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Going to Greece

September 23, 2012 by Mary Frances 10 Comments

With autumn officially here, even though I love the season, here’s a way to hang on to summer for just a little bit longer.

I think it’s fun to plan a dinner around a specific theme. Not like the crazy tablescape lady on Food Network. I just learned that she is our Governor’s live-in partner! Yikes! She’s probably a nice woman but really, she’s a bit much.

We had some new friends over for dinner last Saturday. Well not really new. Anne and I did business with one another some 20 years ago! She had a creative placement agency. In those days, my company did a lot of package design for a fragrance company called Tsumara. We often needed textile designers to design the background patterns on these packages. Anne supplied me great ones on a freelance basis.

I ran into her recently at a New York Times /AMEX Business Summit. I gave her a LOVE card and she checked out the blog and recognized Ethel and Ethel’s garlic from an earlier post! We discovered our weekend houses are very close to one another. Isn’t that great?

So for our dinner together, I wanted to take them to Greece. We made a grilled Greek chicken recipe that my husband and I used to make all the time after our visits to Santorini. You take a whole chicken and stuff under the skin: slices of tomatoes, covered with dried oregano, sliced onions and thin slices of feta cheese. Grill it with a lemon-based sauce and voila, you’re in Greece. They do this all over Santorini on the street outside of small restaurants and everything is so fresh and good. Serve it with a simple Greek tomato and cucumber salad and you are set. Try it – it’s delicious!!

And grab a little bit of summer one last time.

SANTORINI GRILLED CHICKEN
– serves 4

1 whole chicken – about 3.75 lbs
1 large tomato – sliced 1/8” thick
Dried oregano
Feta cheese, sliced 1/8” thick
1 small onion – sliced 1/8” thick
salt
pepper
1/2 lemon
Lemon/garlic basting sauce

Wash and thoroughly dry the chicken. Trim off any excess fat. Refresh it with a half of a lemon, squeezing the juice out all over, inside and out. Pat the chicken dry again. Cut the tomato in 4 or 5 slices. Sprinkle each slice liberally with dried Greek oregano. Carefully, use your fingers to separate the skin from the meat on both sides of the breastbone and on both sides of the backbone. Into each quarter slide one tomato slice, oregano side down, one onion slice and one good slice of feta. If you need to cut a tomato slice or onion slice in half, to fit it all in, do so. If you accidentally tear the skin, use a small skewer to sew up the tear. Salt and pepper the chicken all over to your liking.

Grill the chicken at about 350 degrees, basting with the sauce 3-4 times throughout the cooking time. It should take about 45 minutes.

You could also do this in your oven. Preheat the oven to 550 degrees. Place the chicken in for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and roast for 45 – 50 minutes, basting three times with the lemon garlic sauce during this time, every 15 minutes. Check to see if it’s done with an instant read thermometer. It should register at 155 degrees.

LEMON/GARLIC BASTING SAUCE
1.5 tbs. unsalted butter
2 tbs olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbs. finely minced onion
6 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tbs. Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp. light brown sugar
1 tbs. Worcestershire sauce
20 grinds of black pepper
¾ tsp. Sriracha sauce
3 tbs. water

In a small saucepan, melt the butter in olive oil over low heat. Add garlic and onion, cover and sweat for 15 – 20 minutes. Check often, stir and do not let it brown, but you want it to be meltingly soft. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the water, stirring well. Raise heat to medium-high and whisk in water. Stir until mixture boils and then remove from heat. This can be made a couple of hours before you’re going to use it. Keep it at room temperature.

GREEK SALAD
– serves 4

2 – 3 large tomatoes, preferably heirloom, cut in large chunks
½ of a large red onion, cut in ½” chunks
1.5 hothouse cucumbers, peeled, halved lengthwise & cut in 1/2” chunks
1/2 cup Kalamata black olives, pitted, cut in half
Greek feta cheese, crumbled in large pieces
Extra virgin olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Chopped fresh oregano leaves

Place tomatoes, red onion, cucumbers, olives and feta cheese in a large bowl. Drizzle with the best olive oil you have and a few splashes of red wine vinegar. Sprinkle with a little salt (the feta will be salty so not too much), fresh pepper and 2/3 of your chopped oregano leaves. Toss lightly to combine. Garnish the top with more oregano leaves.

A wonderful combination and tangerines are in season!

March 14, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

I first made this salad for my visiting brother, David, and his wife, Pat. What I didn’t realize until much later, was that this became one of Patti’s all time favorite dishes. She went home and made it and made it and made it so many times that finally David said, “Again? Patti it’s really good but enough already!”

We all love beets in our family – after all we’re Polish and the Poles practically only have root vegetables, as my son tells me after living there for two different six month stints. Beets are served at almost every meal, along with horseradish. Soon, I’ll post our all-time family favorite recipe of beets and horseradish, as we get closer to Easter, as it is an imperative Easter breakfast dish in our household.

But I digress. My brother, Mark would say, “Midge (my nickname), is this plane ever going to land?” So yes it is! This is a fantastic, surprising, most refreshing and light combination! Beets are always good with goat cheese and toasted walnuts, but this is a real treat to your palate.

Now you may think it’s a lot of work and time consuming. It does take time but you can divide it up. Roast your beets the night before while you’re making your dinner, peel them and store in the fridge. Also you can toast your pine nuts the night before too. Toast more pine nuts than you need and store in an airtight plastic container so you have them on hand to throw in a pasta dish, on other salads or on some haricot verts, Remember, the more you cook, the easier it is, because you’ll start to have things on hand – salad dressings, croutons, toasted nuts. All good things!

An iPhone photo of a photo on a BlackBerry!

BEETS AND TANGERINES ON A BED OF ARUGULA
-serves 4

4 golden beets
1.5 tbs. pine nuts
3 tbs. olive oil
3-4 oz. of washed, dried and chilled arugula
4 tangerines
2 small shallots, thinly sliced
1.5 tbs. raspberry vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the washed, scrubbed and dried beets in large piece of aluminum foil, drizzle with 1 tbs. olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Draw up the aluminum foil to make a packet. Place the packet in a baking dish (they might leak) and roast for 60 – 70 minutes, until they are tender and easily pierced with a skewer. When they are cool enough to handle, peel the beets and cut into sixths or eighths, or store whole in the refrigerator.

In a small non-stick skillet, over medium high heat, toast the pine nuts, stirring constantly until they are golden brown. Place in a small dish to cool.

Using a sharp knife, cut each end off of the tangerine so you have a flat bottom and top, then slice around the curve and cut off the remaining peel. Once the tangerine is peeled, over a medium bowl, slice in between the membranes to release the tangerine sections. Squeeze the juice from the membranes into a small bowl; you should have 1/4 cup.

In another small bowl, toss the sliced shallots and raspberry vinegar with a pinch of salt and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir in the 1/4 cup of tangerine juice and whisk in the remaining 2 tbs. of olive oil. Season the dressing with salt.

Place a handful of arugula on each plate. Arrange the beets and tangerine sections on plates and drizzle with the dressing. Top with the toasted pine nuts and serve.

If you have refrigerated the roasted beets overnight, bring to room temperature before using. Also, the tangerines are better at room temperature as well.

We must know what we’re eating!

February 27, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

This is from an email I just received from the Center for Food Safety.

Congress to FDA: LABEL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD
Have YOUR Senators and Representative Joined the Letter?

In the U.S., we pride ourselves on having choices and making informed decisions. Under current FDA regulations, we don’t have that choice when it comes to GE ingredients in the foods we purchase and feed our families. This led the Center for Food Safety to submit a legal petition to the FDA demanding that the agency require the labeling of GE foods. In response, Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) and Representative Peter DeFazio (OR) have authored a bicameral Congressional letter in support of our legal petition and will be urging their fellow Members on Capitol Hill to sign onto their letter.

Unsuspecting consumers by the tens of millions are being allowed to purchase and consume unlabeled genetically engineered foods, despite the fact that FDA undertakes no testing of its own, instead relying only on a voluntary consultation with industry and confidential industry data to assure safety. Internal FDA documents discovered in prior CFS litigation actually indicated the foods could pose serious risks, but those views were overruled.

Genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in nearly 50 countries around the world including the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, China, New Zealand and many others. A recent poll released by ABC News found that 93 percent of the American public wants the federal government to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. As ABC News stated, “Such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare.” Yet the United States is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t require labeling of GE food!

Please write and call your U.S. Senators and Representative and urge them to join the Boxer-DeFazio letter in support of labeling!

Fruit!

January 5, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

So after enjoying all these wonderful meals and special treats and drinks during the holidays, I am waking up to discover that I am really fat.

Not really. But, you know, when you put on a pair of favorite pants and think they’ve suddenly shrunk in length (even though they were fine the last time you put them on), then you have to fess up to the fact that it’s the size of your hips that’s hiking them up and you know, Spanx can only do so much. So I’ve gained a few pounds and it feels really uncomfortable.

I’ve now gone back to “clean eating” – less meat, little or no carbs and having a piece of celery or a half of apple if I’m starving before dinner. It’s working. I’ve already lost 3 of the 5 pounds.

I think fruit is a wonderful thing. Some doctors have told me it’s too sweet, it has too much sugar. But it’s a natural sweetness, right? It’s refreshing, satisfying that sweet tooth craving and makes all things “right”, as my mother used to say. She would have a piece of fruit at the end of her lunch every day as well as pack an apple, orange or pear in our lunch for school. I have kept that habit up, only we have a small bowl of fresh fruit salad at the end of our breakfast everyday. What I do is make a very large fruit salad on Sunday morning, and then it lasts us for the week, making it super easy to serve up for a workday morning.

You can, of course, combine all sorts of things but I don’t recommend bananas, unless you eat them right away, as they don’t hold up. Leave your strawberries whole so they don’t break down as quickly and serve them up sooner than the rest. A pineapple is wonderful, along with grapefruit, oranges, apples, and red or green grapes. Blueberries, blackberries, mangoes and kiwi are nice as well, but need to be eaten first too.

And here’s a great tip, squeeze some fresh lime juice all over your salad and then top it off with torn fresh mint leaves. I have found that the mint leaf edges will not darken as quickly if you tear them, as opposed to cutting or chopping them.

So start your new year with fruit!

Traveling

October 30, 2011 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

Last night we were supposed to go out to dinner but with the major snowstorm upstate, we chose not to travel, built a fire and stayed put. Instead we traveled to Greece with a French side trip!

We started with store bought hummus – Sabra brand with roasted garlic. Now what I always do, and I think this makes it just a little more special, is drizzle high quality, extra virgin (of course) olive oil on top and then sprinkle on some ground cumin. I served it with whole grain pita chips and some fresh red pepper strips. Fast, easy and delicious!

I then made Melissa Clark’s recipe for Moussaka that was in the NY Times Dining section this past week. It was called “Greece on a Speedboat” – which was supposed to mean that this was the speedy, sort of short-cut version of moussaka. Well, it still took 2 1/2 hours! And it was good but it wasn’t great. To me, when you spend that much time on something, it should be great. And I guess to make the authentic version takes even longer! We have been to Greece several times. I love Greece, even Athens, and Santorini used to be our special place but now it’s too crowded. The Greeks are lovely laid back people yet all their traditional dishes are very labor intensive. Ever make Baklava or watch someone make it? All those separate sheets of thin pastry, each one buttered, layer upon layer. Yikes!

But let me tell you about the salad I made. It was a Jacques Pepin recipe also from the Times the week before this last. He wants you to make it with frisee but my little local market doesn’t even sell that. I guess it’s too expensive and they don’t have a calling for it. So I substituted a bunch of watercress and a sliced endive. I figured these two combined could substitute the slightly bitter frisee bite he was looking for. It was delicious – I’m thinking it may have even been better! You tell me.

Here’s the recipe. I love his way of making the croutons rather than roasting in the oven. You must constantly toss them but you have more control and can achieve beautifully colored croutons with just the perfect crunch and this uses much less oil than oven roasting which equals less calories. Yay! The dressing is more mustardy – very French and very delicious.

FRISEE WITH CROUTONS AND SPICY OLIVES
Adapted from “Essential Pépin” by Jacques Pépin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011)

Serves 4

1 1/2 cups 1-inch bread cubes
1 tablespoon olive, canola or peanut oil (I used olive oil)
1 tablespoon spicy mustard
1 teaspoon crushed and finely chopped garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large or 2 small heads frisée, cut into 2-inch pieces (5 to 6 cups) or one bunch of watercress, large stems removed and one endive sliced in rounds
1/4 cup pitted spicy green olives, cut in half
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained, each cut in half or thirds

Drop bread cubes into a skillet and sprinkle oil over them. Toss gently and cook over high heat, tossing constantly, until cubes are browned on all sides. Remove from skillet.

Mix mustard, garlic, salt, pepper and vinegar in a large serving bowl. Whisk in oil.

Add the frisée or watercress and endive, olives and sun-dried tomatoes to the bowl and toss thoroughly. Divide among 4 salad plates and sprinkle the croutons on top.

Easy Friday night shrimp salad

October 1, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

This is something I threw together last evening and it was great!! I love warm cooking juices on a chilled lettuce salad, and you don’t feel stuffed after this dinner. It is clean and light – much better for you. We served it with a chilled White Bordeaux and it was very good, but a Vouvray or Sauvignon Blanc might be better.

EASY FRIDAY NIGHT SHRIMP SALAD – serves 2
5 large green leaf lettuce leaves
10 small hearts of romaine lettuce leaves
3 small patty pan squash, cut in chunks
1 medium onion, sliced in 1/4 “ slices, cut in half
3 tbs. olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 – 1/4 “ slice of pancetta, cut in 1/8” squares
2 dried red chili peppers, minced with seeds, no stem
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 – 16 oz. can cannellini beans, drained
1 lb. large shrimp, shelled and de-veined, preferable with the tails on
2 small green zebra tomatoes, quartered
1 small red heirloom tomato, cut in eighths

SALAD DRESSING
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbs. red wine vinegar
French grey salt
Fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup olive oil

Whisk together mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper. Slowly add olive oil by droplets and whisk until emulsified.

Wash, spin dry, and chill all the lettuce leaves. Tear into bite size pieces.

Warm 1.5 tbs. olive oil in a skillet, add onions, cover and let sweat on low heat for 15 – 20 minutes. Uncover and raise heat to medium, add squash. Toss and cook until crisp tender. Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

Wash (at least 3 times) and pat dry shrimp. Salt and pepper one side

Meanwhile, in another skillet, warm remaining 1.5 tbs. of olive oil, add garlic and sauté on low heat for 5 minutes. Add diced pancetta and cook for 10 minutes or so. Raise heat to medium, add white wine and chili peppers. Let wine cook down by one-half, add drained beans and cook for 3 minutes. Add shrimp and toss until pink on both sides. Remove from heat.

Divide lettuce up on 2 dinner plates, spoon out squash and onion mixture on top. Top with shrimp and bean mixture. Arrange tomatoes in a circular fashion on top, drizzle on salad dressing and serve immediately. You may not use all of the shrimp and bean mixture or salad dressing. I didn’t. They make great leftovers and you will use them later.