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

Best, unique salad. Best, unique friends.

August 11, 2015 by Mary 24 Comments

My best blogger friend, (BBF) Maureen, of Orgasmic Chef, down under in Australia, has had vertigo and it makes me so sad. She was free from it for a little bit of time but it came back. That sort of thing is maddening.

I suffered from migraines for years after our youngest, Zach, was born and it was horrible until we figured out a low blood pressure pill that prevented them. It is just terrible to be in such a state.

Maureen now has our mutual blogger friend Bobbi Ann, from BAM’s Kitchen, somewhere in Asia, helping her out with tips on massage and nutrition. We’ve all never met but this is the blogging world and ain’t it grand!?!

And then my other blogger friend, Suzanne, from A Pug in the Kitchen just lost her dear, dear dog, Nando. It is so hard. But, Suzanne does live in Brooklyn and WE are going to meet for lunch in late August. I am so excited!!

Meanwhile, this is the longest span that I have not posted and I apologize. Just so, so much to do – all good – just crazy!

And this is THE best, unique salad. Or at least I think so. I hope you will too!

I had reconnected with an old friend (in person!) from our congregation in Summit, NJ. So nice to do that! And about 8 weeks ago, we had planned to have her and her husband over for dinner at our apartment in the city, at a time when both of their children (younger than ours) would be away.

As I went through the grocery store several nights before, I spotted what looked good, all in the category of what I loved, trying to create an amazing new salad in my head.

Here’s what I came up with: baby arugula (always a good start), topped with grilled radishes (done on the stovetop in a grill pan), fresh mango (that looked amazing!), mint leaves (I had in the fridge from my garden) and a smattering of sliced scallions, all drizzled with a champagne vinaigrette.

What do you think?

I thought, unusual, clean tasting (no cheese) and I always love the combination of warm and cool on a salad.

This was really magnificent, if I say so myself!

The sweet mango, which was perfectly ripe by the way, (her husband Steve, offered to cut it as he grew up in Thailand with a mango tree in their backyard, so he was pretty expert at those slippery things with the weird shaped pit), combined with bitter heat of the grilled radishes (I adore grilled radishes – unusual, easy and delicious – my kinda thing!) along with the burst of mint every so often coupled with the mild onion taste from the scallions, bedded with the bite of arugula and drizzled lightly with a champagne vinaigrette – it was all so yummy.

My kinda heaven. I’d take two of these over dessert any day!

Our friends loved it so much that she wrote that they immediately tried grilling radishes 2 days later.

This is simple, but again, it’s all about the quality of your ingredients. Make sure they’re the very best you can find or don’t make it all.

BEST UNIQUE ARUGULA SALAD WITH MANGO, MINT AND GRILLED RADISHES – serves 4

4 oz. baby arugula
8 good sized radishes, scrubbed, trimmed and cut in half
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into ¼” long strips
40 mint leaves
1 scallion, cleaned and thinly sliced, white and light green parts only

Champagne Vinaigrette:

1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbs. Champagne vinegar
scant 1/2 cup of olive oil
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Place all vinaigrette ingredients in a jar. Cover tightly and shake. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. More salt will cut the tanginess of the vinegar.

Even though your package of baby arugula may say it’s been triple washed, I recommend you wash it again, spin it in a lettuce spinner and then spread it out on your clean counter to air dry. You never know who’s handled it with hands that haven’t been washed and people have gotten sick. So please, always take the time to do this. You can even do this the night before and store the greens in a Ziploc bag with a sheet of paper toweling to absorb the extra moisture that will form.

Toss the radishes with the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Heat your grill pan to medium high and grill the radishes until crisp tender with some nice grill marks. You’ll want to cover the pan for maybe 3 – 5 minutes in the middle of cooking them as they will produce a lot of smoke and using a lid will also quicken the process.

Place ¼ of the arugula on a salad plate, top with the mango strips and grilled radishes as shown in the photo. Drizzle about a tablespoon of dressing over all, garnish with the mint leaves and scallions and serve with love. Wait for rave reviews. So simple, so unusual and so delicious!

Chipz Happen Cinnful Sweet Heat Ice Cream Sandwiches

July 13, 2015 by Mary 17 Comments

Spicy, sweet, crispy and cinnamony, Chipz Happen Cinnful Sweet Heat Ice Cream Sandwiches have it all going, using these spicy cinnamon flavored corn chips!! This is the first product I want to talk about from the MARY’s secret ingredients summer box and it’s neatest company with the most interesting background story. This is the story of a mom who made homemade chips for her kids and extended family as just a part of their life. Then at the age of 73, with the urging of her children, together they set out and decided to spread the great taste of their mother’s creation to the rest of the world and formed this company, Chipz Happen! All flavors of Chipz Happen have no artificial ingredients, no trans fats, are made with all non-GMO ingredients, gluten-free, vegan and use only antioxidant rich rice bran oil. Whoa – that’s a whole good mouthful!!

Of course you can eat these chips right out of the bag – and with summertime grilling, they’ll go great with anything! But I created this super easy delicious dessert with them to beat the summertime heat.

Crush your chips, follow instructions, add some LOVE, and you’re all set!! (and enjoy the compliments!)

CHIPZ HAPPEN CINNFUL SWEET HEAT ICE CREAM SANDWICHES – serves 6

12 chocolate wafer cookies or any other thin, sturdy cookies you like
1 pint vanilla ice cream
1.5 oz. bag of Chipz Happen Cinnful Sweet Heat Tortilla Chips
Strawberries for garnish

Remove tortilla chips from the bag and crush.

Scoop out a good spoonful or 1/6 of the ice cream on a chocolate wafer, top with the other wafer, press down gently so you don’t break the cookies and then roll the ice cream sides in the crushed chips to coat. Place in a covered plastic container and freeze until ready to serve.

Serve with LOVE, on a plate, garnished with 2 strawberries.

Enjoy!!

I also used these chips, crushed, to garnish my Smoked Tomato Soup that I served at room temperature. The cinnamon flavor with the smoky soup was truly wonderful – and so different. The crunch of the chips added a great extra texture.

Experiment and have fun!! No matter, these chips are great!

Let’s talk about temperature

July 5, 2015 by Mary 16 Comments

I hope you all had a great July 4^th holiday weekend! We certainly did and the weather is glorious today, not too hot, actually amazing for July 5^th, with the temperature in the low 80’s accompanied by cool breezes. We are here in upstate New York and had our friends Margaret and Wayne over for dinner last night. Margaret said she had even turned on the heat yesterday in her house!!

For our meal, I followed my own instructions, if you got our recipe email from MARY’s secret ingredients for dinner suggestions for the 4^th. I made Barbecued Ribs, Corn on the Cob, Sweet and Sour Coleslaw, and I started our dinner with my Smoked Tomato Soup, (minus the Nueske’s sausage and Flathaus Cheese Straws) but decided to serve it at room temperature, which turned out to be a fantastic idea. Some time ago, I remember reading an article in Food & Wine magazine about famous chefs and their mentors. This one focused on April Bloomfield and she said her mentor taught her the most about temperature. Something she was making, she served way too hot. Her mentor said, in so many words, that all of the flavors were not blossoming with all that heat.

Well my soup, because the tomatoes were smoked and it contained smoky bacon, was actually intended to be served hot, but who wants hot soup on July 4^th? So then, I thought, I’ll serve it cold and it’ll be a different form of gazpacho. But no, I said to myself, that won’t work. Serving it cold would obliterate the beautiful bacony, smoky flavors that I had worked so hard to create. So after I pureed it, I just let it sit on a cool burner on the stovetop, letting it come to room temperature – and it was divine!!

I made this decision to take a leap of faith – fortunately we were with good, forgiving friends if it turned out to be a really bad idea. However, this was a really great idea! So I just thought I’d share.
This soup also contains one of our new ingredients from our summer box. You’ll find it to be surprising so stay tuned for the upcoming posts where I’ll reveal all of the great new products!

Let’s all appreciate our freedom and give thanks!!

Blood Orange, Avocado and Baby Kale Salad

March 15, 2015 by Mary 14 Comments

As many of you know, I LOVE salads. I eat one for lunch almost every single day. I really believe that it’s important to eat some raw fruits and vegetables daily. And I adore blood oranges. Their season is NOW so try to go out and buy some and make this Blood Orange, Avocado and Baby Kale Salad. It’s so simple, refreshing, and truly delicious.

Blood oranges always remind me of Italy – a beloved place for my whole family. My husband worked with the largest Italian shoe manufacturer, the Soldinis, in the early years of our marriage, running the women’s division for North America. (Boy did I have a shoe collection then!) He came back from trips there and always remarked how they often had fruit for dessert and that the Italians were deft at eating it with a knife and fork! The first time I ever tasted a blood orange was in Italy – when I would go on trips as the “wife” – not working myself. Then our oldest son chose to be in Italy for his university semester abroad. And as luck would have it, the University of Rochester had their Italian branch in Arezzo, Tuscany, exactly the same city where we spent the most amount of our time, since the Soldinis lived there.

While our oldest was there in school, we made a family trip to visit and of course got in touch with the Soldinis, and they invited all of us to their home for a traditional Sunday lunch. Elita served a 12 course meal! This lunch lasted from noon to past 4 pm. She made everything – all so delicious. I remember at least three different meat courses, soup, two different pastas, salad, vegetables, on and on, it was a feast. And I kept on asking to help her and she kept refusing, but finally I insisted. She did have a woman helping get things out of the kitchen but everything else she did. It was such an amazing memorable time for food and conversation. Rossano was around when our oldest was born and now here we were all together again, all grown, on their turf. And yes, we did have fruit for dessert, served with a knife and fork.

Here’s the salad – not really a recipe – just a great combination of ingredients put together. Make it with LOVE and enjoy.

BLOOD ORANGE, AVOCADO AND BABY KALE SALAD – serves 2

2 handfuls of baby kale greens – washed and dried
1 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
2 blood oranges, peeled with a sharp knife and sliced
2 scallions, sliced, white and light green parts only
Finest extra virgin olive oil you can find – I used Harmonian Kalamata olive oil from our fall MARY’s secret ingredients box
Salt
Pepper, fresh ground

Slice the ends off of the oranges and hold one flat and firm, cut side down, on a cutting board while slicing the peel and pith off with a sharp knife. Roll the orange over and slice into 4 slices.

Place a handful of baby kale on each plate. Put alternating slices of avocado and blood orange on top of the kale. Top with sliced scallions. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Drizzle some olive oil on top. No need for any vinegar as you have the citrus with the oranges. Enjoy!

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.

Cumin and Mustard Roasted Chicken with Fruit

November 8, 2014 by Mary 9 Comments

We had some friends over for dinner on Tuesday night. They were coming at 7 pm. I got home at 6:15. I thought that getting home so late might happen so I had set the table the night before and had planned an easy dinner of grilled Cauliflower Steaks with an herb salsa verde as a first course (divine), followed by roasted sumac chicken stuffed with fennel stalks and Parmesan cheese rinds, roasted baby Yukon Gold potatoes and roasted tomatoes with olive oil and Greek oregano. Simple, yet if done right, perfectly delicious and comforting after a full days work on an early fall evening. Paired with a Petit Syrah and we were set!

Grilled cauliflower steaks with an herb salsa verde – a great Food and Wine recipe

Now you all have seen my kitchen in our videos. It is a galley that is completely open to the living room. With a small gathering, our guests sit right across the counter from me while I’m cooking, and literally see everything. So all is going well until I start to open the organic chicken package only to discover that it’s not a whole chicken! It is chicken parts, and badly cut at that, yet they had put it together in the package to appear as a whole bird!! Well I was surprised, flustered, and of course, a little ticked off at my husband, as he picked out the meat that shopping trip. (I had to blame it on someone!) So now, in my head, I was scrambling, what was I to do? I was searching for something with great flavor to work with, quick, at that late hour. What did I have? No pancetta, which is a great way to add some big flavor in no time. There was no time to make a tomato sauce, no nice savory jams in the fridge. No mushrooms on hand and no time to caramelize onions. Really, my mind was racing while making small talk to my guests sitting right in front of me!

So I thought to start with a little butter and olive oil, instead of just the oil. Salt and pepper on the skin side, added a sprinkling of cumin on the other side. White wine is always good and then I smeared some Dijon mustard on top. Then I saw this box of dried fruit on the counter to the left of my stove. I had just bought it last week to serve with some lovely cheeses, but that never happened. So I thought, what the heck, let’s try this. I topped each chicken piece with slices of fruit – apricots, apples, peaches, pears and prunes, and then threw the whole thing in the oven for about 17 minutes and voila, it was divine! And the oven was hot – 450 degrees for that roast chicken that wasn’t to be – so the fruit got golden and beautiful and dinner was saved. This new recipe is good enough to share, good enough to repeat, and different too! The only thing was that the roasted tomatoes with oregano sort of no longer went with the other food – but they tasted good with the potatoes!

Has this sort of thing ever happened to you? Please share.

CUMIN AND MUSTARD ROASTED CHICKEN WITH FRUIT – serves 4

One whole organic chicken, backbone removed, cut into 8 pieces, extra skin and fat trimmed
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
Salt
Pepper, fresh ground
11/2 tsp. ground cumin
½ cup dry white wine
4 tsp. Dijon mustard
16 – 18 slices of mixed dried fruit – apricots, peaches, pears, apples and prunes
1 – 2 Tbs. Chopped Italian parsley for garnish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Wash and dry the chicken pieces, all fat and extra skin trimmed off. Salt and pepper skin side.

Warm olive oil and butter on medium high heat. Swirl to combine and when butter stops sizzling, place the chicken in the skillet, seasoned side down to brown and crisp skin for 3 – 4 minutes. While that side is browning, season the top side with salt, pepper and cumin. After the first side is nicely browned, turn chicken pieces over and brown the other side for two minutes, then add the white wine and spread the mustard on top of each piece. Then place 2 pieces of dried fruit on top of each lightly mustard coated piece. Put 2 – 3 pieces of fruit on each of the breasts, depending on the size of the fruit. You want to essentially cover the top of the chicken.

Place the skillet in the oven and roast for 15 – 18 minutes. Check doneness with a thermometer – should be 160 – 165 degrees. Remove chicken pieces to a platter, keeping the fruit on top. Pour any juices left in the skillet on top of the chicken. Let rest for 10 minutes and sprinkle chopped parsley on top and serve with LOVE.