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

Weeknight entertaining chicken

September 21, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

This is my son Zach’s favorite chicken. We make this over and over as you can get two recipes out of a quart of buttermilk and what else are you going to use that for? And buttermilk lasts a long time so you can do it 3 weeks apart. It is a take on a Nigella Lawson recipe as I have fiddled and changed it. Great for weeknight entertaining as you do the most work two days ahead of time. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do – and it’s super easy – with an easy clean-up to boot!

BUTTERMILK ROAST CHICKEN – serves 4
1 3.5-pound chicken
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon crushed black peppercorns, or 1 1/2 tsp. coarse ground pepper
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
2 heaping tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
10 juniper berries, smashed
1 tablespoons honey

Butterfly chicken by placing breast side down and using heavy-duty kitchen or poultry shears to cut along both sides of backbone. Discard backbone, turn chicken over and press gently on the breastbone to flatten.

Place chicken in a large freezer bag. Add buttermilk, 1/4 cup oil, garlic, peppercorns, salt, rosemary, juniper berries and honey. Seal bag securely, massage all ingredients together and refrigerate for two days. Turn over and massage more during the two days, when you think about it.

Take chicken out of the refrigerator 30 – 45 minutes before roasting. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a roasting pan with foil and use a rack. Remove chicken from marinade and place on a rack in the roasting pan. Drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Roast for 40 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees. Continue roasting until well browned and your meat thermometer measures 155 – 160 degrees in thigh meat, about another 10 -15 minutes.

Remove chicken to a platter or carving board and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting into serving pieces.

Weeknight entertaining

September 20, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Weeknight entertaining is easy to do if you plan a little bit ahead. We enjoy seeing our friends in the city during the week as we are usually in the country on the weekends. So on the weekend, I knew my good friend MB was coming for dinner on Monday night. On Saturday, I started marinating my chicken, I roasted and peeled my golden beets for the salad and toasted the walnuts. Easy. Here’s my menu:

APPETIZERS
A platter of sliced soprasetta, thin breadsticks, fresh fennel sticks, a little bowl of basil olive oil with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, pistachio nuts, Siracha peas and a large square of Spanakopita from the Greek store, warmed and cut into four.

DINNER
Baby spinach salad with roasted golden beets, toasted walnuts, goat cheese and a sherry vinaigrette (wash and chill spinach, cut beets, arrange all, make vinaigrette & drizzle)
Buttermilk roasted chicken (all your work was done on Saturday)
Corn on the cob (easy to roast in their husks, 350 degree oven for 25 – 30 minutes)
Tomato, mozzerella and basil with olive oil, salt and pepper (easy – just wash, slice and arrange)

DESSERT
Baklava with fresh strawberries (wash and dry berries, cut store-bought Baklava)

I wanted this dinner to be casual, easy and serve some of the freshness that is left from the farms upstate. I’d say I succeeded! All 4 of us were content and happy. You may think why salad/salad with the beets and tomatoes but the beet salad was served as a first course and the tomatoes and mozzerella were served with the meal and it didn’t feet that way. Both were delicious. Besides, I didn’t want a plate with just corn and chicken on it for the main meal. This chicken is my son Zach’s favorite. Try it and you’ll know why. Those of you that have young teenagers at home can even put this in the oven for you when you’re on your way home from work. I used to instruct Zach to do this over the phone when we still lived in Jersey.

Sunday night Cornish hens

September 18, 2011 by Mary Frances 6 Comments

I love this dish because it’s quick and easy and looks fancy – fancy enough for a Sunday night dinner! The bold flavors are imparted from the mustard and teriyaki – flavorful components in of themselves, along with the onions and lemons just sliced. So no washing and chopping of fresh herbs makes it a quick fix! My mustard is a hot and sweet combo. I will post that recipe in the next few days. It’s nice to always have some on hand as it keeps well in the refrigerator. In the meantime, you can use Dijon or Nance’s.

MUSTARD TERIYAKI CORNISH HENS
2 Cornish hens
Olive oil
2 large onions – sliced in 1/4’ thick slices
1 1/2 lemons – sliced in 1/8” slices
4 rounded tsps. of Mary’s mustard – recipe to come, or use Dijon or Nance’s
1.25 tsps. dried rosemary, crumbled
1/3 cup teriyaki sauce

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash and dry the Cornish hens. Cut off all visible fat and butt piece and then cut down the back portion to separate the 2 breasts to make 2 distinct halves. You should have 4 halves. Rub olive oil in a thin film on a rimmed baking sheet. Alternate slices of lemons and onions to form a large rectangle. Lay the Cornish hens halves on top and put a rounded teaspoon of mustard on each one and spread all over the skinned surface with a brush or knife, Sprinkle dried rosemary over all and then brush with the teriyaki sauce. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 -30 minutes. Baste at least twice, starting at 15 minutes. Your instant read thermometer should read 150 – 155. Let them rest on a platter for at least 10 minutes before serving. The lemon and the onions will give their juices along with the hens to make a wonderful mixture. You can even eat the roasted lemons with the hens, skin and all – like a fresh, preserved lemon!

How do you cook?

September 17, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

My cooking is very robust in flavor – using lots of garlic, onions, fresh herbs and spices. I like to pump it up – but not just with spice as Emeril does. I pump up the other things. People do love my cooking. It is all about the ingredients – the best quality and the freshest – otherwise, make something else.

2 weeks ago I ran into Meryl Streep at our local butcher/ farm store. We had a conversation (OMG!) and she was lovely – even asked about me and where we lived! She was there picking out her vegetables just like all of us. (This is a tiny store.)

And then last night we watched Heartburn on Netflix on our computer. (we don’t have a TV in the country on purpose – my husband can be an addict and we are both addicts to news shows during the week.) It’s a great movie and a horrible one for the way her husband treats her. I think, if I remember correctly, it’s the story of Nora Ephron’s first marriage to Carl Bernstein, but I may be mistaken. Anyway, there’s cooking and birthing and babies in this movie and you can clearly tell Meryl has done it all in real life because she just so comfortable portraying it. She is a lovely lady.

Pasta with Tuscan Duck Sauce

September 15, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

This is one of my family favorites – an often request! For everyone’s birthday, I always make whatever they want. Our oldest son requested this as his first course this year. Once, for my husband, who loves duck, I made a dinner that literally took three days to make – and we still ate at 11 pm!! It was Duck Three Ways and a whole host of other things that I have blocked out of my mind now, but I do remember I was ready to shoot myself in the middle of it. However, the meal was worthy of the highest restaurant meal – like Daniel – really! And my oldest son has been asking for it since, but I think I hid all the recipes and still haven’t recuperated. It’s been four years. And that was when we were moving from Summit, NJ, back to Manhattan and living in a temporary apartment in Summit with a crappy kitchen and an electric stove. But you know, I have a old electric stove here in the country and I think that if you know what you’re doing, you adjust and survive.

Here we go. Now remember, for a weeknight dinner, cook your duck the night before and this becomes a really quick meal – under an hour with a side vegetable.

PASTA WITH TUSCAN DUCK SAUCE – 4 main-course servings
3 duck legs
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1 28-ounce can plum tomatoes, hand crushed
1 pound cut pasta, like penne or fusilli
Grated pecorino Romano cheese

Trim visible fat from duck legs, then lay them, skin side down, in a 10-inch skillet. Turn heat to medium; when duck begins to sizzle, turn heat to low and cover. Cook undisturbed about 60 – 65 minutes (check once to be sure legs aren’t burning); the skin should be golden brown. Turn and cook until duck is very tender, about 20 – 25 minutes.

Remove duck and set aside. (Or if cooking the night before, remove duck, cool and refrigerate. Scrape cooled duck fat into another container and refrigerate. Then melt duck fat in a skillet and continue. You need to cook the onions in the duck fat because that is what adds the huge flavor.) Add onion to skillet with the duck fat and turn heat to low and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft, about 15 – 20 minutes. Add the garlic. Set a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta.

Add wine to skillet and raise heat to high; cook until liquid is reduced by about half. Add tomatoes that you’ve crushed by hand as you’re adding them, with their juice, and some salt and pepper, and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture is saucy, about 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning. You will need some more salt and pepper. About 5 – 7 minutes after adding tomatoes, cook pasta. When it is al dente, (usually 1- 2 minutes less than the least amount of time they tell you on the package – taste it to be sure. It should be done but just done – no raw dry pasta in the middle but it should have some tension.) Drain it.

While pasta is cooking, shred duck from bone and add it to sauce near the end. You just need to heat it through now. and serve it with the pasta, along with cheese.

What to do?

September 14, 2011 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

I had a craving for some gnocchi. The weather is getting cooler and gnocchi is so warm and comforting – yummy. So that’s what I wanted for dinner and I knew we should have fish – too much meat already this week. So I ask my husband what he feels like eating and he says, “Well shrimp is always good.” He loves shrimp

Hmmmm, I ‘m thinking, Shrimp and gnocchi? I was intending something more like salmon with gnocchi as a side dish. And then I have these snowpeas that need to be used. So here’s what I did.

Everyone LOVED it!

I hope you like it too.

GNOCCHI WITH SHRIMP & SNOWPEAS
1 tbs. olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 large leeks, white and very light green parts only, thoroughly washed and cleaned (slice in half lengthwise and wash all layers, then thinly slice half circles
1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
1 Thai red chili pepper minced with seeds
½ large red pepper cut in thin long strips and then cut in half again, OR: use the 3 tops left over from your stuffed peppers
¼ cup dry vermouth
12 oz. snowpeas, cleaned
11/2 lb. large shrimp, peeled & deveined with tails left on
1 lb. gnocchi
2 tbs. chopped fresh parsley

Set a large pot of salted water on to boil for the gnocchi. Use coarse sea salt for the water.

Warm the olive oil on low heat, add leeks and garlic, cover and sweat for 10 – 12 minutes. The onion and garlic will get sweet and soft, stir every once in a while to make sure it doesn’t brown. Raise heat to medium and add vermouth and let bubble for 1 – 2 minutes, then add tomatoes and red pepper and let cook for 10 more minutes while you wash your shrimp (3 times), dry and salt and pepper one side. Add cleaned snow peas and sauté for 3 – 5 minutes, then add shrimp and toss and cook until just done and they have turned pink, about 3 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste Meanwhile, cook your gnocchi in the boiling water, drain. Combine with shrimp mixture, garnish with chopped parsley.

Now I know the next night I want to make my version of a Mark Bittman recipe of pasta with a Tuscan duck sauce, but the duck takes 1.5 hours to cook so I decide to buy the duck and cook it tonight while I’m cooking this dinner and it’s easy. You just need to plan it.

Trim all the visible fat from 3 duck legs and thighs. Wash and pat dry. Put them skin side down in a non-stick skillet and turn heat to medium. When they start to sizzle, cover and turn heat to low for 60 -65 minutes, or until skin is crisp. Check every so often to make sure they are not burning. When skin is crisp, turn over and cook, covered for another 20 – 25 minutes or so, until very tender. Remove duck, cool and refrigerate. Scrape cooled duck fat into another container and refrigerate.

It’s the little things

September 13, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

I was supposed to have lunch today with a new prospective client but she had to cancel so I had a lovely lunch with my husband – novel – at a wonderful Japanese restaurant on the East side of town. Most Japanese restaurants, at least in NYC, have a special lunch menu where you can choose soup or salad to start. And typical is the iceberg lettuce with a ginger sesame dressing, right? Well this place was particularly good, the sushi amazing. And the salad was curly green leaf lettuce, cut in 1/2″ wide ribbons, with one slice of cucumber cut in half, topped with the ginger sesame dressing and some sesame seeds sprinkled on top!

It was just a little thing but something different and surprising, and suddenly it made the salad special!

Think of how many little touches we can do to dishes to delight and surprise. It’s easy with the abundance of fresh herbs in the summer as a finishing touch but I’m going have to work on this for the coming winter.

More later.

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Sunday Night Stuffed Peppers

September 12, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

When I was a little girl, my mother made stuffed peppers as a special weeknight dinner. I always loved them and I’m not a green pepper fan. So I decided to try to recreate her recipe and use a combination of red and green peppers to stuff. (It’s an early Christmas!) I have all of her recipes, but I must admit, she’s been gone since 1995 and I have not ventured to try to find it. She was a wee bit organized but not much. I am terrible at keeping some sort of sense of my mass of recipes. (How should you categorize – main ingredient or meal part or when you served it?) Luckily I have a good memory (so far!) and there’s always the internet and online sources to go back to.

So I made this one up to the best of my memory of hers. My family thought I did a great job. I remember my Mom used to put an extra dab of tomato sauce (she used Hunt’s!) on top of the meat mixture in the peppers. I opted to put the cheese. I think here it’s better as the tomato sauce in the meat mixture is so rich with the wine, extra is not needed. I think she would think so too.

You let me know what you think.

SUNDAY NIGHT STUFFED PEPPERS – serves 4 – 6
2 tbs. olive oil
1 medium-large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed, with juices
2 tsp. dried Greek oregano
10 thyme springs, leaves only
½ cup dry red wine
1+ lb. bulk sweet Italian sausage
1+ lb. bulk hot Italian sausage
¼ cup chopped parsley leaves
3 tbs. chopped tarragon leaves
½ -3/4 cup cooked white basmati rice
6 large peppers, red or green or a combo
9 tbs. grated parmesan cheese
1- 11/2 cups chicken broth

Pre-heat oven to 350 degree

Warm the olive oil on low heat, add onion and garlic, cover and sweat for 15 minutes. The onion and garlic will get sweet and soft, stir every once in a while to make sure it doesn’t brown. Add tomatoes and juices, oregano and thyme, raise heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add red wine and simmer for 15 more minutes until sauce is thickened. Salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, sauté the sausage meat together, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until all pink is gone. Line a large platter with 3 layers of paper towels. When meat is cooked, spread it out on the paper towels to drain the grease.

Prepare peppers. Wash and cut off the tops. Remove the stem, wrap in plastic and save for another use. Remove the seeds from the peppers so you have nice hallowed- out cups.

When the sauce is thickened, remove from heat and fold in the cooked rice, parsley and tarragon. Add the drained meat and combine well. Fill the peppers with this mixture and stand them upright in a baking pan. Top each pepper meat mixture with 1.5 tbs. grated parmesan cheese. Pour chicken broth in the bottom of the pan to a depth of 3/8” – ½”. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 – 35 minutes. Remove and serve.

Enjoy!!!

You have to love it

September 11, 2011 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

I am convinced, that in order to be a great cook, you have to make something you love, to be able to put love into it and serve fantastic food. You have to be excited to eat what you are cooking. I am fortunate in that my family members are foodies. They pretty much like everything, except for Zach, who does not like fruit, except for apples. Don’t ask me why. But he does love this curry shrimp appetizer dish that I make with a mango dipping sauce. He doesn’t know it’s mango chutney in there. (hope he’s not reading this) And the older one will even eat pigs feet and sweetbreads!

But seriously, you are what you eat and you have to like what you cook. So when I’m trying to figure out what to make for dinner, sometimes I imagine myself reading a restaurant menu, trying to figure out what would appeal to me and then I go make it. I always buy what looks luscious and then figure out what to do with it later. I also cook by color – the plate must look great too. After all, I am a designer and a painter.

Food appeals to you on at least 3 levels – sight, smell and taste. Make those work to the best of your advantage. Always buy red peppers and tomatoes – you’ll probably need a little red during the week!

However, I must admit, there are two foods I cannot muster any excitement for – collard greens and kasha. Kasha tastes like little pieces of cardboard and collard greens – to be able to chew them – you have to cook them until they’re this lurid color of green that I just can’t stomach.

I am open to any ideas though.

Smells

September 10, 2011 by Mary Frances 1 Comment

Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Our offices were located downtown near the towers at One Wall Street Court at the time. While our building was unharmed and all of our employees safe, we were not allowed in to the building or area for a full week. With all the horror with what happened down there, two things stick in my mind. The smell of burning flesh, plastics and toxins, and how long that lasted – about a year for me. It was acrid and burning in your nostrils. (I have an acute sense of smell which is sometimes not a very good thing. I had sinus surgery years ago to relive migraine headaches, which it didn’t do but it left me with this.) After about two weeks, if you were on the upper East or West side, it was as if nothing happened! While us downtowners dealt with everything for many many months. They are still dealing with it. I urge you to read Frank Rich’s article in New York Magazine – Day’s End – published Aug. 27.

I pray that nothing happens this weekend, with the heightened alerts from possible terrorists attacks again, which we all learned about on Thursday. The police are everywhere in Manhattan.

In 2006, we traveled to India. My husband was asked to give a speech at an international business conference in Calcutta. I got to travel along as the wife! We had to stop and spend the night in New Delhi, on the last leg of travel to our destination. New Delhi has that same acrid, burning smell which took me right back to 2001. Their burning smell is from the poor who live on the streets and build fires to cook and keep warm. No doubt they are burning plastics and toxic materials. I questioned the Indians about the smell – they said, “What smell?” My good friend Sumantra later explained it to me, but seriously, they don’t smell it.

Of all your senses, I believe smell is the most memorable. Which is why good smells wafting from your kitchen can create memories beyond belief for your family. We are in the country and last night I decided to make a new spice rub for pork chops. My husband called it smooth and “elegant.” Isn’t he cute? I called it very fragrant and delicious.

SPICE RUB FOR PORK CHOPS – for 6 pork chops
Make sure your spices are fresh!
1 tbs. cumin powder
1 tsp ground coriander (preferably Moroccan)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp. ground Nigerian cayenne pepper
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. garlic powder.

Combine everything together very well – toss with a fork. Wash and dry your meat. Salt one side of each chop and spread rub on both sides and massage into the meat. Grill until temperature reaches 140 – 145 degrees. Let sit for at least 5 minutes before serving. They will continue cooking and this allows time for the juices to collect inside the meat and be totally yummy.

Let me know how you like this!