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

Maricel E. Presilla’s Cuban Avocado, Watercress and Pineapple Salad with Spicy Goan Shrimp

May 8, 2013 by Mary Frances 14 Comments

I’ve been wanting to tell you about the small dinner party I had a few weeks ago where I served the Vegetable Lasagna with No Pasta as a first course. You see, it all started with me wanting to make this salad I found on Food 52 – Amanda Hesser’s (formally of The New York Times fame) blog. It’s broiled pineapple, avocado and watercress with a cumin dressing. Doesn’t that just sound so unusual and so good?

Well, it was! And it was beautiful too!

The author’s note says that this salad is great served alongside spicy shrimp or slow cooked pork and black beans and rice. A Cuban meal!

Since it was our main course, that meant I couldn’t start with a salad. And with the weather finally getting warmer, soup was not appealing and the tomatoes are not ripe enough for a gazpacho. So that is how I came to the idea of starting the meal with the vegetable lasagna.

The whole dinner was amazing, as my husband and guests told me. I served the salad with some spicy Goan shrimp and Jasmine rice and black beans.

We finished with fantastic homemade lemon bars with a buttery rich crust studded with pine nuts. That recipe to come. But I forgot to take a picture of the shrimp – sorry.

MARICEL E. PRESILLA’S CUBAN AVOCADO, WATERCRESS, and PINEAPPLE SALAD – serves 6

2 bunches watercress
One 2 1/2 pound pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into four 1-inch thick slices
1 tbs. sugar
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbs. fresh lime juice
1/8 tsp.+ ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 Haas avocados
1 small red onion (5 ounces), thinly slivered lengthwise (I used a shallot – I couldn’t find the red onion I bought!)

Wash the watercress well in large bowls of cold water to remove the grit or sand. Discard any yellowing leaves and remove the tough stems; for this salad, you want only the leaves and tender stems. Spin dry in a lettuce spinner and refrigerate while you prepare the rest of the salad.

Heat the broiler. Place the pineapple slices on a baking pan and sprinkle sugar evenly on top of them. Broil about 4 inches from the heat source, turning once, for 5 to 10 minutes on each side, until golden brown. (You can line your pan with aluminum foil for easier cleanup, but not parchment — it may catch fire.) Let cool, then cut into 1-inch cubes. Set aside.

For the dressing, mash the minced garlic with the salt on a cutting board. Place the mashed salted garlic, lime juice, cumin, and pepper in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Slowly whisk in olive oil. Taste for seasoning. Set aside. I added a pinch more cumin.

Cut the avocados lengthwise in half around the pit and remove the pit. Take a small paring knife and cut 1/2″ strips lengthwise and crosswise but do not cut through the skin. Take a large tablespoon and scoop it all out in nice cubes. Alternatively, place the avocado halves cut side down on the work surface and slice lengthwise into 1/2″ wide wedges. Peel each segment by hand or with a paring knife, and cut into 1/2″ cubes.

Assemble the salad: Place the watercress in a medium bowl and toss with half the dressing. Arrange on a large platter. Add the pineapple and avocado to the same bowl and toss with the rest of the dressing. Mound the pineapple and avocado over the bed of watercress. Garnish with slivers of red onion and serve immediately.

SPICY GOAN SHRIMP – adapted from Michael Romano
– serves 4 – 5

6 dried red Thai chiles
12 whole black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
One 1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
One 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
6 garlic cloves
2 tbs. Champagne vinegar
1 tsp. brown sugar
Sea salt
1.5 lbs. shelled and deveined raw shrimp, tails left on, thoroughly washed and patted dry
1.5 tbs. olive oil
Lime wedges, for serving

Grind the chiles, peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon and cumin in a spice grinder. Add the ginger, garlic, vinegar, brown sugar and salt and blend until smooth. Rub this paste over the shrimp and let marinate for 30 minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add the shrimp and sauté over high heat until golden and just opaque throughout, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Transfer to a platter, garnish with lime wedges and serve.

STEVE’S SUGGESTED WINE PAIRINGS:

White Wine: 2011 Eroica Riesling from Columbia Valley, WA, by Chateau Ste. Michelle & Dr. Loosen

Red Wine: 2010 Villa Mt. Eden Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast

Both are $20 or less and represent very good values. Trade up in these type of wines if you are not budget-constrained.

Happy mistakes

May 6, 2013 by Mary Frances 16 Comments

Yesterday morning, while I was making our Sunday breakfast, I was doing too many things at once and kept on messing up. No matter how many people tell you that multi-tasking is good, it is not! I was rushing, trying to get a load of laundry in, thinking about planting my tomatoes and how I could con my husband into digging a new garden and listening to the Sunday morning TV political talk shows on the radio, while I was making sausage patties, eggs, fruit salad and warming bread.

After my sausage patties were all done, I realized I had forgotten to put in the half of the minced shallot that I wanted to. Ah, no matter, I thought, I’ll put them in the eggs! So I put some butter in the pan and the minced shallots with the heat on low. Then I went to spray Shout on the laundry, went to the bathroom, and went upstairs to make up the bed, totally forgetting about the shallots in the pan. I came back and they were nearly burnt. So as I was about to throw them out, I thought, wait, these could be crispy minced shallots on TOP of the scrambled eggs and voila – it was really good!

The sausage patties were really good too! Here’s the recipe:

BREAKFAST SAUSAGE PATTIES
– makes 10 – 12 patties

2 tbs. of a combo of herbs – minced sage, rosemary and mint leaves
1/2 large shallot, minced
1 small egg (or beat an egg and use 2/3 of it – the rest can go in your scrambled eggs)
1 lb. ground pork – I use a local grocery store’s bulk ground pork breakfast sausage that is seasoned with salt, pepper and a little dried sage. So if you start with plain ground pork, add salt, pepper and 1/4 tsp. dried sage leaves crumbled
1/4 cup of panko
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper (skip this if your ground pork is already “seasoned” for sausage patties)

Mix all ingredients together with your hands. Shape into small patties. This should give you 10 – 12 patties. Sauté in a non-stick skillet on the stove, medium high heat, about 5 minutes per side, with the pan covered. Pork should be at 155 – 160 degrees. Enjoy!

And oh – I burnt myself too. I had warmed a casserole dish in the oven, to put the finished scrambled eggs in. I forgot that it was hot and picked it up with bare hands!

TIP: Always have Tea Tree oil around as that is the best for burns! (but, the smell is strong and not very good around food)

P.S. Seriously, due to the tea tree oil, I am fine today!

Gardening in gorgeous weather

May 5, 2013 by Mary Frances 11 Comments

I am sitting outside in our backyard upstate as I write this. It has been a glorious weekend, weather wise. Just spectacular!!

I should be riding my bike right now, but my body hurts too much from all the gardening yesterday. What happened? Gardening reaches muscles you forgot about for a year, even if you work out regularly, as I do. Honest. My father used to say, “It’s tough to get old, Mare.”

How right he was.

So here is my herb garden. I was so excited to see that my Italian parsley made it through the winter, as it’s an annual. Even my English thyme looks like it’s coming back. The chives, sage, mint, sorrel, and oregano are all in good shape. I planted sweet basil and some lettuces and weeded everything else.

And here are my tomatoes and nasturtiums. Yet to buy – tarragon, rosemary and arugula – next weekend.

Now I have to put covers on them before heading back to the city as it still gets really cold here at night.

New on LOVE!! Wine pairings!

May 2, 2013 by Mary Frances 5 Comments

One of my big brothers, Steve, (we have many duplicate names in my family as my husband is a Steve too) is a true wine aficionado and expert. We all love it when he comes to dinner as he insists on bringing the wine. Of course I feign debating for a bit and then give in. (Ha!) You should see his wine cellar! – full of the more expensive variety. Lucky for us, he has offered to suggest wine pairings with my main dish recipes!! Yay!!!

So for my Faux Lasagna, or Vegetable Strata or Vegetable Lasagna with No Pasta or Whatever the Hell You Want to Call It Dish, in the previous post, after much thought from Steve . . . and a little sipping, here are his recommendations:

White Wine: A light, crisp Italian wine from Campagnia called Falanghina. (San Gregorio is a good choice)

Red Wine: A young, refreshing Spanish wine from Rioja called Crianza, served slightly chilled – cellar temp – 55 degrees F. (Vina Real is a good choice)

Both of these wines are less than $20.

A more expensive red wine alternative would be a Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara or Central Coast appellations.

Enjoy!

Vegetable Lasagna with a Side of Pasta

April 28, 2013 by Mary Frances 30 Comments

Meatless meals. I love them, my husband, not so much. Well that’s really an understatement. He hates them. But this one, he loved.

Really.

I keep calling this a lasagna, yet I don’t know why, because there’s no pasta in it. But it does have layered things and mozzarella and Pecorino Romano cheese. Maybe it should be called a clean eggplant Parmigiano because the eggplant is neither breaded nor fried and there’s very little olive oil in it. No matter, this is really, really good. It’s fresh and bright tasting and the zucchini was still a little crisp with the crunchy goodness of the bread crumbs – this is my kind of dish!

Perhaps you could suggest some names for me?

So I made this a week ago last Wednesday. I really try to do one meatless meal a week and two fish nights and then chicken, pork or lamb. We rarely eat beef. How about you – what’s your meal make-up?

When I made this, I made a huge portion as you can see in the video – but that turned out to be a great benefit. Steve and I had it for dinner the night I made it and then I carefully saved the rest, lifting it out of the pan, keeping the breadcrumbs on top. We had one other portion as a side vegetable one night for another dinner and then I served it as a first course for dinner with our friends Margaret and Wayne, last Saturday. It was perfect, warmed up in the oven, flash broiled again to crisp up the breadcrumbs. It received rave reviews!! Really. (and they had no idea it was a leftover)

Here’s the recipe:

VEGETABLE LASAGNA WITH A SIDE OF PASTA
– serves 6 as a main course or 8 – 10 as a starter

Peanut oil
Olive oil
3 small striped eggplants, washed, dried, sliced into 1/4″ – 3/8” rounds
2 zucchinis, washed, dried, sliced into 1/8″ rounds
1 lb. mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
2.5 – 3 lbs. of fresh plum tomatoes, sliced into 1/4” rounds
7 cloves of garlic, minced
A handful of ramps, if you can find them or 1.5 Tbs. of fresh thyme leaves or whatever herb you like, chopped
1.5 Tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1 scant cup of bread crumbs
3 Tbs. chopped parsley
3 Tbs. fresh grated Pecorino Romano cheese
2 Tbs. olive oil

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Pour a little bit of peanut oil on a paper towel and wipe a rimmed baking sheet with it. Lay eggplant slices on top and season with fine grind sea salt and pepper. Roast on the bottom rack of your oven for 20 minutes. When done, remove slices with a thin metal spatula so the browned parts stay on the eggplant and not on the pan. Reduce oven heat to 350 – 375 degrees.

Meanwhile prepare the zucchinis, tomatoes, garlic and ramps or thyme. TIP: Slice your cheese while it’s cold as it’s easier that way. Then leave out to get to room temperature.

Slick a tiny bit of olive oil in the bottom and sides of a 9” x 13” Pyrex glass pan. Put in a layer of sliced tomatoes, Then a layer of roasted eggplant, then the minced garlic, mozzarella cheese and then zucchini. Grind some pepper on top. Drizzle on top 1.5 Tbs of olive oil, then the ramps or thyme, and then the final layer of tomatoes. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 – 375 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes, until liquid is bubbly and the zucchini are fork tender.

Meanwhile, mix 2 tbs. olive oil with the breadcrumbs, parsley and grated Pecorino Romano cheese. Toss to combine in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper. Remove the aluminum foil and turn your broiler on. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the whole dish. Broil the dish to get the breadcrumbs crispy, about 2 – 3 minutes. Watch carefully so it doesn’t burn!

Let rest for 10 – 15 minutes before cutting and serving. Enjoy!! I served this with a side of pasta with some garlic and parsley. Delish!!

Chicken Stock

April 24, 2013 by Mary Frances 21 Comments

Last night at a business cocktail event I was talking to my friend Lani about cooking. She told me how she had made the same recipe a second time, but it didn’t turn out as well as it had the first time. When she remarked this to the friend who had given her the recipe, the friend asked if she had been in a good mood when she made it. She said, “You know what, I wasn’t.”

You see – she wasn’t making it with LOVE! You must be in happy place when cooking and your food will always taste better!

Well, it’s better to be in a happy, loving place all the time anyway, right?

It is also always best to make your own chicken stock. It’s really very, very easy and you feel so professional and accomplished when you do it. At least I do! If you make it yourself, you know exactly what’s in it AND you control the salt. And when you make it with LOVE, it’s happy chicken stock! When finished, it keeps easily in the freezer. Dividing it into several different sized containers – 1, 2 and 4 cup increments – works well.

TIP: And here’s a tip from my oldest son. Even if you just need a ¼ cup or so, thaw the frozen broth in the microwave for a minute or two, just so you can dump it out of the container in one piece on a cutting board and then carefully cut off what you need. Put the rest back into the container and back into the freezer! Pretty cool, eh?

So here’s the scoop, including some new things I learned at a cooking class I took at the International Culinary Institute (ICE) last fall. Chop your big bones, like legs and thighs, to get more flavor out of the marrow. Add in extra wings and wing tips if you have them as they have the most gelatin, as well as – are you ready for this? – chicken feet!!! This last one I haven’t been able to do yet. Somehow I’m having trouble with the thought and visual of seeing red chicken feet bobbing around in my broth, but hey, who knows?

My recipe:

MARY’S CHICKEN STOCK

One whole carcass of a roasted chicken, large bones chopped in half, including any juices, herbs or cheese rinds left – see my Roast Chicken recipe

Extra wing tips, if you have them

One whole carrot, skin scraped, cut in half lengthwise, then cut into thirds

One whole parsnip, peeled, cut in half lengthwise, then cut into thirds

One whole celery stalk with leaves, cut in half lengthwise, then cut into thirds

One whole medium onion, peeled and cut into quarters and each quarter studded with one clove

One bay leaf

Fennel stalks and fennel fronds from one fennel bulb (optional)

A handful of fresh Italian parsley

Coarse sea salt to taste

12 whole black peppercorns

Throw everything into a stock pot, cover with cold water to 1 ½” from the top of the pot, and bring nearly to a boil. Skim off any foam that gathers at the top and remove. Turn heat down to low, to simmer, with the pot lid just slightly ajar. Check and stir periodically and simmer for 4 hours, at least. More time is even better to achieve a dark, rich broth.

Let cool and strain all through a cheesecloth lined, fine mesh strainer and divide into containers. Refrigerate, if using within a week or freeze to use whenever.

A stock like this insures you’ll make your best risotto ever!

My new utensil caddy!

April 19, 2013 by Mary Frances 21 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time – since my birthday in November. I know, I know, a very long time ago.

This was a birthday gift from my very good friend, Marie. Isn’t it just so great? I love it!! Marie was so excited to give it to me – of course she had it custom made for me and was disappointed they couldn’t fit Mary Frances (nine is their maximum letter amount) – but no matter. I was using extra pitchers to hold my utensils but they get narrower at the top so what they can hold is limited. This, besides being beautiful, holds a ton, as the mouth is the same circumference as the bottom. And of course, it always starts a conversation in my kitchen! LOVE it!

Date stuffed pork loin roast

April 15, 2013 by Mary Frances 11 Comments

When our oldest son did an about face and invited us to his apartment for dinner for his birthday celebration, we were expecting a nice dinner … but we weren’t expecting a spectacular dinner. This was the one where I was to bring the dessert – vanilla pots.

Here’s what you get when kids see you entertain and cook and serve great food with LOVE. I don’t mean to pat myself on the back here, but I guess in a way, I do! After all, we are the teachers for our children. But this child is far surpassing me in cooking and entertaining. Lucky us, we get to be the fortunate recipients!

We arrived to a beautifully laid out cheese board with dates and grapes and a lovely variety of crackers. Great start.

He was lamenting that one of his flatmates had not returned with the shrimp while he busied himself with putting the finishing touches on his pork roast. The roommate appeared with the shrimp and before we knew it, we were each handed a small plate of rice pilaf with delicious sautéed spicy shrimp. It seemed magical in that it just appeared! I never saw him cook it. Either that or I was on my third glass of wine and didn’t know it. (just kidding).

Dinner was this amazing pork loin roast, stuffed with dates, covered with an herb garlic crust. He spread broccoli florets around the pork towards the end of the roasting time, so that as they cooked, they became flavored with the wonderful pork loin juices. Additional vegetables, along with some potatoes, were oven roasted separately and served, completing a beautiful plate that was really scrumptious. The pork was divine, moist and rich, with the dates sweetening the meat and the crisp herb crust – just terrific!

DATE-STUFFED, GARLIC HERB CRUSTED PORK LOIN ROAST
– serves 8 – 10

One 4 – 5 lb. pork loin roast
10 – 12 pitted Medjool dates
1 tbs. chopped thyme leaves
5 – 6 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and pat dry your roast. Stand it on its end and cut an X down through the middle of the roast, coming at it from both ends with a long knife. Then, take a knife sharpening stick or a long handled wooden spoon (something long and round) and shove it through the middle of your X from both ends to create a cavity. Now shove the dates in from both ends to fill the cavity.

Set the roast in a roasting pan, fat side up and score the fat. Salt and pepper the roast all over. Create a paste out of the thyme leaves, garlic and olive oil and spread all over the top and sides of the roast, shoving it in the scored crevices. Roast for about an hour, until an instant read thermometer registers 145 degrees. Let the roast rest for 10 – 15 minutes before slicing into thick 1/2” slices. Serve and enjoy!

I am not convinced my dessert of vanilla pots stood up to his meal. Aren’t we the luckiest?

Ramps!

April 13, 2013 by Mary Frances 16 Comments

Today, we stopped by our farmer friends, Ethel and Tom, to buy some honey and eggs and he had just come back from digging up some ramps and offered me some.

Awesome! This season is so short and I seemed to have remembered seeing the stem part at farmers markets but I think I was confusing it with garlic scapes. The leaves are so very tasty. They taste both garlicky and oniony. They are actually a relative of the leek and signify that Spring has arrived! I’m going to chop them up and put some in my baby kale salad tonight that we’re having with a broiled skirt steak. I’ll throw the rest in some scrambled eggs in the morning. He said many people make pesto with the leaves as well. That would be darn good but I don’t have enough to do that.

Tom said I could use the leaves and part of the stem and then plant the roots back in the ground to come up next year! I did just that!

Funny, in a little research, I learned that ramps are a part of the Allium family, and I just planted some of those beautiful tall purple spherical flowers last Fall and they are just coming up. So I planted these ramps nearby. After all, you’ve got to keep the family together, right?

My purple Allium coming up!

Easter stories

April 7, 2013 by Mary Frances 15 Comments

Why is it that Easter is the shortest holiday, that one Sunday only? All the days leading up to it are sad and then it’s just that one day and then back to work on Monday. Thanksgiving has the long weekend afterwards. Christmas has the week between Christmas and New Years. Even Passover gets at least two days of attention, but Easter is one.

Easter was my mother’s favorite holiday. She was a devout Catholic so no wonder. I remember her scrubbing the house spic‘n span in the days leading up to it, washing windows and all the sheer drapes, sending the rest out to the cleaners. That fresh clean smell was intoxicating to me, so memorable even now, her Spring cleaning was deep. And then Easter. She even had me wear a hat when I was little, a new one every year, along with her new hat for church. She passed away the Monday after Easter, that year in April, 1995. One of her last words to me were, “Did you color eggs?” She wanted to make sure I was keeping up traditions with with my boys. She used to color eggs the old fashioned Polish way with onion skins. (Don’t ask me how!) Well that year, did I color eggs?? I colored six dozen of them! We lived in New Jersey at the time and two of my brothers were visiting, each of them having two boys each, plus our two, and our neighbor across the street (they had six kids) always held a neighborhood Easter egg hunt and you were required to deliver to them a dozen eggs for each child hunting. So there you have it – six dozen eggs – yikes!

We had 9 people for Easter dinner this year, a lovely party with extended family, roommates and girlfriends. One guest saw my table and said, “Oooo what fun!” Exactly what I loved to hear. But I didn’t color eggs this year. With no little ones around, I don’t, but I do like to decorate the table with the antique Easter baskets I inherited from my mother. The rectangular box even plays “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” It skips a few notes around the hippity-hoppity part but we all get a kick out of it every year. The food ended up to be a bit of a pork fest.

My sister-in-law and her mother brought the appetizers – deviled eggs and a red pepper dip with crudités and delicious homemade sesame crackers made with almond flour – gluten free!

We started our dinner with a yummy traditional Easter Polish soup that our youngest son made. It was vegetable broth based with bacon and two different kinds of garlicky Polish sausage. The broth was light and lemony, perfectly paired with a New York Finger Lakes Riesling. We then moved on to a baked, organic free-range ham (from Mike and Cindy’s Thunderhill farm in upstate NY) with a clove, honey, mustard and dark rum glaze, Italian beans with pancetta, chrzan, and roasted asparagus. The chrzan was rousingly potent with German horseradish from Greenpoint, Brooklyn and the beans were such a hit. I believe everyone had seconds on everything except the asparagus. I got a thank you note on Friday from a guest requesting the bean recipe and describing them as “silky”, which is apt. You kinda want to wrap yourself in them. I promised this recipe to you all after Christmas and I have yet to get off my butt and do it. It is complicated, which is why I haven’t done it, but I promise I will soon. My brother, Steve brought some amazing California Pinot Noir, (rare and unavailable outside of the vineyard in California – he and his wife just spent eight weeks nearby as test living arrangement) which paired beautifully with the meal. For dessert, I made a sour cream topped cheesecake and some chocolate dipped strawberries. One guest said the top of the cheesecake was so smooth, it looked like a skating rink! She took the one piece left over home – along with the jelly beans. One problem here, I was having such a good time, I forgot to take photos of the food!

Hope you had a fantastic celebration, whether it was Passover or Easter, filled with family, friends and LOVE.