, healthy meals, filled with love.

SIRLOIN STEAK SALAD
– serves 2

1/2 – 3/4 of a head of Boston lettuce, washed and spun dry, or use as much lettuce as you like
1 handful of snow peas, cleaned and blanched in boiling water for 1 minute, drained and cooled in ice water and then drained and patted dry
3/4 – 1 lb. boneless sirloin steak
1 sweet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2″ cubes, tossed with 1 tbs. olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted in a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes
1-1/2” piece of daikon radish, peeled and thinly sliced on a mandoline
1/2 of a yellow pepper, cut in thin strips
10 cherry or grape heirloom tomatoes, washed and sliced in half
2 scallions, cleaned and thinly sliced

SALAD DRESSING
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbs. Sherry vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Prepare your sweet potatoes and get them in the oven. Meanwhile, clean the snow peas and blanch, drain, put in an ice bath to stop the cooking, drain again and pat dry. Wash and dry the lettuce and chill in the refrigerator. Prepare all the other vegetables. Now your potatoes should be tender and done. Keep them warm.

Wash and dry your steak and season with salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. Turn broiler on high and broil 4-5 minutes per side to your liking of doneness.

While the steak is cooking, make the salad dressing. Whisk together the mustard, salt, pepper and vinegar. Slowly whisk in the olive oil in droplets until all is emulsified and combined.

When the steak is done, remove it to a platter and let it rest for 5 – 10 minutes.

Lay out the lettuce leaves on the bottom of two plates. In a circular fashion around the edge of the lettuce, distribute the snow peas, sweet potatoes, yellow pepper and tomatoes. Tuck the daikon radish slices underneath the lettuce on the outer edge of the plate. Thinly slice the steak and lay out in the center of all the beautiful vegetables. Drizzle the salad dressing on top. Finish with a sprinkling of sliced scallions.

What is this world coming to?

October 26, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

While getting dressed this morning, I heard the news of the Upper Westside nanny, here in Manhattan, who stabbed to death two of the children in her charge with a kitchen knife and then unsuccessfully tried to kill herself yesterday evening. The children were two and six years old!!! Now I don’t know these people but this is just horrific. The mother came home with the third middle child to discover this scene. How could this possibly happen? If the nanny was obviously distraught and wanted to take her own life, why in the world would she have to take the children with her, and do it in her employer’s home?

I had nannies for my kids for twenty some years. Most were great; one was terrific and stayed with us for 10 or 11 years. One, early on, had an alcohol problem re-occur, and upon discovery, by marking the liquor bottles, we promptly fired her and gave her a position cleaning our office so she wasn’t completely down and out. But this, this is unspeakable and heinous. I don’t know how this family will continue. We must send them lots of strength and courage to carry on – for the remaining three year-old middle child in particular. Please, send your prayers and loving thoughts to this family.

Vancouver, continued

October 24, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

Please accept my sincere apologies to all of you, dear readers. Last week and this one have been whirlwind weeks, just back from Vancouver. Many good things are happening at the office and then this past weekend was filled to the hilt with amazing events. On Friday evening, we were invited to the most glamorous and spectacular wedding celebration at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, here in Manhattan. To give you just a flavor of it, one of the bands, (non-stop music) was the Pointer Sisters!!! We danced the night away until 1:30 am.

On Saturday, we tried to recuperate, went grocery shopping and basically muddled about. On Sunday, we attended the unveiling of the tombstone of one of my best friends who collapsed and died suddenly of a brain aneurysm about a year ago. So to go from an incredible celebration to a much softer one, of a life lived far too short. Then to switch back to the present, taking Zach back to school in New Haven, and then back home, to regroup for this week, which has also become super busy. Whew!

But I digress big time. I promised more of Vancouver – and these shots focus on the Farmers Market on Granville Island with some other highlights. We all need food and sustenance every single day. Let us remember the beauty contained in every morsel and the joy you can bring when you serve it filled with love. With all the things happening in the world today, I choose to fill my days with love-filled nourishment. I hope I convince you to do the same!

Dragon fruit in the Farmer's Market on Granville Island in Vancouver .

Dragon fruit (wish that price sticker wasn’t there!)

Vancouver mask in the Farmer's Market on Granville Island.

He’s hungry!

Sculpture in The UBC Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.

The terrific UBC Museum of Anthropology

Nitobe Japanese Garden

Embossed maple leaves in the sidewalk in Vancouver.

LOVE these embossed leaves in the sidewalk

P.S. The maple leaves are HUGE there! No wonder it’s Canada’s national symbol!

Vancouver!

October 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

We just spent eight days in Vancouver. Beautiful, sunny, gorgeous Vancouver for the first four days and then it turned to dark and rainy Vancouver, the more typical version, for this time of year. No worries for us! Our first four days were planned for our private time and for the second four rainy days, we were working anyway. Fun work, but all inside, of course.

Vancouver is situated beautifully with the Pacific Ocean and inlets all around, surrounded by mountains crowning it in the background. The first four days were glorious!!! Granville Island is beautiful, street performers and all. The Granville Island Farmers Market is not to be believed. The most gorgeous, perfect and unusual fruits and vegetables are there along with amazing cheeses, meats, fish and chocolates as well as local crackers and mushrooms and a myriad of other things, including beautiful flowers and the most delicious cappuccino at JJ Bean, except for my son’s, of course.

So here are some highlights. Every salad we ate was so fresh and scrumptious, very reflective of the farmer’s market fare. Complete meals at touted “best restaurants” were unfortunately, fair, by our opinion. We went to Raincity Grill, C, and Hawksworth. All just okay. But the smaller, more local fare, like Banana Leaf on Denman (Malaysian) and Kadoya Japanese Restaurant were terrific. Are we just spoiled New Yorkers I wondered? But no, I don’t think so. These fancy, expensive places mentioned, missed on so many things. To me, they tried too hard, used too many ingredients or elements in a dish that complicates things, instead of just tasting the amazing goodness of truly great ingredients combining to make unique flavor sensations. The salmon is not what we’re used to – it’s so lean it’s actually rather dry or they overcooked it and it wasn’t so tasty. At C (a restaurant right by the sea – cute eh?), our grilled scallop appetizer arrived cold with a “crispy special flatbread” that was soft and soggy. Unconscionable in my opinion, (they were not busy), and I got my money back for my $18.00 (Canadian) serving.

But the people are lovely, the city is clean, safe and beautiful and the Asian restaurants are so very good. Apparently a whole influx of Asian people began to arrive in the mid-80’s when it was announced that Hong Kong would be turned over from English rule back to the Chinese in 1997.

I wish we would have had a chance to bike ride in Stanley Park but that didn’t happen. I did get to run along the Seawall one morning and that was lovely and we did do a 5 mile hike around Buntzen Lake from South Beach to North Beach and back. We had the foresight to buy some local cheeses (go to Benton Brothers Fine Cheese and get some Alpindon local organic raw cow’s milk cheese – it’s divine) and some local Ambrosia Apples. We also picked up some bagels (well, they really weren’t bagels by NYC standards but they were a good piece of bread) and we were set for breakfast in our hotel room. The UBC Museum of Anthropology is a must see (love the Multiversity Galleries) along with the Nitobe Japanese Garden across the street.

We arrived home at midnight on Saturday night. I am happy to have traveled to a new place and happy to come home – to cook a meal in my kitchen. Crazy I know, but I did miss cooking!

Cooking a meal at the end of the day is something that I look forward to; it completes me and completes my day. I wasn’t always like this, but this is where I am now.

Buntzen Lake – from the South Beach

Our walk around the lake

A happy dog on the North Beach in Vancouver.

Happy dog on the North Beach. They even have a special swimming and beach section for dogs on the South Beach side!

Vancouver Thanksgiving meal on the beach.

Last Monday was their Thanksgiving holiday. This family had their celebratory meal on the beach!

Men smoking hookah to celebrate att Vancouver Buntzen Lake

Other ways to enjoy the holiday!

Trees grow out of tree trunks!

More photos to come in the next few days.