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

Best, unique salad. Best, unique friends.

August 11, 2015 by Mary 25 Comments

My best blogger friend, (BBF) Maureen, of Orgasmic Chef, down under in Australia, has had vertigo and it makes me so sad. She was free from it for a little bit of time but it came back. That sort of thing is maddening.

I suffered from migraines for years after our youngest, Zach, was born and it was horrible until we figured out a low blood pressure pill that prevented them. It is just terrible to be in such a state.

Maureen now has our mutual blogger friend Bobbi Ann, from BAM’s Kitchen, somewhere in Asia, helping her out with tips on massage and nutrition. We’ve all never met but this is the blogging world and ain’t it grand!?!

And then my other blogger friend, Suzanne, from A Pug in the Kitchen just lost her dear, dear dog, Nando. It is so hard. But, Suzanne does live in Brooklyn and WE are going to meet for lunch in late August. I am so excited!!

Meanwhile, this is the longest span that I have not posted and I apologize. Just so, so much to do – all good – just crazy!

And this is THE best, unique salad. Or at least I think so. I hope you will too!

I had reconnected with an old friend (in person!) from our congregation in Summit, NJ. So nice to do that! And about 8 weeks ago, we had planned to have her and her husband over for dinner at our apartment in the city, at a time when both of their children (younger than ours) would be away.

As I went through the grocery store several nights before, I spotted what looked good, all in the category of what I loved, trying to create an amazing new salad in my head.

Here’s what I came up with: baby arugula (always a good start), topped with grilled radishes (done on the stovetop in a grill pan), fresh mango (that looked amazing!), mint leaves (I had in the fridge from my garden) and a smattering of sliced scallions, all drizzled with a champagne vinaigrette.

What do you think?

I thought, unusual, clean tasting (no cheese) and I always love the combination of warm and cool on a salad.

This was really magnificent, if I say so myself!

The sweet mango, which was perfectly ripe by the way, (her husband Steve, offered to cut it as he grew up in Thailand with a mango tree in their backyard, so he was pretty expert at those slippery things with the weird shaped pit), combined with bitter heat of the grilled radishes (I adore grilled radishes – unusual, easy and delicious – my kinda thing!) along with the burst of mint every so often coupled with the mild onion taste from the scallions, bedded with the bite of arugula and drizzled lightly with a champagne vinaigrette – it was all so yummy.

My kinda heaven. I’d take two of these over dessert any day!

Our friends loved it so much that she wrote that they immediately tried grilling radishes 2 days later.

This is simple, but again, it’s all about the quality of your ingredients. Make sure they’re the very best you can find or don’t make it all.

BEST UNIQUE ARUGULA SALAD WITH MANGO, MINT AND GRILLED RADISHES – serves 4

4 oz. baby arugula
8 good sized radishes, scrubbed, trimmed and cut in half
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into ¼” long strips
40 mint leaves
1 scallion, cleaned and thinly sliced, white and light green parts only

Champagne Vinaigrette:

1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbs. Champagne vinegar
scant 1/2 cup of olive oil
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Place all vinaigrette ingredients in a jar. Cover tightly and shake. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. More salt will cut the tanginess of the vinegar.

Even though your package of baby arugula may say it’s been triple washed, I recommend you wash it again, spin it in a lettuce spinner and then spread it out on your clean counter to air dry. You never know who’s handled it with hands that haven’t been washed and people have gotten sick. So please, always take the time to do this. You can even do this the night before and store the greens in a Ziploc bag with a sheet of paper toweling to absorb the extra moisture that will form.

Toss the radishes with the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Heat your grill pan to medium high and grill the radishes until crisp tender with some nice grill marks. You’ll want to cover the pan for maybe 3 – 5 minutes in the middle of cooking them as they will produce a lot of smoke and using a lid will also quicken the process.

Place ¼ of the arugula on a salad plate, top with the mango strips and grilled radishes as shown in the photo. Drizzle about a tablespoon of dressing over all, garnish with the mint leaves and scallions and serve with love. Wait for rave reviews. So simple, so unusual and so delicious!

Speegee Spatula

July 23, 2015 by Mary 18 Comments

One recent Sunday afternoon, we went to a big wonderful party at my friend Anne’s house upstate – a pig roast! It was the most wonderful pulled pork along with dozens of salads and a huge amount of desserts. Everyone brought something and most were homemade, except for ours. It wasn’t possible coming from an amazing wedding weekend of the daughter of our friends, Margaret and Wayne. Fortunately, Anne understood. We brought coffee and wine – what we could do. When we arrived at Anne and Frank’s, the first thing she said to me was that she LOVED the blue Speegee Spatula in the box!

Okay, it looks cool and as you can see, it would be really good icing a cake. But what you don’t realize is that the silicone is heavy enough and flexible enough to do a really superior job in just traditional scraping, stirring and tossing.

I have a step-nephew who exited the family for a bit and then came back, and in between, my mother passed and what he could remember about her was “that she could scrape a bowl” as he slapped his knee!! Meaning, super clean. My mother was a child of the depression and being that she had 6 kids to feed, she didn’t waste a drop.

SPREADING

ICING

MIXING

CUTTING

Icing

SPREADING

CUTTING

MIXING

TOSSING

SCRAPING

Well you can do the same thing with this Speegee Spatula that you received in our MARY’s secret ingredients summer box in either blue or white. This is the last item in our summer box and it is a winner!

Fall is not too far away so if you liked the items here, you’re sure to love our upcoming fall box which will mail on September 25^th. Supplies are limited so order now. Don’t miss out on all the LOVE!

And remember, you’ll be helping us with our partnership with Feed The Children. No one should go hungry.

Easy Ice Cream Pie with Power O’s Crust

July 21, 2015 by Mary 18 Comments

A pie crust that is actually good for you?

Impossible?!

Well, no.

Not if it’s made with Power O’s this super unusual, delicious cereal that’s made with beans!

This is the fifth item in our MARY’s secret ingredients summer box and really so unique, so smart and so delicious! I was told by a doctor years ago that the first thing I should put into my body in the morning was protein. So I usually eat meat but cereal is really a more normal breakfast food. So here, with Power O’s you can have both!

Beans are comparable to meat when it comes to calories, says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, a registered dietitian at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Institute in Chicago and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. But they really shine in terms of fiber and water content, two ingredients that make you feel fuller, faster. Adding beans to your diet helps cut calories without feeling deprived.

Our diets tend to be seriously skimpy when it comes to fiber (the average American consumes just 15 grams daily), to the detriment of both our hearts and our waistlines. The recommended amount for a daily dose of fiber is 21 to 25 grams per day for adult women (30 to 38 grams for adult men). Meat, on the other hand, contains no fiber at all.

This difference in fiber content means that meat is digested fairly quickly, whereas beans are digested slowly, keeping you satisfied longer. Plus, beans are low in sugar, which prevents insulin in the bloodstream from spiking and causing hunger. When you substitute beans for meat in your diet, you get the added bonus of a decrease in saturated fat, says Blatner.

So maybe with this recipe I negated part of the goodness by adding ice cream, OR you could say that this is my attempt to make an ice cream dessert healthy!

This company, Love Grown Foods, was started by a husband and wife team, Alex and Maddy. I met them last year at the Fancy Foods Show and their philosophy completely matches mine. They said, “We started Love Grown Foods to put healthier foods on the shelves, because we are passionate about making delicious and nutritious foods available to everyone. We are also committed to educating kids, parents, and teachers about the importance of eating healthy. We are here to change the way people think about food, eat food, and ultimately buy food. Join us on our journey as we SPREAD the LOVE!”

This is exactly what I’m hoping to do with this blog and with MARY’s secret ingredients.

“Nuff said.” Eat your beans this way!

EASY ICE CREAM PIE WITH POWER O’s CRUST – serves 8

4.4 oz. Power O’s, honey or chocolate, crushed
Pinch of French Grey or Kosher salt
7 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
2 Tbs. all natural chocolate sauce
2 pints of all natural vanilla ice cream
Strawberries
Blueberries
Aged pomegranate balsamic vinegar, (optional), for drizzling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Crush the cereal into fine crumbs with a rolling pin. Place in a bowl. Melt the butter and pour over the crushed Power O’s. When the warm butter hit the chocolate Power O’s, the chocolate smell was intoxicating – proof that they’re using real, high quality ingredients – as opposed to making this crust with processed food graham crackers – YUK!

Mix the cereal crumbs and butter well. Pour into a 9″ pie plate and distribute and press in evenly all around forming the crust, being careful not to make any area too thick, particularly where the sides meet the bottom of the pan.

Bake the crust on the middle rack in the oven for about 8 minutes. Let cool completely before filling.

Drizzle the chocolate sauce on the bottom of the crust.

Spoon the 2 pints of ice cream evenly all around in the crust. Do this quickly so you don’t have melting along the sides. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until ready to serve.

Just before serving decorate the top with blueberries and strawberries as shown. I did this for July 4^th – very patriotic!

Cut with a knife dipped in hot tap water, drizzle each piece with aged pomegranate balsamic vinegar (optional) and serve. This vinegar was a very nice, surprising touch!

And as a little reminder, our fall box ships on September 25th and it’s going to be also full of great unusual products! The supply is limited so best to order now before we run out.

Quick & Easy Asparagus Risotto with Delta Blues Rice Grits

July 19, 2015 by Mary 14 Comments

Creamy, dreamy, these rice grits are amazing!! You know, to be included in a MARY’s secret ingredients box, we test each product beforehand to ensure it’s super delicious, easy to make, healthy and good for you. These Delta Blues Rice Grits came in and due to timing and scheduling issues, the only time I had to make them was for breakfast one morning while having a FaceTime call with my son in Poland. Did I tell you he won a Fulbright?!! Yes, we’re so proud of him but now he’ll be in Poland for the next 14 months. So thank goodness for FaceTime!

So I am making and eating rice grits at 7 am in the morning and you know what, I couldn’t stop eating them, even at that time of day! By just following the packaging instructions, which is just the same as making regular rice, they came out so creamy and super, super yummy. So what are rice grits? Well they’re the leftover broken rice bits and I’ll tell you what, I’ll take these any day over the whole rice grain!

Now we all love risotto but it needs stirring attention and it‘s not a great thing to make for a dinner party if you want to spend time with your guests. But with these rice grits being so creamy to begin with, I reworked my recipe to create this super Quick & Easy Asparagus Risotto with Delta Blues Rice Grits. I know you’ll like it as much as we did!

QUICK & EASY ASPARAGUS RISOTTO WITH DELTA BLUES RICE GRITS – serves 4

4 cups chicken broth – preferably homemade, divided
1 cup of Delta Rice Grits
1 lb. asparagus, broken at the point of tenderness to remove tough ends, and then each stalk cut into 1.5” pieces
Coarse sea salt
2 Tbs. olive oil
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, divided
½ of a medium red onion, diced
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup (heaping) grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Combine 2 cups of broth and 1 cup of Delta Rice Grits in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer for 18 minutes. Then remove from heat and uncover. There will be some liquid left and that’s okay.

Meanwhile, while the rice grits are cooking, take a small saucepan and fill with ½ of the asparagus stems (only half of the stems – leave all the tips) and cover with water. Salt the water with coarse sea salt. Bring to a boil, uncovered and reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes until the stems are very tender. Test with a fork. Drain quickly and place in an ice cube bath to stop the cooking. Drain and place stems in a food processor. Pulse to a puree. Stop and add a tablespoon (or maybe two) of cold water to make a smooth puree.

At the same time, melt 1 Tbs. of unsalted butter in 2 Tbs. of olive oil. Add diced red onion and cook until softened for about 5 minutes on medium low heat. Raise heat to medium-high and add ½ cup dry white wine.

Asparagus risotto - onions and asparagus in a skillet.

Looks like Christmas!

Simmer until almost gone and then add 2 cups of chicken broth and the rest of the asparagus. Saute for 4 – 5 minutes just until the asparagus is crisp tender.

Add the cooked Delta Rice Grits and the asparagus puree and simmer for about 2 minutes while stirring and mixing together. Remove from heat and add 2 Tbs. butter (cut into small chunks) and the heaping ½ cup of Pecorino Romano cheese. Stir vigorously to combine, season with fresh cracked pepper, garnish with basil if you wish, and serve with LOVE!

Our fall box ships on September 25th and you won’t want to miss it! The supply is limited so best to order now before we run out. 🙂

Rufus Teague Roasted Pecans

July 17, 2015 by Mary 6 Comments

The R ufus Teague Touch O’ Heat sauce is soooo good, it really works with so many things. It’s what I used on my ribs here, and because of that, we contacted them directly to ask them if they’d like to be in our MARY’s secret ingredients box. I’ve never done that with anyone but I thought a barbecue sauce would be ideal for the summer box and honestly, I’ve never liked a bottled barbecue sauce better than this one! It’s 100% natural, gluten-free with NO high-fructose corn syrup, which is a rarity in barbecue sauces. Additionally, the Touch O’ Heat Flavor (they also have a whiskey flavor which I also LOVE) is not too hot at all. I hate it when things are so darn hot that you just can’t taste anything. How about you? Many of the recipes today are all about that. Maybe the younger people just don’t have any taste buds left? My husband and I are more into flavor than just pure heat.

So this sauce is great on anything – pork, burgers, beef, chicken, even fish (!), so here I am racking my brain for something very different for you to make with this sauce and I think I’ve finally found something! It doesn’t use very much of it so you can still do your ribs and chicken!

It’s a tradition in the south at cocktail time. Roasted pecans! – with Rufus Teague Touch O’ Heat Sauce. Here is my recipe.

RUFUS TEAGUE ROASTED PECANS – serves 3 at cocktail hour

½ cup of pecan halves
1 Tbs. Rufus Teague Touch O’ Heat Sauce
Maldon Sea Salt Flakes to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small baking pan, toss the sauce with the nuts so that the nuts are coated evenly. Place in the oven on the top rack to roast for 9 – 11 minutes. Do not worry if they get a little dark, as you need to get the nuts toasted and the sauce will darken and caramelize, but they are not burnt.
Remove from the pan and let cool on a separate plate. Crumble some Maldon Sea Salt Flakes on top, toss and serve!!
It couldn’t be simpler and these are so very delicious at the end of a long day with a glass of wine or a cocktail.

Our fall box ships on September 25th and it’s going to be great! The supply is limited so best to order now before we run out.

Sauteed Kale and Beet Greens with Maguey Sweet Sap

July 15, 2015 by Mary 18 Comments

Maguey Sweet Sap from Villa de Patos is the second item in our MARY’s secret ingredients summer box! This is the coolest product – a delicious sweetener low in fructose and glucose with a delightful “green” taste as it comes from the maguey (pronounced mah-gay) plant that is native to the arid highlands of Mexico. The plant needs to be at least 12 years old before you can get any syrup out of it!

Since ancient times, the maguey plant has served as a source of nourishment, shelter and textiles for the people of Mexico. The Aztecs worshipped the maguey as the goddess Mayahuel, naming it the Plant of the Gods because of its alleged medicinal properties. The plant also serves as a soil protector and regenerator, helping to prevent erosion and acting as a natural healing agent for the land.

The sap is rich in naturally occurring phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and prebiotic fiber. The prebiotic fiber found in Maguey Sweet Sap helps balance the ecosystem of your intestinal flora and serves as the “food” for probiotics.

Wow!!

It’s all that and more importantly, it’s super delicious!! Use it on anything and in anything that needs a little sweetener. It has a thinner consistency than honey but like honey, it is also a raw, unrefined and an unprocessed product. The color of the syrup will change over time, getting a little darker. It is super yummy drizzled over plain Greek yogurt, in tea or on pancakes. I chose to use it in this kale and beet greens recipe and it was divine! Because of its more “herbal” taste, I felt it went particularly well with these sautéed greens. I wanted to combine these two different greens because I think it just makes the dish more interesting. Kale is good and all the rage, but personally, I adore beet greens. To me, they’re even much more interesting than the beets (and I do love beets). Separate your stems from the leafy greens when cooking as the stems do need to cook longer and hmmmm (!), just delicious!! The pancetta with the Sweet Sap addition along with the acid from the vinegar – total YUM!!! Savory and sweet – my kind of thing!
SAUTEED KALE AND BEET GREENS WITH MAGUEY SWEET SAP – serves 4

1 Tbs. olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 bunch of beet greens, washed, stems separated from the greens, all cut in 11/2” pieces
½ medium red onion, cut in 1/8” slices, and each slice cut in half
One ¼” thick slice of pancetta, cut in 1/4” cubes
1 bunch of Russian kale, washed, stems removed and cut into 11/2” ribbons
2 Tbs. ginger rice vinegar or plain rice vinegar
11/2 Tbs. Maguey Sweet Sap
Maldon sea salt flakes to taste, crushed
Black pepper, fresh ground, to taste

On low heat, in a medium sized skillet, warm the oil. Add the garlic, beet green stems, red onion and pancetta and stir to combine. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Remove cover and raise heat to medium. Add kale. Toss and cook for 3 minutes.

Add beet green leaves, toss and sauté for 3 – 5 minutes, until done.
Turn off heat and remove from hot burner. Sprinkle all over the 2 Tbs. ginger rice vinegar and 1.5 Tbs. of Maguey Sweet Sap Syrup. Stir to combine all. Top with crushed Maldon Sea Salt Flakes and fresh ground pepper. Serve with LOVE and enjoy!!
I served this as a delicious vegetable “bed” to some spice rubbed roasted salmon. Delish!!

I also used this Sweet Sap in place of the honey in my Sweet and Sour Coleslaw recipe and it was totally great!!