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

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.

Delicious crab cakes

December 29, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

A traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner is comprised of numerous courses of fish. It was a sin, way back, to eat meat on Christmas Eve and many folks fasted all day too.

However, my brother David was born on Christmas Eve so things got all catawampus at our house. David is the second oldest, was born with no name in mind. The story goes that after attending midnight mass, my father went back to the hospital and said he had to be named David, as that was the most mentioned name in the entire service.

Then I moved to New York and every Jewish person I met was totally surprised that our Catholic family had a son named David! Oy vey!

Well David and his brood (7 kids and 10 grandchildren with 2 more on the way) still live in St. Louis. So all of us on the East coast could go back to a more traditional meal, rather than his birthday request.

Here is what I served for this year.

Appetizers:
Taramusalata with red pepper and celery sticks
Greek cheese & aged Gouda with Breton crackers
Beautiful bunch of grapes

Dinner:
Crab cakes on a bed of Boston lettuce with chipotle mayonnaise and 1/2 slice of warm homemade Polish bread just out of the oven.
Steamed whole striped bass with ginger and lemon
Fennel salad
Coarse bulgar with olive oil and parsley
Oven roasted plum tomatoes with oregano

Dessert:
Christmas cookies, of course!

David’s wife, Pat, requested the crab cake recipe. This is from Preston Clark at Food and Wine magazine and it is the best crab cake recipe I have found so far. Now my husband is from Baltimore, so this is a big deal. Baltimoreans know their crab and they serve up the BEST jumbo lump crab cakes. A fine restaurant there will never use a lot or maybe any breading, but then I could never figure out how they got them to hold together because every time I would try to replicate their recipes, they would taste good, but look terrible as they always fell apart.

This recipe uses another fish as a binding – it’s genius! Fresh and full of flavor with the jalapeños and scallions, and crispy on the outside, you will love these. And they hold together nicely.

Crab cake on a Boston lettuce leaf with organic watercress and chipotle mayo

Here you go!

CRISP CRAB CAKES WITH CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE – ADAPTED FROM PRESTON CLARK
-serves 8 as a first course or 4 as a main

Crab Cakes
1/4 – 1/2 lb. skinless flounder fillet, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
5 scallions, thinly sliced
3 jalapeños, seeded and minced
3 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbs. chopped parsley
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 lb. lump or jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over for shells, lay out on a paper towel and pat dry on top
1 1/4 cups panko bread crumbs
Pure olive oil, for frying (I think I might try canola or peanut next time to get it at a higher temperature.)

Chipotle Mayonnaise
This makes a lot and all is not necessary for the crab cakes, but you can use leftovers for other meat sandwiches, especially turkey would be good
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 chipotle chile in adobo, seeded and minced (or leave the seeds in if you like it spicey – I did)
1 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground pepper

To make the cakes:
In a mini food processor, puree the fish. A small fillet is about 8 oz and my fishmonger wouldn’t sell any less so I used the whole 1/2 lb. and pureed it in two batches. Transfer the pureed fish to a large bowl and add the scallions, jalapeños, lemon juice, parsley, cayenne, salt, pepper and mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the crabmeat. Form the mixture into 8 cakes. Place the panko in a pie plate and gently coat the cakes with the panko and refrigerate for 30 minutes. It is important to refrigerate them for at least 30 minutes, so you can handle them and they hold their shape when frying.

To make the mayonnaise:
In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, chipotle, lemon juice, Old Bay and mustard and season with salt and black pepper. Cover and refrigerate.

To fry the cakes:
In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1/4 inch of oil until shimmering. Add the crab cakes and cook over moderate heat until browned and heated through, about 3 minutes per side. Use 2 skillets or do 2 batches as 4 at a time is enough.

To serve:
I served the crab cakes on a bed of one Boston lettuce leaf topped with watercress with a dab of the chipotle mayonnaise. Squeeze a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice on the outside rim of the lettuce, before placing on the crab cake, then put on your dab of mayonnaise.

So pretty. So fresh. So good!!

Covered bread

Homemade Polish bread on a white napkin.

Homemade Polish bread – the slight sweetness of this bread offset the spiciness of the crab cake with chipotle mayo – yummy!

Getting ready.

December 2, 2011 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

With the holidays coming, a lot of entertaining may be on your calendar. It’s a great time to get together and toast to your friends!

I love to entertain. I love to plan the dinners and dessert, but when it comes to the appetizers, I admit I struggle. I usually never get a chance to eat much of them as I’m busy preparing dinner. I don’t like to serve things that are too fattening or filling and how often can you buy the same dips (which usually aren’t very good, except for hummas) or serve more cheese? Other things are great but more complicated and take up too much time unless you’ve taken the whole day off of work.

This is something I wanted to share with you. This dip is my friend, Diane’s recipe. I knew we liked her and her husband the first time we were invited to their home for dinner as they were the only other martini drinking couple we knew in Summit, NJ when we all lived there. Our sons were friends and played soccer together.

I love straight up gin martinis but these days I really can’t take more than 2 sips and then I need to put some ice in it. (I really just love drinking out of the straight up glasses.) I remember the first time I had this dip, that night we each had two martinis before dinner! I must admit, I don’t remember what she served for dinner.

Oh no wait, she served a way overdone boneless leg of lamb.

She had forgotten about it in the oven.

But the dip was great!!

Once again I have altered this recipe for our tastes. This has a nice spicey bite to it that most people love. If that doesn’t suit your taste, skip the Sirachi sauce.

ARTICHOKE DIP
One 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained of juice
One 4.5 oz. can of green chilis with the juice
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese, packed
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use Hellmann’s light)
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 tsp. Sriracha sauce (the hot sauce with the red rooster on the label)

Take each artichoke heart in your hand, hold upside down, and squeeze the juice out of it and place in the food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade. Add all other ingredients and process until smooth. Place in an oven proof dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 30 minutes, until browned around the edges and a little bubbly.

This dish tastes great but is not pretty so top it with some chopped parsley leaves or snipped chives.

Serve with whole wheat pita chips, red pepper strips, fresh fennel strips or celery sticks.

The nice thing is you can make this ahead of time, even the night before, just cover with plastic wrap to store in the fridge, and heat up before serving.