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

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!

Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise Crusted Catfish & on Veggies

April 17, 2016 by Mary 3 Comments

Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise is a wonderful new product from the people who brought us the great ketchup. They are changing the condiment space with all natural, non-GMO products made with real ingredients, like egg yolks in this one, just like you would use to make homemade mayonnaise. Definitely refrigerate this after opening, although it’s so good with so many uses, it won’t last long.

This combination of mayo and Dijon mustard with some mustard seeds thrown in is super delicious!! The consistency is not goopy but rather thick and sauce-like which means you don’t put too much of it on your sandwich and you really can use it as a yummy, luscious sauce.

It is terrific on any steamed vegetable. I’ve used it on steamed Brussels sprouts, sugar snap peas and green beans. And then there’s this roasted catfish recipe that is just divine. I’m sure you’ll find a myriad of uses for this stuff – it’s that good!!

While this was in our spring MARY’s secret ingredients spring box and there are a few left so you can still purchase one, you may be able to find this product in some stores but it is not yet up on their site shop.

SIR KENSINGTON’S DIJONNAISE CRUSTED CATFISH – serves 3

1½ lbs. catfish fillets
½ tsp. coconut oil
French Grey salt, finely ground, or sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
6 tsp. Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise
2/3 cup panko
1 Tbs. unsalted melted butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Slick the coconut oil on a rimmed baking sheet.

Wash and dry the fish with paper toweling. On bottom side of fillet, salt and pepper to taste. Spread 1 tsp. of Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise on top of each fillet with a knife. Sprinkle some panko all over the top to cover.

Turn the fish over and do the same thing on the other side. Drizzle the melted butter over the top of all 3 fillets.

Roast in the oven on the top shelf for about 12 minutes, until fish is completely white and flakes but is still very moist.

Serve with LOVE and enjoy!!

SIR KENSINGTON’S DIJONNAISE ON VEGGIES – serves 3

½ lb. sugar snap peas or Brussels sprouts
2 Tbs. Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise

Wash and clean your vegetables. Cut the Brussels sprouts in half. Steam until crisp tender and bright green. For the sugar snap peas, steam about 2 minutes and longer for the Brussels sprouts – 5 -10 minutes, depending on their size.

Remove steamer from the pan for a minute or two to let the vegetables air dry. and toss with Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise. Total yum!!

For the sugar snap peas, it’s best to lay them out on a linen towel, cover and dry, before tossing with Sir Kensington’s Dijonnaise.

All easy peasy and SO good – and good for you!

RawSpiceBar Winter Herbs on a Beef Rump Roast with Potatoes & Parsnips

January 3, 2016 by Mary 17 Comments

Growing up in the Midwest, and from a large family with lots of boys (five brothers) Sunday dinner was often a big beef roast with mashed potatoes, green beans and some sort of homemade fruit pie. That roast and the pie said “Sunday” to me and my mom did a great job of making sure the beef was cooked to a beautiful medium-rare. Desserts in the Midwest were pretty mandatory and her pies were spectacular. My father always loved her flakey crusts.

This little packet from RawSpiceBar doesn’t look like much. However, cut it open and the fragrance released is like nothing I’ve ever experienced from a mixture of dried herbs. They say that they’re special and you know what, they are! Also, you don’t think there’s much in the packet but there’s more than you think! My rump roast was pretty sizable, 2.7+ lbs. and I applied the spice mixture liberally and still have a third of my spices left!

So use these now to take advantage of their freshness and don’t be stingy. They are a little rustic with some stems in the mixture, but that all adds to the aroma!

Sprinkle Kosher salt all over your roast, then sprinkle on the herb mixture and press in. For the rounded sides of the roast, sprinkle the herb mixture and salt on a flat surface spread out about the same area you need to cover, and then roll your roast in it to cover completely. Neat trick, eh?!!

Do this as early in the morning as you can on the day you want to serve this. Do it the day before for even better results. Salting any meat ahead of time helps to tenderize it. While a rump roast is flavorful, it needs some help on the tender part.

RawSpiceBar WINTER HERBS ON A BEEF RUMP ROAST WITH POTATOES & PARSNIPS – serves 6

1 Tbs. Kosher salt
1.5 – 2 Tbs. RawSpiceBar Winter Herbs spice mix
2.7 lbs. beef rump roast, tied at 2-inch intervals
½ bunch marjoram
1.5 lbs. medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled
1.5 lbs. medium parsnips, peeled, cut in 3-inch lengths
4 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 large bunch watercress

FOR THE HORSERADISH SAUCE:
½ cup crème fraîche
2- 3 Tbs. horseradish, drained
Small pinch cayenne
Salt and pepper

The day before or in the morning, evenly cover the roast with the Kosher salt and the RawSpiceBar Winter Mix herb mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. (If you don’t have time for this, even 2 hours at room temperature before you put it in the oven will do.)

Remove the seasoned roast from the refrigerator at least an hour before you plan on putting it in the oven.
Line a roasting pan with marjoram branches and set roast on top. Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Roast the beef, uncovered, for about 1 hour. Check with an instant-read thermometer after 45 minutes. For medium-rare, take the roast out of the oven when thermometer registers 120 degrees (residual heat will cause roast to continue cooking as it rests). Remove the roast, let it rest for 20 minutes; the temperature should rise to 125 degrees.

Meanwhile, while the roast is cooking, in a large pot of well-salted boiling water, cook potatoes until just done, about 15 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a baking dish. In the same water, simmer parsnips until just done, about 8 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and add them to the potatoes in the baking dish. Pour melted butter over the potatoes and parsnips and use a brush to make sure they are all well coated.

Make the horseradish sauce: Whisk together crème fraîche, horseradish and cayenne in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate.

After about 45 minutes after the roast goes into the oven, put in the baking dish of potatoes and parsnips, uncovered, and roast until beautifully golden brown, about 25 – 30 minutes.

Slice the beef into thin slices and arrange on a warmed platter, garnished with a big bunch of watercress and the roasted vegetables. Pass the horseradish sauce separately.

Serve with LOVE and enjoy!!

Candied Yams for Thanksgiving

November 25, 2015 by Mary 10 Comments

Sorry I had to rant in my previous post. It’s been something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a long time now. You know, kinda brewing… but Thanksgiving is tomorrow…and so is my birthday this year!! We are super blessed with all good things – our children and their mates are happy and healthy and we are too! My brother and his wife in CT are hosting Thanksgiving this year, so I can be a real queen for the day, on my birthday. How cool is that?

I’m so excited for tomorrow. After all, this is my favorite holiday and usually I love cooking for it but I have to tell you, this year, with all that’s going on business-wise, I’m DELIGHTED to take a step back. And I know there’ll be great wines. You all should check out my connoisseur brother’s wine blog – he’s amazing!!

So I wanted to share with you the one recipe for Thanksgiving that has been in my repertoire forever. It is a riff on the original Candied Yams recipe from — drum roll please — Joy of Cooking!! Yes! I received that cookbook from my sewing teacher, Mrs. Mellor, as a wedding shower gift. Julia Mellor was also the mother of one of my brother’s best friends and she taught Home Economics at the public high school. Of course, I went to the Catholic all-girls private school, where they didn’t even teach home ec. (go figure) My mother wanted to insure I knew how to sew… don’t ask. And this original recipe is from that “bible” of American cooking back then. It has withstood the test of time. Of course, I’ve changed it…

The great thing about his recipe is that you can make it ahead of time and then just slip it in the oven to glaze while your turkey is resting, right before you serve your meal. Easy peasy and nice!

Enjoy!!

May you and yours have a very blessed Thanksgiving holiday!! Cook, eat and serve with LOVE!

CANDIED YAMS RECIPE – serves 4 – adapted from Joy of Cooking

3 yams
Kosher salt
1 Tbs. butter for yams
Extra butter for greasing
Fresh ground pepper
Sweet paprika
Powdered ginger
1/4 cup maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cook the yams in boiling salted water for 25 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and let cool, peel and slice lengthwise.

Butter the baking dish and place the yams in it in a single layer. Salt and pepper the yams. Lightly sprinkle on sweet paprika and powdered ginger to taste. Cut butter into small pieces and place on top. Drizzle a quarter cup of maple syrup on the yams.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove and spoon the glaze on top of the yams. Serve with LOVE and don’t eat too much! 🙂

Our Fat America and a Festive Balsamic Chicory Salad with Pomegranate Seeds, Parmesan and Toasted Walnuts

November 24, 2015 by Mary 6 Comments

Okay so here goes. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, since after all, this is a food and recipe blog. And, we are entering the heavy eating holiday season now. Two thirds of Americans are either obese or overweight. Two-thirds!!! That’s a very scary statistic.

And then we have the current mantra running through society to be confident of who you are and celebrate your body no matter what shape it’s in. (think Dove commercials)

Well I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far. While certainly girls should not be starving themselves, trying to emulate high fashion models, many of whom are just naturally thin. Body shapes are what we are born with. For instance, no matter how much weight I would lose, I would still have big hips. But when people think it’s ok to be unhealthily overweight, we’ve got a problem.

And I was raised with five older brothers who told me that I was fat, ugly and would never have a date for the senior prom if I ate that Ding Dong Mom put in my lunch bag. They also told me that pregnant women had no doubt swallowed a watermelon seed so I had better be careful eating that stuff.

I think it’s amazing that our creator made us to be expandable, don’t you?

I mean, there’s no limit as to how much your cells will expand. The creator did not make us so that at some point of fatness, we’d just pop. Oh no, we can keep on eating. We have the choice, he left it up to us.

And another thing I find interesting is the way people dress today. It’s all visible with the stretch work-out clothes everyone wears at all hours of the day. I remember when I was growing up, really overweight people dressed to try to hide the excess. Remember mumu’s for women? Usually in a medium sized floral print. Sweet.

So with the interest in all food and the foodie/eating craze happening all over the country, we have the rise in popularity of food and cooking shows. This is great in terms of making it easily accessible to everyone as to “how to” cook and make various dishes. However, the most popular shows are featuring super fatty foods – dishes that have sausage meat with no draining of the fat, the popularity of pork belly, fried foods, heavy, rich desserts. This is what we’re telling people to eat!

I have had conversations with a Food Network producer and she said that putting healthy foods on shows or as recipes in their magazine just doesn’t sell.

But they are telling people the wrong thing!

This is one reason why I started this blog. To inspire people to cook at home and spread the word on how to make great tasting, clean and lean dishes that you and your family will love – and then you’ll feel great!!

A friend of mine from college days at Parsons, sent me this article on The Future of Medicine is Food. Hooray that the Tulane University School of Medicine is teaching their medical students the importance of your diet with regards to your health in disease prevention and cures. Finally!!

They said, “They expect to see a sea change to take place in the way doctors treat chronic illness—and the way insurance charges for it describing a future where doctors write recipes as prescriptions and insurance companies treat food as a reimbursable expense. (There is, of course, a strong economic argument in favor of a prevention-based approach to health.) They predict that care plans will eventually include menu planning, recipes and maybe even programming to get the ingredients delivered to patients.”

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

This is what we are trying to do with MARY’s secret ingredients, by providing new products to inspire your home cooking along with recipes on how to use them.

How many overweight or obese individuals suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels depression and lack of energy? If they would only lose weight, most likely all of it would go away. The lack of energy and depression creates a big vicious cycle.

Currently, many of them are eating fast food and/or heavily processed food, which makes you feel awful afterwards and tired. So then they eat more, thinking it will give them energy but the opposite continues to happen and they just continue on and on and then those subway steps get harder and harder to climb so you may as well eat some more and forget it, right?

Even eating out in better or fine restaurants all the time can take its toll. The restaurant’s job is to make you love the food. Adding in butter to finish a sauce is typical. And yes, it sure tastes great! The extra bread, butter and olive oil are surely all delicious but it all adds up. I really don’t like to eat out a lot. I want to know what I’m eating!

And then don’t get me started about the huge plates and portion sizes at restaurants like Chili’s or TGI Fridays. How did that happen? We had to go to one of those once, when no other restaurant was open after a funeral in Baltimore and honestly my meal was 3 meals! Their customers eat that whole plate plus start with a huge appetizer, most likely containing fried foods, bacon and/or chips.

Here’s a funny sidebar. At our home in the country, our kitchen appliances are very old, yet they all work great so I am not getting rid of them. Our fancy new ones in the city have all needed several repairs or had to be replaced within a span of just 8 years. Don’t buy Jenn-Air.

I digress but because our dishwasher is old, it would only hold plates that were 12” in diameter of less. Do you have any idea how long we searched stores to find smaller dinner plates that would fit in our dishwasher? A long time.

We are killing ourselves, not to mention ruining our environment with the demands of eating way too much meat. That’s a whole other article, discussing the impact our diets place on the environment and how we are creating the whole greenhouse effect with the number of cows we have on this earth.

So on that note, thank you for listening if you’ve read this far.

Now let me turn you on to a delicious chicory salad. I’ve added pomegranate seeds to the original recipe adding beautiful color. I love the jewel-like quality these little seeds add and they make the salad appropriately festive for the holiday season!

TIP: The best way to remove pomegranate seeds is to cut the fruit in quarters or eighths if it is particularly large and then submerge it in a bowl of water. Then underwater, bend back the two points of your wedge and pull the seeds out. The membrane pieces will float to the top, making it easy for you to discard before straining the entire bowl. Doing this underwater prevents the luscious red juice from splashing all over you and staining your clothes.

BALSAMIC CHICORY SALAD WITH POMEGRANITE SEEDS, PARMESAN AND TAOSTED WALNUTS – serves 3 – 4

1/8 cup honey
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup of toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 medium or ½ large head of chicory, washed, spun dry and cut into 1½” pieces
1 shallot, very thinly sliced
½ tbs. grainy mustard
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Parmesan cheese shavings, for garnish
¾ cup pomegranate seeds

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place walnuts in a baking dish and toast for 7 – 8 minutes. When you can just begin to smell them, remove from the oven and let cool on a cutting board. Coarsely chop and set aside.

Combine honey and balsamic vinegar together over medium-high heat in a small sauce pan, about 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk. Do not let it boil. Pile chopped chicory and sliced shallots in a large salad bowl. Whisk the grainy mustard into the balsamic-honey mixture, then whisk in the extra-virgin olive oil. Season the dressing with salt and pepper to taste and pour over greens and shallots. Toss. Toss in toasted chopped walnuts, garnish with shavings of Parmesan and pomegranate seeds. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Tuscan Pork Tenderloin using Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt

October 15, 2015 by Mary 7 Comments

I discovered Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt a few months ago and it literally can be used on anything and everything from a myriad of vegetables, to beef, chicken, or fish – you name it!

Truth be told, I am not usually a fan of flavored salts. Yes, that’s true! Typically you get some old herbs and big hunks of salt and the thing that sounds like a good idea never quite functions properly. You either get too many dried herbs and not enough salt or vice versa. Not so with this!

Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt is a medium grain Mediterranean sea salt blended with a classic mix of dried Italian herbs, tomato flecks, lemon peel, and rosemary oil. Stir this baby up first and then take out a teaspoonful and sprinkle away – on anything – and it will taste better. Promise.

Nigel Dyche and his wife, Sarah Chase of Coastal Goods, own and operate this small, family-run company. They travel the world to capture the flavors of the country. And they find the freshest, most aromatic herbs to blend with fine sea salt to make their utterly delicious combinations.

Try this pork tenderloin using Coastal Goods Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt. It’s a perfect fall dish, truly delicious, quick and easy, and you can use any fruits, dried or fresh, you have on hand, as well as any nuts. Just be sure to stir your salt first, so you get a good mixture of all the wonderful herbs and spices along with the fine grain Mediterranean sea salt.

TUSCAN PORK TENDERLOIN with FIGS, APRICOTS AND WALNUTS – serves 4

1 pork tenderloin – preferably out of the refrigerator for 1 hour
Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt – stir first, then spoon it out and sprinkle on from the spoon
Fresh ground pepper
1 Tbs. grapeseed oil
1 large handful of dried apricots, roughly chopped
3 – 4 fresh figs, cut in half or quartered, depending on their size
1 handful of walnut halves, roughly chopped
½ cup dry Vermouth
½ Tbs. butter
1 handful of chopped Italian parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat grapeseed oil in an ovenproof skillet on high heat until almost smoking.

Season both sides of the pork tenderloin with Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt and pat down the herbs on the meat.

Brown the pork in the skillet on all sides, for a total of about 5 minutes. Pour in the vermouth and scatter the figs, apricots and nuts on the meat and in the skillet.

Put the skillet in the oven to roast for 15 – 20 minutes, depending on your poundage and how long it’s been out of the refrigerator. Let the pork reach a temperature of 135 degrees with an instant read thermometer. It will gain more heat as it rests and you don’t want to overcook it or it will be dry. It is fine to be pink inside. My pork tenderloin was perfect at 17 minutes.

Remove the pork from the skillet and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Keep the fruit and nuts warm in the skillet on your stovetop. Add the butter to melt in the pan drippings to make a nice little sauce. Pour fruit, nuts and sauce over your meat.

Garnish with parsley and serve with LOVE.

Again, because all the herbs and spices are included in the salt, this helps you make super simple and easy recipes that taste like so much more work. Here I used Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt on oven-roasted broccoli.

SARAH’S SEA SALT – TUSCAN SALT ON ROASTED BROCCOLI – serves 4

1 head of broccoli, washed, stems peeled and cut into smallish spears
3 – 4 Tbs. olive oil
1¼ tsp. Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt
Fresh ground pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Toss the broccoli with the olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle on Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt and grind your pepper overall. Toss again to distribute all the wonderful herbs evenly.

Roast the broccoli for 25 – 30 minutes until tender and browned in spots. Toss the broccoli on the pan at about the 20 minute mark.

Serve with LOVE immediately.

This Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt is also great on oven-roasted zucchini halves or on sautéed yellow squash with onions and red peppers or on a rib steak with garlic powder and pepper, or in turkey burgers. I could go on and on. You will LOVE this product. Versatile, makes your cooking easy peasy and it’s delicious!!

Sarah’s Sea Salt – Tuscan Salt was one of the products in our MARY’s secret ingredients fall box. You can get your winter box here!