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

The fettuccine recipe

July 28, 2012 by Mary Frances 6 Comments

UPDATE: Thanks to Jenny Dechico for helping us find a new and improved name for this dish!

There was an article in the NY Times a week or two ago about the wonderful fresh bounty available now at farmer’s markets and because everything looks so good, the propensity to overbuy and then how do you store and use so many vegetables? I confess I am guilty of this, and because I am the daughter of a mother who grew up during the Great Depression, (and not to mention our own depression now), I hate to waste food.

So I made this one dish pasta meal, chock loaded with vegetables. I was going to make this a meatless meal until I discovered a little bit of spicy chorizo and some sweet sopressata that needed to be used up as well. I loved incorporating the dried sausages. First of all, when you sauté them, you release the fat from the meat so use just a tiny bit of olive oil and that sausage fat adds a lot of flavor! Also, I personally loved the chewy texture the dried meats provided – different and delicious. Now I just threw this dish together on Wednesday evening and we were ravenous so I’m sorry to say I did not measure or weigh the ingredients, but I did take pictures along the way! I hope you like this dish as much as we did.
Fettuccine with garlic, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, sausage, and pecorino romano cheese on a white plate.

FARMER’S MARKET PASTA WITH SAUSAGES AND PECORINO ROMANO CHEESE

– serves 4 – 6 as a main course

1 tbs. olive oil
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium-sized eggplant, cut in 1/2” slices, each slice cut in 1/2” strips
Peanut oil
Fine sea salt
Coarse sea salt
1 head of broccoli rabe, ends trimmed, thoroughly washed and cut in 2” pieces
7 ripe plum tomatoes, quartered or cut in 6th’s, then cut in 1/2” pieces
4” piece of spicy chorizo quartered lengthwise, and then sliced 1/4” thick
3” piece of sweet sopressata, sliced 1/8” thick and then each slice cut into 4 strips
Pecorino Romano cheese, freshly grated to taste
1 lb. dried fettuccine
4 – 6 tbs. pasta water

Okay, so this may seem like a lot for you to do but a lot of these things can happen concurrently and it really is easy.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Place your cut eggplant in a colander in a single layer and salt generously with fine sea salt. Stack additional layers of eggplant and salt on top of each layer. Let sit and drain for at least 20 minutes or longer. This takes the bitterness out.

Put about a tablespoon of peanut oil on a rimmed baking pan. Spread all over with a small paper towel. Pat dry each piece of eggplant and put on the prepared pan with space in between. Place on the lowest rack in your oven and bake for 25 minutes, until the bottoms are nicely browned.

When it is done, scrape off with a metal spatula and place on a plate.

Meanwhile, place the broccoli rabe in a large pot. Cover with cold water, and salt with coarse sea salt. Place the pot on high heat. As soon as you start to see bubbling along the edge of the pan, remove the broccoli rabe with a slotted spoon to a strainer or colander. DO NOT DRAIN THE POT, You will use this water to boil the pasta in a little bit.

Cut your tomatoes and put in a bowl. Salt with fine sea salt. Toss and let sit.

Heat 1 tbs. olive oil in a large skillet. Put the minced garlic in and sauté on very low heat for 5 minutes.

Have your sausages and grated cheese ready.

Add the sausages to the garlic and oil, raise the heat to medium and sauté for 6 minutes more. Add the broccoli rabe and toss and cook through until tender.

Reboil the broccoli rabe water, adding more if necessary. Boil the fettuccine 2 minutes less than the package instructions and then test to your liking. I like it al dente. Save some pasta water. Drain the pasta.

Put half of the fettuccine, half of the eggplant, half of the tomatoes, half of the broccoli rabe /garlic/sausage mixture, some cheese and 2 -3 tbs. pasta water together in a large bowl and toss. Finish with the remaining ingredients. Toss thoroughly to combine. Serve and top with more cheese if needed.

Salted eggplant in a colander.

Salted eggplant strips draining – removes bittterness

Broccoli rabe in a pot.

Parboiling broccoli rabe – removes bitterness

Salted tomatoes in a bowl.

Chopped, salted plum tomatoes

Garlic cloves on a wooden cutting board.

Garlic!

Chopped sausages on a wooden cutting board.

Sausages

Romano cheese on a wooden cutting board.

Pecorino Romano cheese – I just used the piece on the right

Broccoli rabe, sausage and garlic in a skillet.

Broccoli rabe, sausages and minced garlic sauteing

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: broccoli rabe, chorizo, eggplant, fettuccine, minced garlic, pecorino Romano, plum tomatoes, roasted eggplant, soprassata, The New York Times

Super quick and delicious!

July 27, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

I would like to share with you our dinner last night. Soft shell crabs, (an earlier recipe here), the corn on the cob highlighted in our new newsletter (to sign up, go to the upper right hand side of this blog), roasted zucchini with chives and some wedges of Jersey tomatoes. All delicious and quick and easy to do! Recipe for fettuccine will come tomorrow. Happy eating!
Soft shell crabs, corn on the cob, zucchini, and tomatoes on a white plate.

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: buttermilk soaked soft shell crabs, cooking newsletter, corn on the cob, food newsletter, LOVE newsletter, recipe newsletter, recipes, roasted zucchini, Soft shell crabs, tomatoes, zucchini

Dinner last night

July 26, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Coming soon, I promise!! I’ll post the recipe for this fantastic pasta dish I made last night. It was so delicious! It’s fettuccine with garlic, roasted eggplant, sauteed broccoli rabe, fresh plum tomatoes, sausages, and pecorino Romano cheese. We both had seconds. Yikes!

Fettuccine with garlic, eggplant, broccoli rabe, tomatoes, and pecorino Romano cheese.

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: broccoli rabe, eggplant, fettuccine, garlic, pecorino Romano cheese, plum tomatoes, roasted eggplant, sausages, soprassata, tomatoes

New newsletter!

July 25, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

I have exciting news for you! Well, I think it’s exciting because we’ve been talking about doing it for some time now, and have had numerous requests for it. So our first LOVE newsletter will be coming out tomorrow!!! Please sign up for it here (upper right corner) or send your email address to mary@lovethesecretingredient.com and I’ll make sure you get it and your email will be guarded.Basil, shallot, and bread on a wooden cutting board. This will be a monthly publication with seasonal tips, recipes and of course, favorite photos! Different content from what’s on the blog here. I hope it’s helpful to you.

With love, Mary Frances

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: food newsletter, food tips, foodies love, helpful food tips, local, Love - the secret ingredient, monthly, newsletter, photos, recipes

Entertaining

July 22, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Entertaining does not always have to mean you cooking everything, especially when you live in a city like New York. It is so much more important to get together with the people you love and don’t let anything or any excuse get in the way of that. My good friend, Susan, pointed this out to me and executed a beautiful example this past week.

We were invited to their apartment this past Tuesday evening. Now Susan always does a beautiful job. She usually makes all the food and we have such a good time getting together and catching up and discussing politics. But this past Tuesday was so darn hot here, she decided to change it up a bit. No matter, as long as you serve it with LOVE, it makes no difference.

She had her fish store, Dorian, on York Avenue between 83rd and 84th Street, deliver some beautiful poached salmon fillets with some green sauce on the side. Then she put together a gorgeous platter of the salmon with the sauce, along with some fresh cucumber and dill. She made a cold yummy rice salad ahead of time with black nicoise olives, served some gorgeous sliced heirloom tomatoes with chopped fresh basil along with some guacamole (also from the fish store). Add some warm rolls and butter and we were all set. It was so delicious and THE perfect menu for a hot summer night. Plus, she could spend the whole cocktail time with us in the living room as dinner was already made.

Dessert was a French yogurt cake she made, topped with a dallop of mascarpone cheese and fresh blueberries and raspberries. The perfect ending to a perfect meal!!
But I forgot to take a picture!!

As part of our hostess gift, we brought a little bit of the country to them – Ethel’s garlic.

Susan says they won’t be able to take the subway after eating this garlic! Taxis all the way from now on! Woohoo!

Farm stand garlic.

Fresh farm stand garlic!

Ethel and her garlic.

Ethel and her garlic

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: blueberries, cucumber, dill, Dorian's, fish market, French yogurt cake, guacamole, heirloom tomatoes, mascarpone cheese, nicoise olives, poached salmon, raspberries, rice salad, York Avenue

Pesto!!

July 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 7 Comments

Pesto on a spoon.I had a dinner party this past Wednesday night that was so much fun. One of my senior designers who worked for me years ago, I think back in the late 80’s, was in town and got in touch. She now lives in Singapore. She connected with another former designer and I got in touch with Carl, who was the second person I ever hired for the firm in the early 80’s. So with other friends, we were 8 people in total and three were past employees of PM+CO! It was just great catching up. Linda is a vegetarian and I wanted to make sure the whole meal was amassed with local farm vegetables from upstate, to bring great country flavors to a NYC dinner party. So I started with a salad of farm lettuce and arugula from my garden, topped with roasted beets, Coach Farms goat cheese, toasted pine nuts and a sherry vinaigrette. I then roasted two huge trays of vegetables – yellow squash, zucchini, Portobello mushrooms, eggplant, Vidalia onions, smashed whole garlic cloves (from Ethel’s garden), red, and orange peppers and baby turnips – with Greek olive oil and French grey salt. I made a mass of steamed Jasmine rice, folded in Goya black beans (for protein) and for the non-vegetarians, I pan roasted 2 whole chickens seasoned with salt, pepper and Garam Masala. It was all really simple. I also had made some basil pesto the night before from basil in my garden, picked on Monday. I decided to put some of that in a bowl and people spooned it on everything and even took some home! I was originally going to fold the pesto into the rice and beans but after taking a survey from everyone during the cocktail hour, we decided this was the way to go. A dollop on top on the vegetables was divine. Barbara asked for a batch as her Christmas present and Mary Beth took a container full home. People just wanted to eat it straight. I really never dreamed of that for pesto. I just wanted to serve it because I had just made a bunch and with our youngest being in Europe, we couldn’t possibly eat it all, although pesto does freeze quite well.

We finished the meal with a rhubarb crisp (really quick and easy to make) topped with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. Not bad for a weeknight dinner party!

Here is the pesto recipe. Remember, it’s all about the quality of the ingredients for any dish you make, so use the very best you can.

PESTO
-makes about 3 cups

3 cups of packed basil leaves, thoroughly washed and dried
6 – 7 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups Greek extra virgin olive oil (I like Athena brand)
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan (Reggiano) cheese
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano (Locatelli) cheese
salt
pepper

In a large food processor, combine basil, garlic and walnuts. Process to make a near paste. Scrape bowl. With machine on, slowly drizzle in olive oil. Scrape bowl again. Add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and 20 grinds on fresh pepper. Process again, taste and add more salt, if necessary, to your liking.

A one cup portion is enough to coat 1 lb. of dried pasta, cooked. I like it on fusilli best as it can get in all the little groves for maximum coverage and flavor.

This freezes well.

Basil in garden.

Basil in my garden.

Pesto pasta and tomatoes in a white bowl.

Dinner with our good friend, Nancy, on Saturday, started with this course.

Filed Under: Dinner, First Course Tagged With: basil, Garam Masala, Locatelli, parmesan, pecorino Romano, pesto, PM+CO, Reggiano, rhubarb crisp, roasted chicken, roasted vegetables, senior designers, weeknight dinner parties

What constitutes a vacation?

July 14, 2012 by Mary Frances 9 Comments

Doing something different? Removing your mind from everyday things? Being with your children 24/7? Having the freedom to do what you want when you want – such as staying in bed, reading or sleeping on and off until 10, or napping at 4 or having a beer at lunch?

You know what makes it for you. For us, last week was a first of being at our little upstate home, with glorious weather all week except for rain one day, no kids, no conventions or meetings and just doing what we felt like, when we felt like, and having some close friends over for dinner on the 4th. It was really perfect. We had sunset cocktails, wonderful local food, tried new recipes, dinner out twice (a treat), and lovely walks after dinner. You know, you feel like you eat too much and you drink too much and you’re bound to gain weight but surprisingly, I didn’t. I did ride my bike from 8 to 21.5 miles almost every day so I guess that helped and worked to sweat the toxins out as well. It is so quiet there and I love having all the windows in the house open to feel the clean soft breezes. (Rare for me because in NYC, it just makes the apartment dirty.) It was a real, clear the head, simply lovely time. We saw two great movies – The Avengers (silly fun) and Moonrise Kingdom – a quirky, must see, coming of age movie with great music and fantastic graphic scenes of Rhode Island.

I hope you get to clear your head this summer as well.

Here are some visual highlights.

Driveway with bike in upstate New York. Road to heaven.

I always think this looks like the road to heaven or the road to nowhere. There actually is a large house way over to the right and this is their driveway.

Upstate New York waterfall.

Our neighborhood waterfall.

Corn field in upstate New York.

The corn is growing!

Yellow roadside flowers in upstate New York.

I love these little yellow roadside flowers.

Horse farm in upstate New York with tractor.

Local horse farm – see the tractor?

Breakfast outside with eggs, toast, and orange juice.

Breakfast outside – my favorite!

Filed Under: Breakfast, Travel Tagged With: bike rides, breakfast, Columbia County, corn, farm fresh eggs, horses, orange juice, roadside flowers, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, toast, upstate NY, vacation, waterfalls, willow trees

Our week upstate

July 7, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

We are rounding home stretch here on our vacation week upstate. We had glorious weather the whole time to be greeted by rain this afternoon. But that’s okay, it feels like a Nantucket day today so I am writing and reading and hopefully napping soon, a true vacation luxury.

I always end up saying to my husband, after my daily bike ride, that there is no prettier place than here. (Well Bali may be prettier but I’ve not been there yet.) It is just so darn pretty here – the sky even competes with a South African one! We often just sit staring out at our backyard, watching the show of animals that randomly appear, which provides a great sense of renewal to us city dwellers during the week.

Here are some photo highlights of our week. I’ll post some bike riding pictures soon!

Nantucket green backyard.

Our backyard sunset cocktail lounge

Hudson Valley sunset.

Hudson Valley sunsets can’t be beat!

Blueberry pie.

My 4th of July blueberry pie – served with Blue Marble vanilla ice cream and fresh raspberries to make it complete!

Blueberry pie with flakey crust.

I’m very proud of this super flakey crust.

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: bike rides, Blue Marble ice cream, blueberry pie, cocktails, Hudson Valley, outdoor cocktail lounges, raspberries, sunsets

Brownies!

July 4, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Brownies with nuts on a white plate.
I thought you might need this recipe for your picnic today, perhaps?

I’ve been told I make the best brownies. You can decide for yourself. These are easy and delicious, but it is always about the quality of the ingredients you use. And that goes for cooking anything! I try to use the BEST chocolate I can get my hands on, Mexican vanilla, which I adore, (I bought several bottles of it when we were on a family vacation there. People go there all the time, so ask your friends to bring you back a bottle if they’re going. It’s easy to find, they even sell it at the airport!), high quality unsalted butter and the freshest walnuts. (Keep your nuts well wrapped in ziplock bags in the freezer and they will never go rancid.)

It is important to melt your chocolate and butter together, but not completely. Remove from the microwave with still some chunks of chocolate and stir rapidly. They will finish melting on their own and you will not have hurt the chemical composition of the butter and chocolate by overheating. In my relatively new microwave, I do two rounds of 30 seconds on high heat and stir in between. But not all microwaves are the same. You may want to do two rounds at a lower power setting.

Two are two other important things to remember. Beat well after adding each egg. After adding the second egg, beat to achieve a shiny look and consistency and then beat in your salt thoroughly. The last thing you add is the flour, nuts and vanilla, and you don’t want to beat too much when mixing that in. The other important thing to remember is to not over bake them. 22 – 25 minutes is perfect in my oven. Baking them too long will not give you the soft, luscious, fudgey interior.

Enjoy!!

BEST BROWNIES
– makes 16

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate (I use Scharffen Berger), cut into chunks
8 tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus a little more for greasing pan, cut into tablespoons
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt (French grey salt is the best)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine chocolate and butter in a medium bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir and decide whether to microwave for another 30 seconds or keep stirring until all of the chocolate is melted and the mixture is silky smooth. Meanwhile, butter an 8 1/2-inch-square baking pan.

Stir the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add your pinch of salt and beat until shiny and smooth. Add flour, vanilla and walnuts and stir to incorporate – no traces of flour should remain, but do not over stir.

Pour batter mixture into pan, and smooth out evenly. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until set and barely firm in the middle. Cool on a rack before cutting into 16 squares.

Brownie batter in a bowl.

Beautiful shiny batter.

Brownie batter in a pan.

Right before going into the oven.

Filed Under: Desserts Tagged With: best brownies, brownies, butter, chocolately, French grey salt, Mexican vanilla, rich fudgey brownies, Scharffen Berger chocolate, walnuts

Tanglewood!

July 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

I love going to Tanglewood. Before we had our upstate house, I had always dreamed of being able to be close by to there to do exactly what we did last Saturday. I love the setting, I love the whole picnic dinner, I love the music. Diana Krall was playing and she was fantastic! So last weekend, two of my brothers and their wives joined us at our upstate house, which is not far from Tanglewood. (My dream came true!) On Saturday afternoon, I fried up two and a half chickens, made a fabulous potato salad (if I can say so myself) along with a tomato and peach salad and some brownies. My sister-in-laws filled in with a wonderful vegetable slaw, a selections of cheeses, nuts and grapes. Add some fantastic bottles of wine from my brothers and we were all set!!

We were so set, that I forgot to take pictures of all the food and our plates!!

But here’s the evening – and what was left of the buttermilk fried chicken.

Two brothers at Tanglewood.

Two of my brothers at Tanglewood

Chicken basket.

This was full of buttermilk fried chicken

Fried chicken in tin foil.

This is what was left.

Picnic dinner at Tanglewood.

The remains of the dinner

The scene!

Elegant couple with candlelit picnic dinner at Tanglewood.

This elegant couple gladly posed for me. Notice the silver candlesticks and flowers. The guy told me he chose his shirt on purpose to match!

Diana playing at Tanglewood.

Diana playing.

I need to talk to you of what I have learned of the importance of voice – and what Diana Krall has taught me. She is so soft, so mellow, soooo sexy with that contralto voice of hers. She could almost say anything to you and you would agree. If you got mad at your husband with her voice, he’d just have to kiss you and do anything you wanted. Seriously.
I think we don’t pay enough attention to our voice and the strength of it – and we should. So pay attention to not only what you say but how you say it. It makes a huge difference.

Filed Under: Dinner, Travel Tagged With: brothers, buttermilk fried chicken, Diana Krall, dinner picnics, picnics, Pinot Noir, potato salad, Tanglewood, wine

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