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

Kale!

December 14, 2012 by Mary Frances 12 Comments

‘Tis the season for the dark curly greens. You will see it on many a platter as a garnish.

I love kale.

My husband hates it.

For several weeks now, I have been wanting to recreate this salad I had some years ago. I bought kale last week to do it, kept putting it off and then Zachary came home with his girlfriend and used it up for a dinner with some pasta. My husband was safe for a week.

I bought it again this past Saturday. A beautiful full bunch of young looking leaves. Those are the best – tender and delicious.

I bargained with him. I would make his favorite chicken breast recipe, with a fantastic new twist, adding blueberries and shallots, if I could make my kale salad. Of course I added extra doses of LOVE while I was cooking this meal.

Well, he LOVED it!! He even had thirds. We ate the whole thing!

Here’s the recipe:
KALE SALAD WITH DRIED CRANBERRIES, PINE NUTS AND PARMESAN
– serves 2 – 3

One large bunch of kale, washed well, spun dry, stems removed and very, very thinly sliced (slicing it thin, like a chiffonade, is very important)
One handful of dried cranberries, or more to taste
3 – 4 tbs. of toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup hot olive oil
1/2 cup or more of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toast the pine nuts in a baking pan for 3 – 6 minutes until lightly browned. Toss together the kale, cranberries and pine nuts in a large bowl.

Heat the olive oil in a small pan until very hot and nearly smoking. Carefully pour the oil evenly over the kale. Listen to the sizzle as you are nearly frying the leaves. Distribute the parmesan onto the salad, add salt and pepper to taste. Toss thoroughly. Serve right away.

You will LOVE this, I guarantee!This salad is perfect for this time of year. Just look at the colors, so festive for the holidays with the luscious green and red. A great clean and healthy dish to have in the midst of all the holiday richness!

kale salad with sauteed chicken breast in white wine, shallots and blueberries

Our dinner – with sauteed chicken breasts in white wine, shallots and blueberries

How’d it work out?

November 25, 2012 by Mary Frances 13 Comments

Thanksgiving roasted turkey. So how was your Thanksgiving? Ours was fantastic! My family said our dinner was the best ever. But then they seem to say that every year I cook, so I guess I keep on improving? But truly, they’re still giving me compliments today so I guess it was really, really good!

I was particularly pleased this year with our appetizers. They were different and just the right touch, pre-feast. I made two recipes from Food and Wine magazine. One was for Texas smoked salmon tartare and grilled pancetta-wrapped mushrooms along with my artichoke dip. You can make the smoked salmon tartare and the artichoke dip the day before. I also had help. Agata made all of the mushrooms while I assembled the tartare on the chips with a cilantro leaf each. It was easy!

Texas smoked salmon tartare on blue corn chips

-Pancetta-wrapped grilled mushrooms

My butternut squash soup was the best ever, I’m told. See this quick pic of the kids licking their bowls – seriously I did not ask them to do this for a photo op! This soup is based on David Waltuck’s recipe of Chanterelle fame, except that I have made my own revisions. One important one is that instead of cooking the squash by simmering it in the chicken broth, I oven roasted it at 425 degrees and then scooped it out of the skin to add to the broth and onions. Much tastier and you skip that difficult-to-peel step that makes your hands all wrinkly. Three kids licking their soup bowls clean

Oven-roasting butternut squash and sugar pumpkins

Oven-roasting squash and pumpkin

Pumpkin puree draining

I also made two pies this year. One pecan and one pumpkin, from a fresh sugar pumpkin I roasted with the squash and then let it drain for several hours through four layers of cheesecloth. You need to do that to get all the water out and get to the true pumpkin flavor. The pie was so light and yummy!! Definitely give that a try.

Pumpkin pie with fresh roasted pumpkin and pecan garnish

– Super light pumpkin pie

The best Southern pecan pie from Mary Frances.

My pecan pie – Mrs. Fowler’s recipe

I hope you enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving, full of good family times, providing you with sweet memories to last the year through.

Three pumpkins at nightime - the end of Thanksgiving.

The end to a lovely day.

New!

November 17, 2012 by Mary Frances 7 Comments

This past week we had a meeting on lower Broadway and anytime I go there, I must stop in at Fishs Eddy, a fun, everyday china shop. They started out by carrying lines of old restaurant dishes (they even have the Steak ‘n Shake dishes – I worked the counter there in high school), and now have gotten really more interesting. Somebody there is starting to pay attention, and the shop looks great!

I needed some cheering up as I had to have outpatient surgery the next day on Thursday. What makes us so happy about spending money? Or is it really about getting something new? I was also able to pick up some Christmas presents – that always makes me feel so accomplished when it’s early. (I’m usually running around the city buying for everybody the week before December 25th.)

Well, I thought that perhaps you all might be getting tired of looking at the same old serving bowls here at LOVE, so I bought this bright red one. Just perfect for the holidays, don’t you think?
My wonderful husband has been cooking since Thursday and just look at how beautiful his steamed broccoli looks in it! He made a little sauce of Dijon mustard and olive oil to lightly drizzle on top. It was delish!

Split Cornish hens roasted on top of stuffing

November 11, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

This dinner was so good and literally used up a bunch of leftovers. So I really can’t give you a specific recipe, but I can tell you what I did.

First, on the subway ride to work last Wednesday, I read the Dining section from The Times. Wednesday is my all-time favorite day!

They had an article about how dressing or stuffing has lost its allure, except for around Thanksgiving. Well I took it to heart. And while I am nothing like my Mother, (who I dearly loved), I am my Mother’s daughter and cannot waste a thing. She grew up in the Great Depression and her father owned a grocery store. He was the butcher. They never wasted anything and she could scrape a bowl squeaky clean. And, she raised six kids, five of them boys and if any of you out there have boys, you understand the difference between feeding boys and feeding girls.

I can’t waste a thing either. David Waltuck, of Chanterelle fame, says that good cooks never do and I admit I am the same.

So last weekend, at our country house, my brother and sister-in-law came to visit. They insisted on bringing Saturday lunch which was a delicious turkey chili, cornbread and fennel salad. Everything was great and eaten, except for some of the cornbread. Then I had a baguette to make the bread and chocolate (for three nights, mind you) so I had about 1/3 of a baguette left too, plus five leftover grilled mushrooms, one grilled scallion and leftover French dry sausage. I added fresh chopped sage leaves, one raw egg, ½ cup of chicken broth, and one minced shallot sautéed olive oil. Salt and pepper were added, mixing well and turned into an ovenproof casserole. I split two Cornish hens in half, shoved a small sprig of fresh rosemary under the skin on each, plus salt and pepper. I then made a sauce of 3 TBS grainy mustard and 1/3 cup of leftover dry white wine to brush on top of the birds. I threw the whole thing in the oven, at 375 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes. Tested it with a thermometer – you should reach 155 – 160 degrees on the thickest parts of the hens. Then broil the dish for 1-2 minutes to brown the birds. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Cornish hens with fresh rosemary, sage leaves, chicken broth, and minced shallot sautéed olive oil

Ready to go into the oven

This was so delicious and did not take long – a little bit over an hour from start to finish. I served it with the carrot and parsnip puree and truly, this could be a company dinner. Different and really delicious. The dressing was moist under the chicken and crispy in the exposed areas.

And I got to use up all of those leftovers!

Cornish hens with fresh rosemary, sage leaves, chicken broth, minced shallot sautéed olive oil, carrot and parsnip puree leftovers.

It was very yummy!

Hurricane Sandy, Halloween and New Features

November 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

Here in NYC, we are all trying our best to weather the most damaging storm. Personally and luckily, both of our homes are fine, no loss of electricity and no loss of trees upstate. But our office has had no power, so we’ve all been working from home or cafes that have electricity. We carry on, but our hearts and prayers go out to those who were closer to shorelines and not so lucky.

Sandy visited on Monday. The howling winds were so loud and scary that evening. It was such a helpless feeling just being in the middle of it. We woke up on Tuesday morning to an eerie quiet in our neighborhood. It was over, but the damage was massive.
And Halloween was last night, in a limited fashion here in NYC, with our major parade being cancelled. Halloween is also our wedding anniversary and I made the most marvelous veal chops for dinner! I’ll share that recipe later.

Meanwhile, with all the holidays coming, I wanted to tell you about our new feature on the right hand side of this blog, listing my favorite Thanksgiving recipes. From the ginger cranberry sauce, to the stuffing and pecan pie, it’s all there, easy to access, for you.

My favorite kind of dinner

October 27, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

I’ve been wanting to share this healthy supper with you. It is quick to do as well, taking 45 minutes or so, from start to finish.

On debate night, this past Monday, I made the following dinner. One plate, eaten in front of the TV.
This really is my kind of dinner. I love salads. I eat one every day for lunch and I really think there is something to eating raw foods. I think they provide a very different kind of healthy eating. Heat must surely transform the vitamins and minerals and eating anything that you can in its purist form, raw, must be healthier for you.

We once met with a prospective client who was trying to introduce a raw health bar into the marketplace and wanted our help in packaging and marketing it. Carol Alt, the famous fashion model, was a big devotee of this. So maybe, if I eat enough raw food, I’ll look like her???
I hope you enjoy this. And don’t forget to add LOVE while you’re making it. After a day like Thursday, the world certainly needs a lot more love and you can add to it by making and serving nourishing, healthy meals, filled with love.

SIRLOIN STEAK SALAD
– serves 2

1/2 – 3/4 of a head of Boston lettuce, washed and spun dry, or use as much lettuce as you like
1 handful of snow peas, cleaned and blanched in boiling water for 1 minute, drained and cooled in ice water and then drained and patted dry
3/4 – 1 lb. boneless sirloin steak
1 sweet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2″ cubes, tossed with 1 tbs. olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted in a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes
1-1/2” piece of daikon radish, peeled and thinly sliced on a mandoline
1/2 of a yellow pepper, cut in thin strips
10 cherry or grape heirloom tomatoes, washed and sliced in half
2 scallions, cleaned and thinly sliced

SALAD DRESSING
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbs. Sherry vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Prepare your sweet potatoes and get them in the oven. Meanwhile, clean the snow peas and blanch, drain, put in an ice bath to stop the cooking, drain again and pat dry. Wash and dry the lettuce and chill in the refrigerator. Prepare all the other vegetables. Now your potatoes should be tender and done. Keep them warm.

Wash and dry your steak and season with salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. Turn broiler on high and broil 4-5 minutes per side to your liking of doneness.

While the steak is cooking, make the salad dressing. Whisk together the mustard, salt, pepper and vinegar. Slowly whisk in the olive oil in droplets until all is emulsified and combined.

When the steak is done, remove it to a platter and let it rest for 5 – 10 minutes.

Lay out the lettuce leaves on the bottom of two plates. In a circular fashion around the edge of the lettuce, distribute the snow peas, sweet potatoes, yellow pepper and tomatoes. Tuck the daikon radish slices underneath the lettuce on the outer edge of the plate. Thinly slice the steak and lay out in the center of all the beautiful vegetables. Drizzle the salad dressing on top. Finish with a sprinkling of sliced scallions.