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

Braised Chicken Thighs with Marinated Artichokes

November 20, 2016 by Mary 12 Comments

This Braised Chicken Thighs with Marinated Artichokes is a DELICIOUS, fun recipe. So you’re saying now, how can a recipe be fun? Well I’ll tell you. I think it’s fun when it has all of these elements – you’re trying something new, It’s easy, it comes together quickly, even while entertaining, AND the dish is DELICIOUS!!

So that is exactly what happened. You know, those times where you’re just humming in the kitchen, it’s very busy but everything is working and timed correctly?

And this is what this Braised Chicken Thighs with Marinated Artichokes recipe is all about. It is a dish very roughly based on a recipe from Food and Wine magazine, but I had to change it a lot, due to my husband having a bout with acid reflux again. And interestingly enough, our good friend Wayne has had the same problem. And Margaret and Wayne were the ones we were entertaining, so all was good!!

With Steve’s acid reflux, we cannot have any onions, garlic, citrus fruit or any peppers, which actually makes dishes easier to prepare because you don’t have all the chopping and prep of those items! Easy peasy.

This recipe produces THE most tender succulent chicken thighs with a wonderful crispy skin. The cast iron pan frying of the thighs, skin side down, with a weight on top, plus the broiling at the end produces the super crispy skin and the braising in the oven creates super tender, juicy meat.

Marinated artichokes always seem like they should be so good, and then I try them and I don’t like the taste of the oil marinade they are in, do you? But this recipe FINALLY puts these babies to good use. I mean really good use so I can no longer speak disparaging about them.

Here is the recipe:

BRAISED CHICKEN THIGHS WITH MARINATED ARTICHOKES – serves 4 – 6

8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs (3 3/4 pounds)
Sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
15 ounces marinated artichoke hearts, plus 1/4 cup brine from the jar
1 cup Castelvetrano olives
6 rosemary sprigs
1 cup chicken stock or low-sodium broth
1/2 cup semidry sherry, such as amontillado
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper. In a large cast-iron skillet or black steel pan, heat the oil. Add half of the chicken skin side down and top the pieces (not the pan) with a pot lid to weigh it down and get the skin very crisp; cook over moderate heat until browned and crisp, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer the thighs skin side up to a large baking dish or a Le Creuset Dutch oven. Repeat with the remaining chicken. Scatter the artichoke hearts, olives, and rosemary in the baking dish.

Pour off the fat from the skillet. Add the artichoke brine, stock, sherry and fish sauce; bring to a boil. Stir in 1 teaspoon of salt, then pour the mixture around the chicken. Cover tightly with a lid or foil and braise in the oven for 45 minutes, until the chicken is very tender.

Uncover and increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Roast the chicken for 10 – 12 minutes longer, until the skin is crisp.

Discard the rosemary stems if you can. Transfer to plates and serve with LOVE.

Thanksgiving is THURSDAY!!!! We all have much to be grateful for and we pray that we can keep our country whole, and replace all hate with love.

I’m sure you all have been collecting your recipes for the big day. I am NOT cooking – which is a little bittersweet. It is my favorite holiday and I love to cook the meal but my brother Steve and his wife, Trish, have graciously invited all of my family, including our new daughter-in-law’s parents, to their home in Greenwich for what I know will be a very delicious feast paired with amazing wines as he is a Certified Sommelier (and here is his Wine and Food Pairings blog) and they always roll out the red carpet. Like maybe even starting with Russian Beluga Caviar. Yes! I told you we have much to be grateful for!

Thanksgiving recipes and process in an e-book format, beautifully designed to give you a magnificent feast.

My complimentary Thanksgiving e-book of recipes and step-by-step process.

A few years ago I created a Thanksgiving cookbook with an entire day-by-day schedule to follow to achieve maximum results. You can download it here as an interactive PDF. No charge of course – I hope you enjoy it!! And here’s a simple recipe for Candied Yams that’s a terrific dish to grace your table.

And meanwhile, our holiday box of MARY’s secret ingredients is a doozy – valued at more than $47.00!! The cost is only $34.00, including shipping, and makes a great gift for all your foodie friends, even for yourself. So order several several and start making memorable meaIs you’ll be very proud of with the amazing recipes I have been working on using all of these new and interesting products. It will start shipping on December 5th, just in time for the holidays!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

POURfect Measuring Beaker with Roquefort Dressing for Baked Crispy Wings

October 11, 2016 by Mary 7 Comments

POURfect products are simply perfect – in the words of my good friend, Margaret! She calls this a handy-dandy measuring cup, because it is easier to see the point on the cup where the surface of the liquid lies.

Due to the fact that this little pitcher is narrow, there is no sloping of the liquid in the center, which is caused by surface tension, so your eye can more easily see the measurement and it will be very accurate, quite unlike what happens in a typical wide mouthed Pyrex two cup measure. So you might think that this is just a measuring beaker, which it is, but it is perfectly designed for the most accurate liquid measuring!

Additionally the handle is uniquely shaped for an easy grip while the spout to pour is flawless, not leaving any drips behind. I’m thinking of using this for maple syrup the next time I make pancakes or waffles! I really dislike those sticky little drips that appear all over the table from a regular little pitcher.

So I made this DELICIOUS Roquefort dipping sauce for wings or salad dressing, in this little pitcher. I used walnut oil instead of olive oil that added a distinctly rich, nutty flavor. Of course you can use this on a salad which I did last night, of finely sliced lacinato or Tuscan kale, farmer’s market Romaine and bacon. Total yum.

But football season is here and we all love wings! Frying is messy and not a great thing for you. I marinated these in buttermilk and hot sauce, coated in panko and “oven-fried” them on a rack at 450 degrees. Much easier in making and clean up and so much better for you.

Happy cooking and measuring!!

BAKED CRISPY WINGS – serves 4 – 5 as an appetizer

7 whole wings, cut into pieces
½ cup buttermilk
2 Tbs. Sriracha Sauce
¾ cup of panko

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Wash and dry wings with paper toweling. Cut into pieces at the joint, discarding the end tip – freeze and save for making stock. Whisk together the buttermilk and sriracha sauce in a small bowl and marinate wings in it for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Drain wings and coat with panko. Place on a rack on a rimmed baking pan and roast in the oven for 12 – 15 minutes, until done and golden. Serve with LOVE, celery, Roquefort dressing and enjoy!!

ROQUEFORT DRESSING

1 Tbs. mayonnaise
11/2 Tbs. buttermilk
2 ¼ tsp. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt to taste
Cayenne pepper – dash
2 oz. Roquerfort cheese
¼ cup walnut oil

Whisk the mayonnaise, buttermilk, vinegar and mustard together in the POURfect measuring beaker. Gradually whisk in the 1/4 cup of walnut oil and season with salt and cayenne. Stir in the Roquefort cheese.

There are a few fall boxes left where you can
get your own POURfect beaker.

And your purchase helps us support Feed The Children.

Quick Nuts Over Fish Mustard Roasted Chicken

October 7, 2016 by Mary 3 Comments

I have liked the products from Nuts Over Fish for quite some time. Cinde Vandette, the owner of this company whom I met about 18 months ago at a Fancy Foods Show, is a delight. She wanted me to try all of her products, which I joyfully did, and particularly loved the pistachio one, using it on fish, chicken, vegetables, anything! But, she didn’t want to go into the box just yet, for whatever reason. She did, however, become a buyer of the box and bought several subscriptions as gifts. So she liked it! (Mikie likes it!)

And then she came back and wanted her product to be in the box.

This Cashew Nut Topping flavor is her newest creation. It’s DELICIOUS!! With cumin, coriander, curry, orange peel and cashews, how can you go wrong?!?

Of course this is delicious on salmon or any other fish, but I made up this roasted chicken recipe that was “to die for”! Savory with a touch of sweet, you will want to make this again and again and you will – because it’s quick and easy! Perfect for a weeknight dinner but also fancy enough for company. Make this recipe this weekend and sit back and enjoy the compliments! But don’t forget to add your LOVE and it will taste even better!

QUICK NUTS OVER FISH MUSTARD ROASTED CHICKEN – serves 4 – 5 (I know – the title sounds weird…)

One 4 lb. chicken
5 large garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. dry white wine or dry vermouth
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. Tabasco or Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce
1 tsp. dried thyme leaves, crushed
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
4 Tbs. Nuts Over Fish Cashew Topping

Preheat the oven to 450°. Using poultry shears, cut along each side of the chicken backbone and remove it. Turn the chicken breast side up and press on the breastbone to flatten the chicken. Using a sharp knife, cut partway through both sides of the joint between the thighs and the drumsticks. Cut partway through the joint between the wings and the breast. These cuts help the chicken to cook faster and more evenly between the white and dark meat.

In a bowl, mix all of the remaining ingredients, except for the Nuts Over Fish Cashew Topping. Turn the chicken skin side down in a non-stick oven proof skillet and spread it with half of the mustard mixture. Sprinkle on 2 Tbs. of the Nuts Over Fish Cashew Topping all over evenly on the back side of the chicken. Turn the chicken skin side up; spread with the remaining mustard mixture and sprinkle on the remaining cashew topping, evenly, all over.

Set the skillet over high heat and cook the chicken until it starts to brown, 5 minutes. Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast the chicken for 30 minutes, until the skin is browned and the chicken is cooked through. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board or platter, cut it into 8 pieces and serve with LOVE. Enjoy!!

For a short time, you can still buy a fall box with this product in it to make this recipe – but we only have a few left. Go to buy here.

Frosty cocktails and dinner salads – summertime is here!

June 6, 2016 by Mary 8 Comments

Frosty cocktails and dinner salads, summertime is here, right? Easy cooking and meals that come together quickly, that’s what we all want when it’s time to open the windows wide, as we’d really rather be outside.

My mother-in-law passed early Tuesday morning. We had the funeral in Baltimore on Thursday. She had lived a good long 96+ years. So on Wednesday night, our oldest son and his fiancée came over for dinner and spent the night so we could all drive to Baltimore together. Obviously I had not planned for four for dinner this week but here’s what I threw together. It was great for a hot summer, late night meal.

Fortunately I had defrosted a package of 4 chicken thighs with bone and skin. I had some baby spinach and romaine lettuce, potatoes, mini sweet peppers, radishes and tomatoes. I threw in some caperberries and lemon halves to roast with the potatoes and chicken. Over the finished salad, I drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil and with a squeeze of the roasted lemons – DELISH!!

The caperberries got crunchy – a nice and interesting little bit of salt crunch every once in a while. The potatoes, baby Yukon Gold, were creamy dreamy. And roasting the lemons at the high heat of 425 degrees made them almost sweet! You can just salt and pepper your chicken on both sides but I was also trying out a new possible product for the summer box, delicious and high in garlic content, so I will tell you to just add some garlic powder and sesame seeds on the thighs, in order to not ruin the surprise of this product in the upcoming summer box.

Here’s what I did.

DINNER SALAD WITH ROASTED CHICKEN THIGHS, CAPERBERRIES AND ROASTED LEMONS – serves 4

4 chicken thighs with bone and skin
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Sesame seeds
5.5 oz. baby spinach leaves
3 – 4 romaine lettuce leaves, washed, dried and torn into bite size pieces
1.75 lbs. baby Yukon Gold potatoes – scrubbed, dried and cut into 2“ chunks
2 Tbs. olive oil, plus more to drizzle on finished salads
1/3 cup caperberries, drained
2 whole lemons, washed, dried and cut in half
8 radishes, scrubbed clean and dried, trim if greens are not nice
½ cup sugar snap peas, washed, strings removed, and cut on a diagonal into slices
3 tomatoes, washed, dried and each cut into 8 wedges
4 small sweet peppers – yellow, orange or red, washed, dried, split in half lengthwise, seeds removed
3 scallions, cleaned and sliced, white, light green and some dark green parts
Maldon salt
Fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss potatoes with 2 Tbs. olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast potatoes in the oven for 15 minutes. Then add the caperberries to the potatoes and toss and return to the oven for 20 – 30 minutes more.

Meanwhile, wash and dry chicken thighs, removing all fat and extra skin on the edges. Season both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder and sesame seeds, pressing them in to adhere. Place thighs on a rack on a rimmed baking sheet, add lemon halves in the corners of the baking sheet, cut side down and roast on the top shelf in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes.

Prepare all the other vegetables.

Distribute the spinach and romaine lettuce leaves evenly among four dinner plates. Place chicken thighs in the center and evenly distribute all the other vegetables around the chicken, putting one roasted lemon half on each plate and finishing with the scallions sprinkled all over. Drizzle olive oil on the vegetables in a circle around the chicken, and squeeze the lemon all around. Finish with some crushed Maldon salt and fresh ground pepper.

Serve with LOVE and enjoy!! We paired this with an Alsace Riesling – perfect! (Steve – what do you think?)

Last weekend, I was also playing around with cocktails and another box item. More on that to come later after the summer box is shipped on June 25th. Here’s a photo to whet your appetite.

Barbecued Ribs or Santorini Grilled Chicken?

May 29, 2016 by Mary 12 Comments

BBQ ribs – perfect for this holiday weekend. Those are fiddlehead ferns garnishing the platter – they’re in season now!

If you’re thinking of ribs for today or tomorrow, I’ve got you covered with my great rib recipe here. People rave about this recipe and it’s so simple and easy. Or if pork is not your thing, how about a Santorini Grilled Chicken recipe that’s sure to please everyone as it’s stuffed with tomatoes, cheese and onions and oregano. And I’ve added on for you some salads too – one tomato and two potato. So fire up the grill, whip up the salads and enjoy this lovely long weekend with your family – and don’t forget to thank our fallen heroes for their service to our country, as that is what Memorial Day is all about.

Here’s a shot of my Dad’s cavalry hat from WWII. We proudly display it on the wall as a piece of art. (That pie in the back gives a hint of one of our products coming up in our summer box!)

These recipes are all reprise recipes so I’ll just show you the pictures, which all link back to the original post.

We are all out of sorts today. My mother-in-law is passing. She is 96 years old, almost 97, in August. She lived a good long life. I’ve dealt with a lot of passing of people close to me. My mom passed in 1995, my dad in ’98 (of a broken heart from losing my mom. He always thought he would go first.), and then we lost a brother to MS in 2000. All of these were sudden events and a surprise. This, with Steve’s mom is maddening. His sister is in Baltimore with her and has called in hospice. We are both on pins and needles.

Today I spent an hour tearing through the house looking for my reading glasses and then I went to wash my hands in the bathroom and looked up in the mirror – there they were on my chest – hanging from my necklace. Hope this isn’t a sign of things to come! Once I left my car keys at a greeting card store and then they closed and I couldn’t drive home! I was so engrossed in reading funny cards and laughing so hard, I got comfortable, sat on the carpeted floor and left my keys there too. That was a tough one to retrace. Then there was the time I left my keys in the freezer. Don’t ask.

Love your family more. Our time here is precious. Cook with abandon and always serve with LOVE!

Santorini Grilled Chicken

Greek Salad, salad with feta cheese tomatoes cucumbers greek

Tomato, cucumber and feta Greek salad

Best potato salad with fennel, parmigiano cheese, cippolini onions and piccholine olives.

Midwest potato salad in a white Le Crueset bowl garnished with parsley.

Or here’s a great mayonnaise-based potato salad – my Midwest Potato Salad – that was featured in the Tanglewood Cookbook!

Grilled Chicken with Fresh Curry Leaves & Lemon, Onion Butter Sauce

May 22, 2016 by Mary 12 Comments

Recently, I’ve read a lot about fresh curry leaves in various recipes, and I’m thinking, how can that be? Curry, as a spice, is a total mixture of spices and can be mild, medium, or hot (Madras), depending on the combination. So how can there be fresh curry leaves?

Well there are, and you can eat the whole leaf! So I took a trek to dependable Kalustyan’s on Lexington Avenue between 28^th and 29^th Street. They have EVERYTHING!!! You’ll say, “Holy-crap there’s so many herbs, spices and seasonings from all over the world here that I’ve never even heard of!” (No one there asked me to write this but if you are in NYC, you really should go. It is a food lovers party place!) If you don’t live nearby, you can go online and order from them, although the curry leaves must be shipped overnight as they should be refrigerated. It’s $4.99 for a 1 oz. bag and I used the whole bag in this recipe.

The curry leaf tree (Murraya koenigii) is a small bush or tree that only grows 13 to just under 20 feet in height. The plant is tropical to sub-tropical and native to India and Sri Lanka.

I think I might try to grow my own curry plant as I have fallen in love with these curry leaves. They are very fragrant and taste and smell like…curry!! But I’m talking about really fresh curry and not so overpowering. They add a delicious and different twist to any dish. Use this exotic new flavor to garnish any vegetable or meat. You really should try them and try this recipe. I used the whole bag for maximum impact. Once you find them, you will crave them.

GRILLED CHICKEN WITH FRESH CURRY LEAVES & LEMON, ONION BUTTER SAUCE

3^1/4lb. whole chicken, washed, dried, extra fat & backbone removed
1 oz fresh curry leaves, washed and air-dried
1 Tbs. olive oil
Fine sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

Basting Sauce:
4 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 small onion minced
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
Juice of one lemon

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the minced onions on low heat. Cover the pot and cook for 10 minutes, sweating and softening the onions. Then add the worcestershire sauce. Off heat, blend in the lemon juice and a little salt and pepper.

Using poultry shears, cut along each side of the chicken backbone and remove it. Remove the wing tips. Freeze the backbone and wing tips for the next time you make stock. Turn the chicken breast side up and press on the breastbone to flatten the chicken. Using a small sharp knife, cut partway through both sides of the joint between the thighs and the drumsticks. Cut partway through the joint between the wings and the breast. This will make the white meat and dark meat cook more evenly and the whole chicken will cook faster.

For the curry leaves, use all but one stem. Save that for garnishing. Carefully lift up the skin on the breasts and thighs and spread the whole curry leaves around underneath the skin, evenly distributing them

Rub the chicken with a little olive oil. Salt and pepper both sides.

Oil a grill plate and heat up on the grill to 425 degrees. Place chicken on the grill plate, bone side down, cover and roast for 10 minutes. Baste with the lemon butter sauce. Turn the chicken over, baste on the bone side, cover and roast for 10 – 15 minutes, more until done. Remember, this chicken does not take long to cook because the slits were made in the thighs and wings.

Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting into pieces to serve. You can use any leftover basting sauce to put on the chicken because you never basted raw meat.

Chop the remaining curry leaves and garnish the chicken. Serve with LOVE and enjoy!!

Grilled chicken with fresh curry leaves - finished plate with chicken.

We started this meal with a Caesar Salad and I served this chicken with grilled small arepas – arepitas! For another delicious recipe, visit Supriya at quichentell.com. Her coffee and paprika rubbed grilled chicken is to die for!