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

Chelsea Market Baskets Oatie Bites Fruit Crisp

May 27, 2015 by Mary 15 Comments

These little cookies from Chelsea Market Baskets are buttery, crisp, full of oats and totally delicious! This is the sixth item from our MARY’s secret ingredients spring box and I’d say they’re addictive. So, my thought with this recipe was to combine them with healthy fruit to be able to justify eating more of them! In your box, you either got a Banoffee flavor, which Is a traditional Scottish combo of banana and vanilla or Maple Pecan. Either flavor works in this Chelsea Market Baskets Oatie Bites Fruit Crisp recipe.

First, a little background on the heritage of these cookies. Donald Reid started this family-run bakery located in Thurso, Scotland in 1966 using his grandmother’s over 100 year-old recipes. He uses the exact same locally grown oats from the exact same mills that his grandmother used to bake her amazing biscuits and cakes. The recipes are unchanged, and we’re so glad about that!

We get savor these cookies via Chelsea Market Baskets, NYC’s premier specialty food and gift basket store. Owner, David Porat searches the world for distinctly high quality, unique, innovative products with a certain indescribable charm, and we can see why these Oatie Bites fit right in his specifications. Chelsea Market Baskets aims to delight customers through their retail shop in NYC, mail order gift business and wholesale imports. And that they do!

Here’s the recipe:

CHELSEA MARKET BASKETS OATIE BITES FRUIT CRISP – serves 6 – 8

10 large strawberries, washed, cored and each sliced into 3 or 4 thick slices
1 pint blueberries, washed
3 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. cornstarch
1 tsp. lemon juice

TOPPING;
12 Oatie Bites cookies, Banoffee or Maple Pecan flavored
3 Tbs. unsalted cold butter, plus more for buttering pan
1 Tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, preferably fresh grated

Preheat over to 375 degrees.

Butter an 8” x 8” glass baking dish.

Make sure the fruit is air dried before proceeding. Combine the fruit in the buttered dish. Sprinkle the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice on top and toss all gently to combine with a rubber spatula.

Prepare the topping: Break the cookies into small pieces in a bowl. Sprinkle on cinnamon and nutmeg. Cut the cold butter into small pieces and place in the bowl. Combine all with a pastry cutter to make the streusel topping.

Distribute the topping evenly over the fruit.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 – 30 minutes, until the fruit is bubbly on the edges.

Serve warm, with LOVE. If you want to be really decadent, you could add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream, but it is not necessary.

This was so good, I’m making it again tomorrow night for a little weeknight dinner party!

The Chelsea Market Baskets Oatie Bites were in our MARY’s secret ingredients spring box. The summer box will mail on June 25th. You won’t want to miss it!

Cit-Trease Peeler

May 25, 2015 by Mary 10 Comments

The pith of any citrus fruit is the most bitter part. You don’t want any piece of it and with this Cit-Trease peeler, you can kiss all those pithy parts away!!

Chef’s Planet, goal in life as a company, is to make your life in the kitchen easy and fun!! They are constantly thinking of new ways to make cooking simpler and more enjoyable!

This clever tool makes it easy to remove citrus from the peel so you can enjoy fresh fruit cut up in a bowl or throw the whole peeled half in a juicer for your smoothie. Simply cut your citrus fruit in half and score the citrus in a complete rotation by placing the blade teeth at the edge of the peel. Continue rotating the citrus and move the Cit-Trease handle in a perpendicular position to the face of the fruit until it pulls away from the peel. Voilá!
You then have a half of an orange that is pure fruit, with no pith at all!

You can use this handy tool on grapefruits, avocados and even squash. Cit-Trease away and have fun!! Kiss all nasty skins and pithy parts goodbye!

Chef’s Planet makes life in the kitchen easier by offering unique, cleverly designed gadgets to fit your active life-style. They are constantly thinking of new ways to make cooking simpler and more enjoyable!

The Cit-Trease tool has a stainless steel blade that will not rust or tarnish, is dishwasher safe on the top shelf and even has a patent pending!

Chef’s Planet Cit-Trease tool was in our MARY’s secret ingredients Spring box. Don’t miss out! Our June box is selling like hotcakes – ships June 25th! Order by June 24th.

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.

Subscription Box, Spring 2015 Revealed

May 14, 2015 by Mary 6 Comments

MARY’s secret ingredients subscription box, spring 2015, revealed!!

We had so much fun!! It is so interesting to research and find new companies and products, do the testing :), and then pick the best for you! This box has products from Italy and Scotland, spice mixes influenced by the foods of South America, a delicious new form of low calorie pasta that’s really made of vegetables but you’d never know it, an amazing kitchen tool, the BEST cheese straws and the most flavorful and wonderful tasting pho. If you ordered a box, you won’t be disappointed. And I’ve got some knockout recipes coming up, using all of these products as ingredients, giving all the ready-to-eat items a whole new usage.

In doing this, we hope to inspire you with new recipes to take the doldrums out of the daily question, “What’s for dinner?” Please email us any recipes you create using these products as we are planning on developing a community cookbook with the whole collection at the end of the year. Won’t that make a great holiday gift?

And by buying a box, you’ve just helped in our efforts and partnership with Feed The Children to eradicate worldwide childhood hunger. Thank you for joining in on our big hairy audacious goal.

Please take a look at our super cute video put together by our amazing team – it’s worth the one minute!! (who knew products could dance?)

Our June summer box ships on June 25th! You can order that here.

Chef’s Planet Cit-Trease

Chef’s Planet makes life in the kitchen easier by offering unique, cleverly designed gadgets to fit your active lifestyle. They are constantly thinking of new ways to make cooking simpler and more enjoyable! This clever tool makes it easy to remove citrus from the peel so you can enjoy fresh fruit cut up in a bowl or juiced in a juicer. Simply score the citrus in a complete rotation by placing the blade teeth at the edge of the peel. Continue rotating the citrus and move the Cit-Trease handle in a perpendicular position to the face of the fruit until it pulls away from the peel. Getting juiced was never so easy & healthy!

– Stainless steel blade will not rust or tarnish
– Great for preparing citrus and other “scoopable” foods like avocados and squash
– Dishwasher safe (top shelf)
– Patent pending

Chelsea Market Basket – Their founder’s passion for inspired specialty food and thoughtfully designed gifts led to the creation of Chelsea Market Baskets in 1993. Owner, David Porat continues to search the world for distinctly high quality, unique, innovative products with a certain indescribable charm. Chelsea Market Baskets aims to delight customers through their retail shop in NYC, mail order gift business and wholesale imports.

Reids of Caithness Oaties – Product of Scotland

Donald Reid started this family-run bakery located in Thurso, Scotland in 1966 using his grandmother’s over 100 year-old recipes. He uses the same locally grown oats from the same mills that his grandmother used to bake her delicious biscuits and cakes. The recipes are unchanged and their award winning, buttery, crisp cookies have stood the test of time. We can see why!

Delta Bred Cheese Straws

We are excited to share with you one of their most treasured family recipes. These cheese straws are made in small batches and use 100% real cheddar cheese. They are perfect for anyone looking for fine taste at fine times! Whether you enjoy your cheese straws with sweet tea or mint juleps, we can assure you will experience the mighty fine taste of Delta Bred!

Harvest Foods Shirataki Harvest Noodles Marinara

Made from Konjac Yam Root, this secret weight loss food enjoyed in Asia is now available to you in a vibrant marinara sauce of blended tomatoes, onions, basil and sea salt to delight your taste buds. Healthy and convenient, Shirataki Noodles are vegan and low calorie, making them perfect for anyone trying to be mindful of their weight.

Skinny and easy never tasted so good!

Loacker Cremkakao Chocolate Bar – Product of Italy

Nine – count ’em nine – bite-size pieces make up Loacker‘s velvety chocolate bar with cream-filled centers and their signature light and crispy wafers. They make them easy to break apart so each bar-within-the-bar is a treat unto itself to savor and linger over. Cremkakao is a milk chocolate bar.

So easy, yet at the same time, so hard to share.

Samba Flavor Chimichurri Dry Mix

This is your chimichurri on the go! Created with gourmet quality herbs and spices for the chimichurri lover, this is very easy to prepare. You can mix it with wine, vinegar or lemon juice and olive oil. Adjust to your preferred acidity and taste!

Enjoy the best flavors of South America!

Savory Choice Authentic Veggie Pho

Made with traditional flavors and aromatics, infused in a rich broth, this pho contains no artificial flavors or coloring and is made with natural ingredients. Add your choice of protein or veggies, cooked rice noodles and garnish with your choice of condiments to create the perfect pho dish in minutes. Each stick pouch of liquid broth concentrate is reconstituted with 2 cups (16 oz) of hot water.

Savor the homemade flavor!

MARY’s secret ingredients is moving forward with crowdfunding

February 28, 2015 by Mary 14 Comments

I want to eradicate hunger on this earth.

I know, a pretty big, bold, audacious statement. But I think we can do it with your help, using MARY’s secret ingredients.

We’re on a mission – by supporting new natural food manufacturers and giving them an outlet to showcase their products AND giving you the opportunity to sample and try while I suggest new recipes to inspire your cooking, we can make enough money to give back to Feed The Children to tackle this hunger problem. Hunger is not about a total lack of food. It’s a distribution problem. It’s a poverty problem. It’s an education problem. Money is needed to solve these problems. We are now on a crowdfunding mission.

Did you know that we, in the United States, have the highest percentage of hungry people of any developed nation, a rate closer to that of Indonesia than that of Britain?

The simple fact that anyone, anyone in our country should go to bed hungry or any child not be able to concentrate in school due to hunger is an absolute crime in my book.

We need to fix it.

Did you also know that many obese people, of whom there are plenty of in this nation, are actually malnourished? Yes, they’re eating just a ton of fatty, processed crap with no nutrients. They are actually starving. They don’t cook or eat real food.

So MARY’s secret ingredients seeks to solve both problems, by introducing new natural food products from our box to add excitement to your cooking, including the crazy recipes that I create, and then also donating a percentage of profits to Feed The Children.

We have been growing rapidly but we’d really like to ramp it up to solve the hunger problem so we can give oodles of money to Feed The Children. In order to enlarge our community and prove just how big this concept can be to our investors, we have launched a crowdfunding campaign. You can make an investment in exchange for an exclusive gift from us.

Please visit and invest what you can. Besides, I’d love to meet you in person and have you over for a cooking lesson, a brunch or even a dinner. Here is the link: http://smallknot.com/marys-secret-ingredients-1

Please tell all your friends and share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. to get the word out.
Thank you for all that you do. 🙂 Let’s have fun while we all tackle this problem together!!

MARY’s secret ingredients Giveaway Winners announced!

December 18, 2014 by Mary 3 Comments

To all of you who participated in my MARY’s secret ingredients Giveaway, thank you for making it a huge success! Everyone’s responses were just wonderful, and I’m so happy to announce our winners today.

A little background: I wanted to make sure that the winner was picked completely at random so I had Marie, my MSI Project Manager (and resident opera singer), input everyone’s names into this Random Name Picker. First, we chose our Grand Prize Winner who will receive a full year’s subscription to MARY’s secret ingredients, followed by our two runners-up who will each receive a Spring 2015 box!

And The Winners Are:

Grand Prize: Anne Maxfield!!!

Runners-up: Shaunie and Bill Bryan!

Congratulations Anne, I’m thrilled to be sending you a whole year of my specially curated ingredients. To Shaunie, and Bill, thank you so much for sharing your lovely holiday dishes, I’m delighted to be sending you each a Spring box.

Here are our winners’ favorite holiday dishes:

Anne cooks recipes to put into beautifully packed gifts with her friend. This year they made a wonderful Crunchy Granola (you can get the recipe on her blog here: http://wp.me/p2SJwY-1y). Shaunie makes her Great Aunt’s broccoli casserole recipe, and Bill make a special bison chili with 3 different kinds of beans!

Once again thank you to everyone who participated, including our international friends who shared with us even though they weren’t eligible to enter because we can’t ship outside the continental US, yet. You ALL are winners in my book!

Stay tuned for more recipes using the ingredients from my winter box!