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

Banana Nut Muffins with Loacker Chocolate Chucks

May 18, 2015 by Mary 26 Comments

This Loacker Cremkakao chocolate bar is super delicious all on it’s own. Loacker is a family owned business out of Italy and their factory is located at the foot of the Alps near the Austrian border. For 90 years they have been making a variety of light and crispy wafer cookies. In fact, they are the number one wafer cookie in the world! This is their first venture into the chocolate bar business and keeping true to their roots, they have incorporated a thin crispy wafer in the center of this decadent chocolate. (Isn’t that cool?) One bite and you’ll be looking for more, which will hopefully be available very soon as these bars are just being introduced into this country. You, spring box buyers, are the lucky ones to taste these first! Stay tuned for where you can buy more as I know you’ll be asking.

Meanwhile, I made these decadent Banana Nut Muffins with Loacker Chocolate Chunks for a Sunday morning treat. These were beyond delicious!!

BANANA NUT MUFFINS WITH LOACKER CHOCOLATE CHUNKS – makes 12 muffins

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
11/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg (preferably freshly grated)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 Loacker 3.07 oz. Cremkakao chocolate bar, cut into smallish chunks

In a bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs.

Smash the bananas and vanilla together.

Loacker Banana Nut muffins - chocolate cut up.

Your chocolate bar should look like this.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg together. Add to creamed mixture, alternately adding the banana mixture, starting and ending with the flour. Fold in walnuts and chocolate pieces. Butter non-stick muffin cups or use paper liners; fill 12 cups with batter, distributing evenly. Bake at 350° for 23-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm with LOVE. Delizioso!!

The Loacker Cremkakao chocolate bar was in our MARY’s secret ingredients spring box. The summer box will mail on June 25th.

MARY’s secret ingredients crowdfunding – help bring home the bacon!

March 22, 2015 by Mary 17 Comments

My best blogger friend, dear Maureen, over at Orgasmic Chef just contributed to our crowdfunding effort for MARY’s secret ingredients (MSI) all the way from Australia!!! THANK YOU MAUREEN!!! Your show of support means so very much to me and our whole MSI team.

So we are heading into the last week of the crowdfunding campaign and this has been quite an experience. (If you like to sweat, run one!) Please check out this video we made.

Meanwhile we’ve been reaching out for funding in all different ways – meeting with VC firms, people who know people, connections activated everywhere. I’ve decided that sleep is overrated – I’ve had to – as I get very little of it lately but amazingly, I am not tired. I am exhilarated by this mission – our big hairy audacious goal of eradicating hunger. Did you know that over 16 million children go to bed hungry every night, in this country alone? There are about 870 million hungry people worldwide. They are of all ages, from babies whose mothers cannot make enough milk to the elderly with no relatives to care for them. And many poverty-stricken overweight people are actually starving and malnourished because they’re eating all the wrong food – processed, fatty, addictive junk!

So with MSI, we hope to work on both ends of the spectrum – with the products in the surprise subscription box and the recipes I create using them, providing inspiration and encouragement for healthy cooking at home, and then donating a large portion of the profits to Feed The Children.

So we’d love to have you join our initiative and be a part of this big hairy audacious goal to eradicate hunger. There’s unique and lovely rewards to be had. Visit the SmallKnot site to find out more.

And now I’d like to share with you the BEST way to cook bacon.

Nothing says Sunday morning breakfast to me more than bacon and eggs, which is what I grew up with. Only my mother would fry the bacon in a skillet (she got a thin sliced pound that would feed all eight of us at least 2 slices each!) and when it was all finished, she’d make the eggs in the same skillet and baste them with the bacon grease! With all the bacon craze now, my boys are asking me for this, but I just won’t do it. Cholesterol heaven! So these are over easy with just a tiny bit of butter in a non-stick pan.

My husband and I were walking around the city yesterday, on the east side of town, and happened upon this great Spanish butcher shop. Not much English was spoken here (and my Spanish is nonexistent), so my bacon was sliced a little thicker than expected. This actually took about 27 minutes to cook. Typically 18 minutes is ideal.

THE BEST WAY TO COOK BACON
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Use a rimmed baking sheet and line with parchment paper. Lay out the strips of 1 lb. nitrate-free thick sliced bacon. Position your oven rack at the very top and roast for 15 – 20 minutes. Mine usually takes about 18 minutes. Carefully remove cooked bacon with tongs and drain on paper towel lined plates to absorb the grease. This is so much better and easier than frying and clean up is a breeze because of the parchment paper lining. Enjoy!

Help us bring home the bacon and visit our crowdfunding site for exclusive merchandise and deals! (I couldn’t resist!) Spread the word to your community. And thank you so very much – with all my LOVE.

Here is the link: http://smallknot.com/marys-secret-ingredients-1 – The campaign runs until March 27th – this Friday!

SerendipiTea Holiday Cheer in Pancakes

December 27, 2014 by Mary 8 Comments

Tea in pancakes? Whoever heard of that? Well I tried it the other morning and it was just great!! Tea is so versatile, yet we tend to only think of it as a beverage. But tea can be used in so many ways. Brew it as a delicious marinade for chicken, bake it into cookies and yes, use it in pancake batter! So spread some more holiday cheer by using SerendipiTea Holiday Cheer in your pancakes! With cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mint and cardamom, this tea is a ready-made spice blend for creating a perfect breakfast to warm your soul in the morning!

The Company, SerendipiTea, is based on Long Island. They contacted us early in the year wanting to be in our winter box with these holiday teas, so we have been anxiously awaiting the chance to try them. We like this company because besides being nice people, they are committed to working closely with tea gardens, estates and specialists around the world, constantly adding to their knowledge and expertise on all facets of tea and its production. We should never stop learning!

Enjoy these pancakes with a little butter and warm maple syrup along with a cup of SerendipiTea’s Once Upon a Time tea with rooibos, vanilla and chocolate, and dream of good things for the coming year!! Enjoy!

SERENDIPITEA HOLIDAY CHEER IN PANCAKES – serves 2

1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or milk
1 Tbs. plus 1/4 tsp. SeredipiTea Holiday Cheer Tea
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Butter and syrup to serve

Preheat the oven to 225°F. In a small saucepan, bring the milk and 1 Tbs. tea in a tea ball to gentle simmer. Remove from the heat and let steep for 5 minutes. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar in a bowl. When the milk tea mixture is cool, remove the tea ball. Whisk the milk with the egg and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture. Add 1/4 teaspoon Holiday Cheer tea leaves. Stir until just combined. Let batter sit for 10 minutes.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat. Brush a thin layer of butter or oil on your pan. Drop the batter into the pan with a large spoon. Cook until tiny bubbles appear on the surface, about 2-3 minutes. Flip and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes. Keep the pancakes in the warm oven until you’re finished making all the pancakes. Enjoy warm with butter and syrup.

Red Snapper Wildwood Arbol Hot Sauce in Artichoke Dip

December 24, 2014 by Mary 3 Comments

Red Snapper Wildwood Arbol Sauce is great on anything! The McVea family has been making this sauce since 1895 and they say that this is their medium hot sauce but for me, this is hot! It’s much hotter than Tabasco. However, it has a ton of flavor! I recommend that you test it out and see how it fits on your intensity scale. I’ve been using about half the amount of Tabasco that I would normally use, and this is much better. Made from a Louisiana family recipe, this is a great way to add spice to your life! Perfect on eggs (pic) or in my crab cake recipe (link and photo) and it was really, really delicious in my famous artichoke dip. (My kids tell me it’s famous) Perfect for upcoming holiday parties, here’s the full recipe.

Truly, this sauce took my dip to a whole other level!!

ARTICHOKE DIP with RED SNAPPER WILDWOOD ARBOL SAUCE – serves 6 – 8

One 14oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained of juice
One small can of green chilies with the juice
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese, packed
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
1/2 tsp. Red Snapper Wildwood Arbol Sauce
Chopped fresh basil leaves

Take each artichoke heart in your hand, hold upside down, and squeeze the juice out. Then, place in the food processor 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 fresh chopped basil leaves.

Serve with LOVE along with crudités and pita chips or small dipping crackers.

Cranberry Walnut Muffins in PaperChef Lotus Cups

December 15, 2014 by Mary 9 Comments

I made these Cranberry Walnut Muffins in the PaperChef Lotus Cups and I swear they tasted better because they were baked in these cups. You know, presentation and visual excitement adds to the deliciousness of any food! These lotus cups are the creation of the PaperChef company, an offshoot of a Toronto-based, family-owned company that has been making paper products for the food industry since 1882. Everything is all natural and biodegradable. But most importantly, the parchment assures even baking and makes you look oh so professional, like you bought your muffins at a fancy coffee shop. Everyone should have one of these boxes in their pantry, so when the urge strikes to bake, you don’t have to make a cake, you can make beautiful muffins instead!

In these muffins, I used a combination of fresh cranberries and dried, as well as multi-grain flour along with some white flour. You could toast the walnuts first for an even deeper nut flavor. I didn’t because I didn’t have time. Either way, they are delicious. A friend of mine calls muffins “just an excuse to eat a cupcake in the morning,” minus the icing. I think that most of the time, she is right. But here I tried to make these a bit healthier with the multi-grain flour and they are not too sweet. YOU are sweet enough!

Make these muffins with LOVE while fresh cranberries are still around. They would also be great on Christmas morning. Enjoy!!

CRANBERRY WALNUT MUFFINS IN PAPERCHEF LOTUS CUPS – makes 18 muffins
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups multi-grain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/4 cups whole milk
2 extra-large eggs
1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped fresh cranberries
1/2 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place fresh cranberries in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse on and off until chopped as in this photo.

Line 18 muffin cups with PaperChef Lotus Cup liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the milk, eggs, and melted butter. Stir quickly just to combine. Add both of the cranberries, walnuts, and both sugars and stir just to distribute the fruits, nuts, and sugar evenly throughout the batter.

Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until browned on the top and a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean.
Delish!

Perfect Poach!

October 31, 2014 by Mary 8 Comments

I love poached eggs! Poached eggs and corned beef hash – my all time favorite diner breakfast! I know, lots of calories, but every once in a while…a bit of heaven. Did I ever make poached eggs at home? No. Never. Too scared they’d just be a mess. And then I kinda remembered from my mom that you were supposed to put in a little vinegar or something…too complicated, especially when you’re really hungry in the morning and just want to eat quickly.

Well Perfect Poach is here to the rescue! This is our seventh and last item in our fall MARY’s secret ingredients box. This is from the Tovolo company and they believe that time spent cooking should be fun. They believe in creating kitchen tools that out-perform your expectations, but also put a smile on your face. Isn’t that nice?

So here are these little babies. They’re open-ended little bags, made of coffee filter-like material and shaped like the toe of a shoe. You put these in cups and open up the top. Bring a pot of water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

Crack your eggs into each cute little bag and immediately pick up the bag with tongs and lower it into the simmering water – four minutes for a soft yolk poached egg, six to seven minutes for a harder poached egg, like my husband prefers. Lift those little bags out with tongs when ready and place on a side plate. Tilt out any water that got into the bag on that side plate, because you don’t want water on your toast. Then slide the little bugger onto your toast. Voila! A perfect poached egg – courtesy of Perfect Poach. You can check out their website for other little handy tools that will also brighten your day. I LOVE people who want to make my life easier and put a smile on my face!