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Try it!

March 7, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

Over roasted green beans in a white bowl.

Delicious Oven Roasted Green Beans

Our wonderful farmer friends, Ethel and Tom, once told me that all the local restaurants that they sell their vegetables to, always oven roast them as their method to cook. Ethel said they all swear that oven roasting brings out the natural sweetness in the most marvelous way.

Now I’ve been a big fan of roasting eggplant, turnips, zucchini, mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, all kinds of squash, Brussel sprouts, peppers, and of course potatoes but green beans?

So with my shrimp and pasta dinner the other night, being so tired and exhausted, and wanting to eat quickly, I decided to try it. They were delicious!!! Give it a go!

OVEN ROASTED GREEN BEANS
– serves 3 – 4

1 lb. green beans, washed, cleaned and dried
2 tbs. olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Make sure your beans are all dry – use a dish towel if you don’t have time to air dry them. Place in a pile in the center of a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle olive oil on and salt and pepper. Toss well and spread out all across the pan in a single layer. Roast for 20 – 25 minutes until tender. Toss once in the middle of cooking. Enjoy!

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!

A very special day.

November 27, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Yesterday was my birthday and as has become a tradition from my husband and sons, I am to stay out of the kitchen the whole day and only do what I want. Pretty special! So I slept late, went for long bike ride, chatted with an old friend (actually my second employee who never forgets my birthday after all these years) from San Francisco and then some of us went to the movies to see J. Edgar.

Zach and his Polish girlfriend, Agata, made breakfast and lunch, while my husband and my eldest son made dinner. Breakfast and lunch were surprises to me while the dinner menu was my request. All were amazing!!

Homemade Polish bread on a wooden cutting board.

Polish homemade bread

We have a bread recipe in our family from my grandmother that I usually make on each holiday. Since we were all spending Thanksgiving at my brother, Steve’s house in CT, Agata volunteered to make the bread. Yipee!! This is a yeast number with 2 risings and takes about 6 hours. So it was a treat to have someone else offer to make it! The most interesting thing is that her family has a really similar recipe to ours and she made a few modifications to match ours exactly, as she had tasted my bread last Christmas. Nowhere else have we ever run into this! Most people think of babka or some form of that when you say Polish bread but this is a slightly cakey, eggy version and she said we do it a little sweeter than her family.

Polish vegetable and cheese salad in a blue and white bowl.

Polish vegetable/cheese salad

She did a beautiful job!! See the photo – light, airy and just the right texture. So for breakfast she made us all a breakfast her grandmother used to make for her! Egg salad (with Tom and Ethel’s delicious farm fresh eggs) and another dish that is a mixture of fresh peeled cucumbers, Farmer’s cheese, creme fraiche, tomatoes, garlic and chives. For each bite, we put a spoonful of either one on a piece of toasted homemade bread, and it was yummy! Creamy, light, refreshing and different! All things I LOVE!

Creamy egg salad

Right after breakfast, Agata got to work on lunch. From scratch, she made nearly 70 pierogis! They were delicious. They were stuffed with a mixture of sautéed onion, mashed potatoes and Farmers cheese and then topped with a light sauce of onions and bacon. Served with a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc and we were all happy campers!! Just delicious!

A pierogi lunch!

So for dinner, our oldest son made me a terrific Rob Roy straight up. It is one of my favorite cocktails, right up there with a Tanqueray 10 straight up martini. A Rob Roy is essentially a slightly sweet Manhattan made with either Scotch or better yet, choose a single malt, like Oban. Add a lemon twist and I am set!

This drink, besides being delicious, always brings back fond memories of the first time I had it. It was at the Windows on the World restaurant at a special event for World Trade Club Members. This was the storied restaurant on top of the World Trade Center. We were doing marketing work for the private club, dealing with the legendary Joe Baum, and they were holding this single malt scotch tasting for club members and we were invited. It was like an accelerated wine tasting. You can get pretty loopy pretty fast and our host was from Scotland, enjoying every moment and Jules, our client, insisted I try this Rob Roy. It was a match for me! You should try it.

Zach, Agata and I played Bananagrams in front of the fire while dinner was being prepared. Because it was my birthday, they let me get away with “luvv” (I kept on getting those darn v’s) and “eazy”. It’s good to be the birthday girl!

I still didn’t win!

But I digress – on to dinner. We started with fresh shrimp sautéed in hot pepper, parsley, garlic, and olive oil, served with warm crusty French bread for dipping in and scooping up every last drop of the delicious olive oil, served with a ’97 San Marco from Tuscany – a beautiful Tuscan red.

Dinner was Chicken Scarpariello served with sides of spaghetti squash with a fresh tomato garlic sauce and oven roasted Brussels sprouts tossed with blue cheese. It was fantastic!! Wine was a Portuguese 2007 red from this wine store we recently found on the Upper East side. Check out Park East Wines and Spirits on York Avenue at 87^th St. Tom Anderer is the Manager and very helpful. He is a certified sommelier.

Dessert was a lovely cheese plate complete with Medjool dates, Golden Delicious apple wedges and toasted walnuts.

Quite a feast! All so wonderful!

Tonight we’re having homemade tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches – a break from the richness of the past 3 days. I hope your holiday weekend was also filled with wonderful family times and scrumptious food!

The cranberries!

November 20, 2011 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Once again, over the years I have tried many different cranberry sauces and relishes. One year, I even did a Martha Stewart version of putting her cranberry sauce recipe mounded on top of halves of poached pears. It looked gorgeous but the taste was mediocre.

This gingered version, from Sheila Lukins of Silver Palate fame, is the best. If made properly, the little cranberries look jewel-like and glisten! People who don’t even like cranberries like this. This is also delicious as a sauce for sautéed or grilled duck breasts. It is easy to make and it will keep for a long time, if sealed in a tight container and refrigerated. You probably could even freeze it.

I hope you enjoy it!

CRANBERRY GINGER SAUCE
Serves 10

12 oz. fresh cranberries, picked over and rinsed
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup fresh orange juice – yes, please squeeze some juice oranges. It makes a difference!
1 tbs. finely chopped fresh ginger
Finely grated zest from one orange

Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the berries pop open, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Skim foam off the with a metal spoon and discard. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate, covered, for up to 3 months.

Polenta

September 23, 2011 by Mary Frances 1 Comment

After trying to make polenta numerous ways – in a pot, in the oven, with milk, with water, with a combo of milk and water, adding the cornmeal gradually, using the different grinds of cornmeal, I have decided that this is the best way for me – the way my family and I like it best. I hope you agree. This is really a combination of Mark Bittman (making the slurry part), the book HEAT (cooking a long time) and the Dean & Deluca cookbook (my first polenta recipe used). So here we go.

POLENTA – serves 4
1.5 cups coarse ground cornmeal – I use Stone-Ground Organic Fancy Polenta from Hudson Valley
5-6 cups water, or more
1 tsp. salt, plus more if necessary
Fresh ground black pepper
1.5 tbs. unsalted butter
1/3 cup fresh grated Parmesan

Pour 1 cup of water in a pan, whisk in all the cornmeal and make a slurry, then whisk in 4 more cups of water with 1 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, stirring every once in a while. Reduce heat to a simmer. You should have large bubble plops every so often. The polenta will look alive and be slow moving in its simmer. Add more water if it gets too thick. Stir every so often with a whisk to prevent burning on the bottom and use a spatula to scrape the sides of the pan. Simmer for 45 minutes or longer. It should be pulling away from the sides of the pan and taste it to make sure the cornmeal is done and tender. Add more salt if necessary. When done, add a liberal grinding of pepper. Remove from heat and whisk in butter and then the cheese.