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

A great bean dip

December 31, 2012 by Mary Frances 21 Comments

We all need something to eat during cocktail hour, whether your cocktail is wine or a martini. I don’t want it to be fattening or filling, but it needs to be something. I am also a big protein fan. My body, as I was told by one doctor, needs a lot of protein, so I made up this clean tasting, protein-laden dip, with vegetables as the dipping device. This is great for any party, particularly New Year’s Eve!

MARY’S BEAN DIP

One 16 oz can of cannellini beans, drained, rinsed and drained
2 – 3 rounded tbs. hot horseradish, with juice drained, let your taste decide amount
3 tbs. olive oil
1/2 head of roasted garlic
1/2 of a lemon squeezed – add gradually and taste
1 tsp. ground cumin
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
3 tbs. chopped fresh parsley
Olive oil to drizzle on top
Cumin powder to sprinkle on top

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Take one head of garlic and slice the whole thing in half, horizontally. Place on aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Close up the two halves on top of one another and make a tight closed packet with the foil. Roast for 45 minutes to one hour until the garlic is soft and brown. (You can use the other half for many things – add to mashed potatoes, vegetables, anything!)

Place beans, horseradish, olive oil and squeeze 1/2 head of the garlic cloves into the bowl of a food processor and process until chunky. Add half of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cumin and process again and taste. Add more lemon if you like and process until a nice smooth consistency. Use more olive oil if you need to, to make it smooth. Add the parsley at the very end and pulse just once or twice. You just want the parsley distributed throughout the dip. Alternatively, you can fold it in by hand.

Place in a bowl to serve, drizzle on more olive oil and sprinkle some more cumin on top.

Serve with fresh fennel, celery, red pepper, endive spears or any other fresh dipping vegetables you like.
You can’t have a more LOVING presentation than this! This hand bowl was a gift from our friends Carl and Roger – from the MoMA Design Store – isn’t it great?!!

Southern cheese straws!

December 30, 2012 by Mary Frances 11 Comments

Crisp, buttery, rich and cheesy, that’s what I want in a cheese straw. Many times I have made various recipes, only to be entirely disappointed. Once I tried a recipe that had puff pastry as the base. It was horrible! Not cheesy, but soggy, and as hard as I tried to crisp them up that Thanksgiving with a lot of LOVE, nothing would work. This recipe, however, fulfilled all my expectations. It must be loaded with calories, but to make just once a year and eat only one or two during cocktail hour shouldn’t hurt you. At least that’s my reasoning.

So as I was making these, they started coming out with a curled top. Hmm, I said, looks like a candy cane to me. So I went with it! Some are straight sticks and others are candy canes, perfect for the season. These would be great for your New Year’s Eve party. Enjoy!

SOUTHERN CHEESE STRAWS – adapted from The New York Times

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 lb. extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar cheese, grate it cold first and then let it come to room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grate cheese.

In a food processor, pulse dry ingredients until combined, then add cheese and butter. Process until dough becomes smooth and has the texture of Play-Doh. (My piano teacher’s first husband invented Play-Doh – it was originally wallpaper paste!)

Shape the dough into a cylinder, wrap with plastic wrap and allow to rest for at least 20 minutes in the refrigerator until ready to bake.

Bring dough to room temperature (if it has been in the refrigerator for some time) and pack it into a cookie press fitted with a star disk. Pipe long ribbons of dough across the baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat, about an inch apart. Then cut into six-inch lengths. Or make into candy cane shapes. Repeat with remaining dough.
Bake for about 13 minutes or until the edges just begin to brown. Store between sheets of parchment or wax paper in an airtight container or tin. Will keep for up to three weeks, if they last that long.

So civilized

April 17, 2012 by Mary Frances 1 Comment

My husband and I were asked to take in a French graduate student for 4 months to live with us. We take on French interns at the office but this was the first time we were asked and considered doing this. Quite frankly, our oldest son had such a great experience living with a family in Tuscany for his semester abroad, we thought it was our turn to pay it forward. Charlotte was due to arrive this past Sunday evening so I wanted to make a special meal but of course one that would hold up if she was two hours delayed in getting through customs. So I made this amazing pork roast – my husband and son said it was better than my version of Julia Child’s Beef Bourguinon – and way easier. Recipe to come!

But while I was making everything, I needed a little snack and had to test the wine that was going into this dish. So I fixed a little smoked trout on a Breton cracker with a smear of plain Greek yogurt, a dab of horseradish and a bit of fresh thyme. With a taste of red wine in a little juice glass and the sunlight streaming through the window, isn’t this just the prettiest little picture?

We must know what we’re eating!

February 27, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

This is from an email I just received from the Center for Food Safety.

Congress to FDA: LABEL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD
Have YOUR Senators and Representative Joined the Letter?

In the U.S., we pride ourselves on having choices and making informed decisions. Under current FDA regulations, we don’t have that choice when it comes to GE ingredients in the foods we purchase and feed our families. This led the Center for Food Safety to submit a legal petition to the FDA demanding that the agency require the labeling of GE foods. In response, Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) and Representative Peter DeFazio (OR) have authored a bicameral Congressional letter in support of our legal petition and will be urging their fellow Members on Capitol Hill to sign onto their letter.

Unsuspecting consumers by the tens of millions are being allowed to purchase and consume unlabeled genetically engineered foods, despite the fact that FDA undertakes no testing of its own, instead relying only on a voluntary consultation with industry and confidential industry data to assure safety. Internal FDA documents discovered in prior CFS litigation actually indicated the foods could pose serious risks, but those views were overruled.

Genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in nearly 50 countries around the world including the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, China, New Zealand and many others. A recent poll released by ABC News found that 93 percent of the American public wants the federal government to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. As ABC News stated, “Such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare.” Yet the United States is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t require labeling of GE food!

Please write and call your U.S. Senators and Representative and urge them to join the Boxer-DeFazio letter in support of labeling!

Super easy nachos

February 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

This is so easy, it’s almost stupid. But it’s really, really good!! I have seen the most sophisticated people not want to stop eating these in my home. And they are perfect for Super Bowl Sunday. You see, I made these up when I was having a casual weeknight dinner party, and needed a quick, easy and delicious appetizer. My guests usually sit at the counter at my kitchen so I can talk to them while I cook on the other side.

It’s funny to me that the “counter” has come full circle in my life. When I was a kid, (I’m the youngest of 6 with 5 older brothers), if we misbehaved at the kitchen table at dinnertime, we were sent to eat at the counter behind us having our back to the table and eating next to a sink filled with vegetable peels and a can of dog food ready to feed the dog. My Dad was a Major in the army in WW II and he could be pretty tough. The “crime” could have been something like my brother, Mark, making me laugh so hard that milk would come spewing out of my nose. Most of the time I was sent to the counter, not Mark! And now I grow up and my counter is full of friends and family hanging out and allowing me to be a part of the party! I love my open kitchen here.

Back to the nachos – I love nachos! We all love the crunch and the salt, but they’re too much. How do you make them lighter and a bit healthier, I kept on asking myself. This is what I think about in the middle of the night. Crazy, I know.

So here’s what I do.

NACHOS MADE FRESH & EASY
Restaurant style Tostitos – a mound to fit on an 11” round serving plate
1 15.5 oz. can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 fresh plum tomatoes, quartered lengthwise and chopped
3 – 4 oz. fresh grated sharp cheddar cheese, to taste
½ fresh avocado, cubed
Pickled jalapeno peppers, sliced
Your favorite salsa on the side

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mound a pile of chips on a rimless cookie sheet the size of the plate you’re using to serve this. It’s very important that your cookie sheet is rimless because you have to be able to slide the whole thing off onto your plate. Scatter your drained beans on top, then the fresh tomatoes and grated cheese. Bake on the top shelf in the oven for 5 – 10 minutes, until the cheese is nicely melted. Remove from the oven and slide onto your serving plate.

Top with the fresh avocado cubes and pickled jalapeno peppers. Serve with a cake server on small plates with some salsa on the side so that your guests can spoon it on to their pile of warm nachos. Enjoy! GO GIANTS!!!!!

Serving of nachos with avocado and salsa.

A serving with salsa

Football snacks

January 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

This past week, we had some dear friends over for cocktails and appetizers and then had dinner together at the Red Rooster restaurant, just open a year now, but famed and always crowded. It’s nice!

Charlie Rose was at the table next to ours, (poor guy, he spilled wine all over himself) and the star chef/owner Marcus Samuelsson stopped by and chatted with us. As usual, the Swedish meatballs and fried chicken (yardbird) were great!

I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think I do appetizers well and this opportunity of only having to serve just that and not a whole dinner, was unusual for me. So I wanted to make them different, not too filling, (because I knew dinner would be), and fresh. I think I achieved that.

I relied on my friend Margaret’s recipe for tonnato, a really creamy, bursting with flavor dip. Combining tuna, anchovies, capers and mayo and you can’t go wrong. Throw in parboiled green beans, fresh fennel and red pepper sticks and you’ve got a delicious combo. I also included a marvelous true English cheddar from Todd English’s Food Court at the Plaza Hotel, some crackers, pistachios (Susan loves) and corn nuts.

It worked out great and I think this would also be great for game watching today. Let me know what you think!

TONNATO
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 olive oil
8 oz Italian tuna in oil, drained (or use 1 ½ cans of water packed white albacore tuna, drained – I actually think this is better!)
5 anchovy fillets, packed in oil, at room temperature, drained and patted dry with a paper towel
3 tbs. lemon juice or a bit more to taste
2 tbs. capers, drained
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in the food processor and process until smooth and voila, you’ve got one tasty dip! Do taste before you add any salt and pepper as you may not need any salt at all.

For the green beans, trim the one end, drop in boiling salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and immediately put in an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Pat dry and let air dry. When dry, wrap in a paper towel and place in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator to chill.

Fennel and red pepper strips should just be raw. You could also use carrot, celery or cucumber strips too.