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

Grilled Shrimp Appetizer

April 18, 2014 by Mary 42 Comments

I made several dishes last weekend. Some very good, some not so. It happens. Fortunately it was just my very close family that suffered. First off, on Friday night, I made this really delicious, really simple grilled shrimp appetizer. Here are all the ingredients.

I didn’t measure and you won’t have to either. I know you all have good enough judgment to make this work. Just eye it and feel it and you’ll do a-ok. Eat this dish with friends as you’ll want to suck the shrimp shells of all the smokey spicy wonderfulness and you’ll get all messy peeling them – but they’re so good.

You see, I went to buy salmon fillets to roast and serve with my already made rhubarb marmalade and then I saw the shrimp. My husband LOVES shrimp. Me? Ehh. It’s good, but I never crave it like I do oysters! (He hates oysters) But I know he loves shrimp, yet I really wanted salmon for dinner and the marmalade was already made. So I bought 9 shrimp – as an appetizer!! 5 for him, 4 for me. And then on the drive up to the country, I completely forgot about them. We arrived, unpacked and here I was surprised by the shrimp (duh – I bought them.) and had to figure out something quick to do with them as it was getting late. Here’s what I did – and they were scrumptious!!

GRILLED SHRIMP APPETIZER – serves 2

9 – 10 large shrimp with shells on, rinsed several times and patted dry
Salt
Pepper
1 star anise
1 red chili, crushed with seeds
Swirl of olive oil
Smoked paprika – heavy sprinkling

Combine and toss all ingredients together. Let marinate for 10 -15 minutes. Toss on the grill on high heat for about 2 minutes, just until pink and done. Serve immediately.

It’s finger lickin’ good!

homemade pizzas pesto anchovy truffle margharita

Then, last Saturday, I was determined to make pizzas from homemade pizza dough. The Times had a big article on pizza dough and pizzas the previous Wednesday and I was hyped. Our oldest son was coming to the country with his girlfriend for the weekend and I was making these pizzas with a big beautiful salad to greet them when they arrived for lunch. Well, the pizzas sucked. They looked good but the only one that was any good was the pesto. Before I tell you any more, I really need to work on this one. The Mario Batali recipe needs some refining. Actually he has about three different recipes online for the dough and I need to get the 00 flour – that I couldn’t find. So stay tuned and I’ll find that flour and try this one again – and then tell you about it. xoxo, Mary

Cumin, Lamb and Eggplant Pasta

April 10, 2014 by Mary 43 Comments

I think you all probably know how much I love cumin, love lamb and love eggplant but I never really thought of the three of them together until I read about this recipe in the April issue of Food & Wine magazine. Yep, this recipe is a winner, as are so many of their recipes! It’s not very pretty when it’s done but boy is it good! I made this dish the week before last when Bianca was in town and she was having a quiet night at home with just Steve and me. Or should I say, we got to have her to ourselves for one night, lucky us! And you know when Bianca says a pasta dish is great (being from Arezzo in Tuscany), you know you hit a winner and that’s what I did with this Cumin, Lamb and Eggplant Pasta dish! The recipe is actually from another blogger, Ashley Rodriguez, who is being featured in the publication. Way to go Ashley!

I really have to thank Food & Wine for initially turning me on to cooking with a vengeance. You see, when we moved to New Jersey when our boys were 6 and 3, the restaurant food out there just wasn’t NYC and I really got tired of paying large restaurant bills for the four of us for mediocre food. So I promptly subscribed to Food & Wine, adopted the “I’ll show you” attitude, and started cooking away. In those days, my favorite was Lee Bailey. He used to do a column, “Dinner for a Busy Weeknight.” I still have many of those torn pages, soiled with olive oil drips and whatnot. I’ll never forget, one of my very first “gourmet meals” was his Pasta with Shrimp and Arugula recipe from that feature. It’s still a good recipe! (More on that later) He even accompanied it with dessert – sliced oranges with crushed amaretto cookies – simple and delish!

I have tweaked Ashley’s recipe a bit – cut down on the oil and pumped up the garlic, cumin and oregano. Here you go – not quite pretty but oh so tasty! And home-grown Italian approved, thanks to Bianca!

CUMIN, LAMB AND EGGPLANT PASTA – serves 4 – 5
Adapted from ASHLEY RODRIGUEZ and Food & Wine magazine

2 tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced on a mandoline
1 medium eggplant (1 pound), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 heaping tsp. dried Greek oregano
1 heaping tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika, preferably hot (Pimenton Ahumado)
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Kosher salt
1 lb. ground lamb
1/4 cup tomato paste
3/4 cup chicken stock
12 ounces gemelli
1/2 cup zero fat plain Greek yogurt
1/3 cup chopped mint

In a large skillet, heat the oil. Add the onion and cook over low-moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 – 12 minutes. Increase heat to moderate. Add the eggplant, garlic, oregano, cumin, paprika and crushed red pepper and season with salt. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, 1 minute. Add the lamb and cook, breaking up the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon. Increase the heat a bit and add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for at least 2 minutes to get the flavor to “bloom”. Stir in the stock and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat until the sauce is thickened, about 12 minutes.

Cook the pasta in a pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water. Stir the pasta into the sauce; add 1/4 cup of the reserved cooking water if necessary; (I didn’t) add more water if a thinner sauce is desired. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the yogurt and mint. Taste and season with salt if necessary (I didn’t) and serve hot.

Thomas Keller’s Beef Stroganoff

March 30, 2014 by Mary 38 Comments

I did it! I actually did it – made a double recipe of Thomas Keller’s Beef Stroganoff recipe. Lord, I hope I never have to do it again. This was our birthday boy’s request for last weekend. My husband thinks he’s going to ask for it again. (Please, please no.)

It’s a two-day affair. For the complete recipe, please check out these links on another blog that has the whole recipe from Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook. Basically you make a braise by reducing wine with a ton of vegetables until syrupy. Then add more of the same fresh vegetables, cover it with cheesecloth to make a “nest” to hold your browned pieces of meat, add beef broth and then top with a parchment paper hat (cover) and braise for 2 hours. You separate the meat from the vegetable wine broth in this cheesecloth nest because Keller doesn’t want any little bits of onion, leeks or carrots soiling his meat. Ha!!

So that was done on Saturday. Then on Sunday, the day of serving, you make the mushroom cream sauce (6 cups of heavy cream, butter and crème fraiche!), sauté the mushrooms (4.5 lbs. total), cook the fresh pappardella, cut the meat into cubes, warm and caramelize the presentation side of the meat, toss the noodles with the sauce, add more butter, fold in the sliced mushrooms, put it all together and top with chopped parsley. Whew!!

Bianca helping me – sliced 2 lbs. of cremini mushrooms

With help on both days, you’re talking about 9 hours worth of work.

There had to be a lot of LOVE here to get through all of this.

How was it?

It was good – but way too rich for me. Since the recipe doesn’t state how many it serves and we had 7 people, I doubled it. We served 7 plus 1 second serving and then leftovers to feed 5 more people. But you know, if you’re going to go through that much work, you might as well make extra for leftovers.

The birthday boy was happy. He called the next day to comment on how deeply flavored each cube of meat was. (It damn well better have been.) Perhaps the parchment lid is a great idea because if you use the Le Creuset lid, that causes moisture to form therefore dropping water onto your meat. Not good.

Making one boy happy was my aim!

Pasta with Flounder in a Red Sauce and Roasted Broccoli with Radishes

March 17, 2014 by Mary 28 Comments

I’m so embarrassed, I forgot to mention in my last post that 10% of Mary’s secret ingredients’ annual profits will be donated to Feed the Children, a wonderful, worldwide organization that provides nourishing food, hygiene items, educational books and supplies for boys and girls in need.

I have always said that there is plenty of food in this world. It just needs to be redistributed and to not go to waste. Please take a look at these links and articles. No one should go hungry. I’m very excited to be able to give this non-profit a helping hand with MARY’s secret ingredients. Man, I would love to play a part in eradicating hunger in this world – it’s on my bucket list. You can help. All the more reason to order a box! Feed yourself and your family while feeding the needy children of the world.

This past week, the day after we arrived home from California, at around 5 pm, our youngest son informed me that he and his girlfriend would be home for dinner. That morning, I had taken two flounder fillets out of the freezer and had planned to roast them for Steve and me and make a simple vegetable for dinner. So now I only had a little over 1 lb. of fish for four people. I was tired and crabby from the travel and time change and had no desire to go to the fish store uptown to buy more fish and a decent vegetable. What to do?

Walking to the subway on the way home, while talking out loud to my husband, I decided to make it stretch. I called my son, Zach, and asked him to mince 5 cloves of garlic, pit and chop 15 olives, take the anchovies out of the fridge and make sure the flounder fillets had thawed. (They hadn’t.) I thought, let’s make a pasta dish with the flounder in a red sauce! Add some anchovies and olives for an extra boost of flavor! I stopped in the grocery store downstairs in my building and bought some broccoli and a beautiful bunch of large radishes. I tossed those with some olive oil and salt and pepper, and roasted them at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes, along with the recipe below and we had a super delicious, satisfying dinner for everyone; quick to boot, with everything ready in about 40 minutes. Suddenly I wasn’t crabby anymore! (A little food does wonders – think of what it could do for the world!)

Now, because I only had buccatini in the apartment, which is a big noodle, I did not toss the sauce with the pasta, but served the pasta in a bowl, drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil on top and then ladled the red fish sauce on top. If I would have tossed it all together before serving, I would have broken up all those beautiful little pieces of flounder and made mush out of them. Not a good thing, nor pretty to serve. Now I know the true Italians would disagree with me here but that’s what I did, allowing each individual to mix it up in their own bowl.

PASTA WITH FLOUNDER IN A RED SAUCE – serves 4

2 tbs. olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 of bunch of parsley leaves, washed, dried and chopped
2 tsp. tomato paste
1 – 28 oz. can of whole San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed, with the sauce
5 flat anchovy fillets, patted dry with a paper towel, chopped
Salt
Pepper
2 fillets of flounder, about 1.3 lbs., washed, dried, cut down the middle and then cut into 1/2” chunks
15 olives, black and green in oil, pitted and minced
1 lb. pasta – bucatini or fettuccine

Put a large pot on water on to boil for the pasta.

Warm olive oil in a large skillet. Add minced garlic on low heat and stir for 5 minutes. Raise heat to medium – medium high and add the chopped parsley and cook and stir for 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and stir for 1 – 2 minutes. You must always try to brown the tomato paste in order to get the most flavor out of it – this is key!

Then add the hand crushed can of tomatoes with the juice along with the anchovies and let the whole thing vigorously simmer for about 10 minutes to thicken.

Meanwhile your pasta water has probably boiled. Salt with course sea salt to taste like ocean water (you know what that means, do not taste it and burn your tongue) and add your pasta. Stir and cook until al dente.

Salt and pepper the sauce to taste and add the cut up flounder fillets. Lower the heat a bit and stir gently, often. Fold over with a rubber spatula to stir so you don’t break up the pieces of fish. This will take about 7 minutes to cook the fish. Then taste the sauce to adjust salt and pepper and at the very end, add the chopped olives. Remember the olives will add more salt so take that into consideration. Turn your heat off.

Drain the pasta when done. Place pasta in bowls and drizzle a little olive oil on top so the noodles don’t stick together. Then ladle some beautiful sauce on top in the center. Serve immediately, with LOVE.

ROASTED BROCCOLI WITH RADISHES – serves 4

1 head of broccoli, washed, stems trimmed and peeled, each stalk quartered or even cut more
5 large radishes, scrubbed, dried and quartered
2 tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Toss broccoli and radishes with the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 15 – 17 minutes until broccoli stems are fork tender to your liking. The broccoli heads will become a little charred, but I like them that way. They are so tasty. Serve immediately, very hot, on a side plate, with LOVE.

Enjoy!!

In Southern Cali!!

March 9, 2014 by Mary 27 Comments

We are in California for a few days, on little Balboa Island, visiting my brother and sister-in-law, getting a little R & R and will do some business in Beverly Hills on Tuesday before heading back east. It is so darn pretty here, I have to pinch myself. We arrived last Thursday and every day is more gorgeous than the last. We reached 80 degrees yesterday, over 80 today. The lyric – “It never rains in Southern California…” keeps on going through my head. This warm sunshine is a very, very welcome relief, after the constant wearing of long underwear, rubber boots and two sweaters with at least one being a turtleneck every single day, back in NYC.

We’ve gone for local walks visiting friends, long bike rides, and hiking in a state park.

Here’s my husband “hiking”

They’ve cooked fantastic meals and we had a wonderful dinner out last night. Just to share with you, here’s our lunch from yesterday. Seared sesame crusted tuna on a salad with raw beets and sugar snap peas. And our breakfast from this morning – sunny side up eggs on a bed of frisee with bacon, finished with a tomatillo sauce. But tonight I will cook. So we went to the farmers market yesterday morning. You know you’re in California when you see the most gorgeous heads of lettuce all lined up, all perfect and so green and fresh along with the largest array of succulents I’ve ever seen. Just look at how pretty they are! We got some great local corn chips and homemade tomatillo salsa to start our evening. I also bought some burrata and buffalo mozzarella from the nicest Italian man, to serve with beautiful tomatoes and basil.

Take a look at this squash. I’ve never seen anything like them before. I’m going to make a mustard coated chicken and I’m going to grill these little babies with some radishes tossed with some olive oil and salt and pepper. Aren’t they just too cute?!! Some fingerling potatoes will be roasted and we’re going to have a rockin’ good time tonight as my brother Steve has, as usual, picked out some stellar wines to serve with all. Stop in to his wine pairing blog to know what you should serve with your meals.

Newport Beach

May warm weather shine upon you soon, wherever you are!!

Potatoes Mary

March 3, 2014 by Mary 25 Comments

Since our children are no longer home, and as we have gotten older, I try to prevent the weight gain that happens with the slower metabolism by just not making or serving carbs at dinnertime. I try with all my might to keep in shape, (except for the couple of chocolates after dinner on weekends) but you know, I don’t consider myself too successful. I never really lost all the weight from having my boys. And you’re now talking 25 years ago.

Did I tell you I hate to shop for clothes? Seriously, I hate it. I always have. I love it when my husband buys me outfits and he does the work and lately, I guess because I haven’t shopped in so long, he went out and bought me two! The first was one of my Christmas gifts. A pair of really skinny, hip hugger jeans (that’s what we used to call them) and a beautiful navy shirt with sheer sleeves. Honestly, I was afraid to try the jeans on. I waited a few weeks. But miraculously, they fit! And they’re even a size 8 – but I think they’re making all the sizes more generous now – and they really should be a 10. Whatever, I was just so happy they fit and I didn’t have to tell him I had to take them back for a larger size.

I was reminded of a lunch I had some months ago with my friend Sharon, who is just a couple of years younger than me. Sharon is in good shape – don’t get me wrong – but she said she was with another friend who was helping her clean out her closets and her friend told her to throw out all the clothes that were too small because she thought they would constantly depress her. So Sharon decided right then and there that she didn’t have to strive for still being in her twenties. She said she gave it up!

Me? I’d like to think that I’m still nineteen – hell – forget the twenties – I want to be nineteen again! And I’m not giving up – and still striving for the body – not that I’m there – but you know what I mean?

So recently I had lunch with my friend Marie who is a few years older than me and she said she understood me. She was in that frame of mind in the past, but she thought she had moved to Sharon’s camp now. I was wearing the new outfit at that lunch and the jeans are not all that comfortable – but I’ll suffer for fashion every once in a while.

Who’s camp are you in?

We have been entertaining a lot and when we entertain, we do always serve a carb. Lately I’ve been making these potatoes – similar to Potatoes Anna but not done in the oven and not nearly with the amount of butter James Beard would call for. So let’s call these Potatoes Mary. They’re easy to do as long as you have a hand mandoline. Cook them slowly while you’re having cocktails, flip carefully and you’ll turn out a delicious and impressive looking dish for your guests.

POTATOES MARY – serves 6 – 8

6 – 7 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and sliced thin on a mandoline (you can peel these but I don’t if they’re really fresh – my mother always said the skin was good for you – made your own skin pretty!)
1 tbs. olive oil
2 tbs. unsalted butter, divided
1 tbs. chopped fresh thyme leaves
Salt
Pepper

Slice your potatoes right before using. Warm the olive oil with 1 tbs. of butter on medium heat in a non-stick skillet. When butter is melted, swirl together and start laying the potatoes in the skillet, overlapping them in a round fashion, making sure the overall thickness is even and using 1/2 – 2/3 of them. Then stop and salt and pepper over the top. Sprinkle the thyme leaves evenly over the surface and dot with the remaining tbs. of butter. Layer in evenly the rest of the potatoes, and salt and pepper the final top surface.

Cover the skillet for 15 – 20 minutes. The potatoes will sweat and cook. Check the bottom carefully with a spatula to make sure the bottom is not browning too much. Uncover the skillet after the 15 – 20 minutes to let some of the accumulated moisture dry up as you’re aiming for a crispy bottom, yet all the potatoes must be tender and creamy so check them with a fork in the center, cooking them for 10 – 15 minutes longer on this side, uncovered. When they’re pretty dry on top as the photo shows, slide them out of the skillet onto a plate. Then cover the plate with an unrimmed cookie sheet and flip them over. Now slide the whole potato gallette back into the skillet to brown the other side. Cook for 15 – 20 minutes more to slowly brown the other side. Keep checking with a fork. If they are not getting tender, cover them for a bit but you want to end up with your last 10 minutes or so uncovered to get them crispy. Carefully slide the whole shebang out of the skillet and onto a serving plate.

Cut like a pie into wedges. Serve with LOVE.