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

Potatoes Mary

March 3, 2014 by Mary 25 Comments

Since our children are no longer home, and as we have gotten older, I try to prevent the weight gain that happens with the slower metabolism by just not making or serving carbs at dinnertime. I try with all my might to keep in shape, (except for the couple of chocolates after dinner on weekends) but you know, I don’t consider myself too successful. I never really lost all the weight from having my boys. And you’re now talking 25 years ago.

Did I tell you I hate to shop for clothes? Seriously, I hate it. I always have. I love it when my husband buys me outfits and he does the work and lately, I guess because I haven’t shopped in so long, he went out and bought me two! The first was one of my Christmas gifts. A pair of really skinny, hip hugger jeans (that’s what we used to call them) and a beautiful navy shirt with sheer sleeves. Honestly, I was afraid to try the jeans on. I waited a few weeks. But miraculously, they fit! And they’re even a size 8 – but I think they’re making all the sizes more generous now – and they really should be a 10. Whatever, I was just so happy they fit and I didn’t have to tell him I had to take them back for a larger size.

I was reminded of a lunch I had some months ago with my friend Sharon, who is just a couple of years younger than me. Sharon is in good shape – don’t get me wrong – but she said she was with another friend who was helping her clean out her closets and her friend told her to throw out all the clothes that were too small because she thought they would constantly depress her. So Sharon decided right then and there that she didn’t have to strive for still being in her twenties. She said she gave it up!

Me? I’d like to think that I’m still nineteen – hell – forget the twenties – I want to be nineteen again! And I’m not giving up – and still striving for the body – not that I’m there – but you know what I mean?

So recently I had lunch with my friend Marie who is a few years older than me and she said she understood me. She was in that frame of mind in the past, but she thought she had moved to Sharon’s camp now. I was wearing the new outfit at that lunch and the jeans are not all that comfortable – but I’ll suffer for fashion every once in a while.

Who’s camp are you in?

We have been entertaining a lot and when we entertain, we do always serve a carb. Lately I’ve been making these potatoes – similar to Potatoes Anna but not done in the oven and not nearly with the amount of butter James Beard would call for. So let’s call these Potatoes Mary. They’re easy to do as long as you have a hand mandoline. Cook them slowly while you’re having cocktails, flip carefully and you’ll turn out a delicious and impressive looking dish for your guests.

POTATOES MARY – serves 6 – 8

6 – 7 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and sliced thin on a mandoline (you can peel these but I don’t if they’re really fresh – my mother always said the skin was good for you – made your own skin pretty!)
1 tbs. olive oil
2 tbs. unsalted butter, divided
1 tbs. chopped fresh thyme leaves
Salt
Pepper

Slice your potatoes right before using. Warm the olive oil with 1 tbs. of butter on medium heat in a non-stick skillet. When butter is melted, swirl together and start laying the potatoes in the skillet, overlapping them in a round fashion, making sure the overall thickness is even and using 1/2 – 2/3 of them. Then stop and salt and pepper over the top. Sprinkle the thyme leaves evenly over the surface and dot with the remaining tbs. of butter. Layer in evenly the rest of the potatoes, and salt and pepper the final top surface.

Cover the skillet for 15 – 20 minutes. The potatoes will sweat and cook. Check the bottom carefully with a spatula to make sure the bottom is not browning too much. Uncover the skillet after the 15 – 20 minutes to let some of the accumulated moisture dry up as you’re aiming for a crispy bottom, yet all the potatoes must be tender and creamy so check them with a fork in the center, cooking them for 10 – 15 minutes longer on this side, uncovered. When they’re pretty dry on top as the photo shows, slide them out of the skillet onto a plate. Then cover the plate with an unrimmed cookie sheet and flip them over. Now slide the whole potato gallette back into the skillet to brown the other side. Cook for 15 – 20 minutes more to slowly brown the other side. Keep checking with a fork. If they are not getting tender, cover them for a bit but you want to end up with your last 10 minutes or so uncovered to get them crispy. Carefully slide the whole shebang out of the skillet and onto a serving plate.

Cut like a pie into wedges. Serve with LOVE.

Kale with Ginger and Carrots

February 27, 2014 by Mary 24 Comments

I love coming up with unique combinations of vegetables. Not that this is so mind blowing but it’s a new combination for me. And I love being able to put dinner on the table in 40 minutes. I think the 30 minute claim is BS. Unless you’re using processed food. This meal, I put on the table in 40 minutes, even with the time it takes to cut the kale leaves off of the stem. But what pleased me most, was this vegetable combination of kale with ginger and carrots.

Kale with ginger and carrots and roasted cod on a white Wedgewood plate.

Roasted cod seasoned with Old Bay and the sauteed kale with ginger and carrots

The addition of the chicken broth, which was a second thought, only because I had some brewing on the stove, was a great flavor booster. I think I’ve told you before, my husband is not a kale fan. At all. But, he loves my kale salad. I do too, but that’s more time consuming as you have to chiffonade the kale, heat and watch the olive oil, grate the cheese, and toast the pine nuts. And that’s not exactly a low calorie dish with the oil and cheese. This dish of sautéed kale was easy, peasy, really pretty (pretty is important to me), low calorie and Steve liked it! He really liked it. It was delicious!

Here you go – you might call this More Easy Vegetables for Joan, 2.0!

KALE WITH GINGER AND CARROTS – serves 4

1 tbs. olive oil
1 bunch of kale, washed, stemmed and cut into 1” strips
3 carrots, peeled and cut on a diagonal into 1/8” thick slices
2 tbs. of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1/2 cup chicken broth, preferably homemade, or vegetable broth or dry white wine
Salt
Pepper

Warm olive oil on low in a large skillet. Add ginger and carrots and cover for 10 minutes to soften. Add all the kale and the chicken broth and cover for 5 minutes. Toss and turn up heat to medium and toss and cover alternately until kale and carrots are tender to your liking, 10 – 12 minutes longer. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with love.

Green Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms

January 22, 2014 by Mary 15 Comments

Oh I had a terrible nights sleep last night. Woke up after four hours and could not go back to sleep. My mind just races and I start remembering who I need to write or call and things I need to do at the office. When this happens, I write a note. In bed. In the dark. And I try not to have the sound of note taking or ripping paper wake up my husband. I keep a pad and pen right by my bedside to do this. Well this morning, I had no less than twelve notes to myself!! I have been doing this for some time and really, I’ve found it is an efficient way of working for me. I remember and get a lot of stuff done. But one night over this past weekend, I wrote a note to myself in the middle of the night and although I always check to make sure that the pen tip is out (in the dark) before writing, this time, the pen didn’t have ink! So all I could see was the impression of the writing. But no worries, when morning came I marched out to my art studio and rubbed some black charcoal on it and I was able to read that sucker! Last night, I finally went back to sleep after some meditation and dreamt a long dream. Then I woke up again! But then I went back to the same dream. Ever do that? One of the notes to myself was to tell you about this great way of cooking Green Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms. Low fat for Zach and super yummy. I hope you’ll give it a go – and sleep better than I do!

The beauty of this simple recipe is that the green beans are boiled crisp tender and the richness of just the little bit of butter and oil is combined with the lovely mushrooms and this is what gives a big flavor to the dish. The contrast of the rich mushrooms with the crispness of the green beans makes it! Makes it interesting, delicious, clean tasting and so very good for you. Make it with LOVE, know you’re serving healthy great food.

GREEN BEANS AND SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS – serves 4

1 lb. of green beans or 4 handfuls, washed and strings removed
15 – 20 shiitake mushrooms, caps wiped clean with a damp paper towel, stem ends trimmed, stems removed and minced, caps sliced into 4 slices each
1 tbs. of olive oil
1 tbs. butter
Salt
Pepper

Heat a large pot of water to boil. Salt with coarse sea salt and throw in green beans and stir. Leave in for 3 – 5 minutes until crisp tender. Taste one to see if it’s done to your liking but remember they will keep cooking when off of the heat. Remove from heat, drain thoroughly then pat dry with a clean linen tea towel and keep warm while you finish cooking the mushrooms.

Meanwhile, place a skillet over medium-high to high heat with the butter and olive oil. As soon as the butter foam begins to subside, spread the mushrooms out evenly over the bottom of the pan and do not touch for 3 minutes. Then toss and shake the pan for 2 minutes. (During the sauté, the mushrooms will at first absorb the fat. Then in 2 – 3 minutes, the fat will reappear on their surface and the mushrooms will begin to brown.) Mushrooms should be browned lightly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Fold and combine with the green beans.

The whole dish will probably need more salt. I use fine sea salt for this. Taste and salt to your liking.

Gnocchi for a Birthday Party!

January 18, 2014 by Mary 18 Comments

We celebrated my husband’s birthday last Sunday. The kids (our boys and their girlfriends) wanted to do an all day cook-a–thon again and my husband was delighted. As we did last year, we all made a different course while some of us created several dishes. Of course the food was great. With so much love and care going in to it, why wouldn’t it be! My boys are getting to be better cooks than me. And they correct me all the time on things. (I think I raised monsters.) But truly, the best part of this day, this party, is being all together, working in the kitchen and the banter that goes on. I LOVE it! My two courses were a pasta course and dessert. I made homemade gnocchi with a simple red sauce and pecan pie with whipped cream, which was Steve’s request.

Here’s a photo gallery of our afternoon and evening of celebration food.

Black olive tapenade with whole wheat Finn-crisp crackers

Chicken liver pate with toast

Baby spinach salad with carrots and ginger miso dressing

The birthday dinner table with the spinach salad

Homemade potato gnocchi with a simple red sauce in an antique china bowl, garnished with chopped chives.

Potato gnocchi with a red sauce

The main course – Beef Wellington made with LOVE with a heart

The main course plate – Beef Wellington, wilted escarole with a warm Balsamic dressing and crispy Yukon Gold potatoes

Pecan pie, whipped cream and an amazing chocolate chip cookie topped with a little salt.

Pecan pie, (made with raw agave syrup instead of corn syrup) whipped cream and an amazing chocolate chip cookie topped with a little sea salt

And I really want to share this gnocchi recipe from Grace Parisi at Food and Wine magazine. This is the second time I have made this and it is so good and oh so very light. They came out like little delicate pillows. Two of the kids raced to the kitchen for seconds, of which there was little. This is really easy to make too. So give it a go and impress everyone. I served this with a simple red sauce with garlic, shallots and a couple of anchovies and garnished the dish with some fresh chopped chives. Basil or parsley would have been better but I already had some chives washed, dried and snipped so in they went. Serve with Parmesan or Romano cheese to grate fresh on top.

POTATO GNOCCHI – adapted from Grace Parisi at Food and Wine magazine – serves 6 as a first course

2 lbs. baking potatoes (about 4)
2 large egg yolks
Salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
3 tbs. unsalted butter (optional) or a simple red sauce

Preheat the oven to 400°. Pierce the potatoes in 4 places with a fork. Bake in the oven for about 1 hour, until tender.

Halve the potatoes. Scoop the flesh into a ricer and rice the potatoes into a bowl. Stir in the egg yolks and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add the 1/2 cup of flour; stir until a stiff dough forms. Knead the dough gently until smooth but slightly sticky.

Line a baking sheet or platter with wax paper and dust with flour. On a floured surface, cut the dough into 4 pieces, rolling each into a 3/4-inch-thick rope. Cut the ropes into 3/4-inch pieces. Roll each piece against the tines of a fork to make ridges; transfer to the baking sheet or platter.

In a large, deep pot of simmering salted water, cook the gnocchi until they rise to the surface, then simmer for 2 minutes longer. Make a simple red sauce in a skillet and using a slotted spoon, add the gnocchi. Fold to coat all of them in the sauce. Serve immediately garnished with chopped chives and pass Parmesan or Romano to freshly grate on top.

Alternatively, in a large nonstick skillet, melt the butter. Using a slotted spoon, add the gnocchi to the butter. Season with salt and pepper and cook over high heat for 1 minute. Sprinkle with the cheese and serve.

MAKE AHEAD: The uncooked gnocchi pieces can be frozen on the prepared baking sheet, then transferred to a re-sealable plastic bag and frozen for up to 1 month. Boil without defrosting.

TIP: Save the baked potato shells. You can top them with a little grated cheese and warm up them to make a great little hors d’oeuvres on another evening or I like to warm a half up in the morning and put an over-easy egg on top for breakfast – delicious!!

One very happy birthday boy!

Sauteed Zucchini with Onions and Radishes, topped with Feta and Oil-cured Moroccan Olives

December 15, 2013 by Mary Frances 26 Comments

More and more people are asking me for vegetable recipes. For myself, I am forever on the quest to find new and interesting combinations. With the holidays coming and all the rich food that is starting to show up at parties, I thought a new and unusual vegetable dish could do everybody a little good. I had this beautiful bunch of multicolored radishes, some zucchini and a sweet Spanish onion. So I put together this dish, Sauteed Zucchini with Onions and Radishes, topped with Feta and Oil-cured Moroccan Olives.

Radishes are usually eaten cold and crisp, by themselves, with a touch of salt or used as dipping instrument. But ever since Mark Bittman published an article several years ago on grilling radishes in the summer, I have been eating them grilled or sautéed. I love them cooked! Now when you grill them, the smokey taste addition is wonderful, but they lose their color and do not look so pretty. They sort of look like anemic radishes. But, when you sauté them, they somehow hold their color better. Or at least these radishes did.

These multi-colored radishes in my fridge needed to be used, along with the zucchini. My mother used to make a dish of sautéed onions and zucchini topped with grated parmesan and sharp cheddar cheese. My husband still asks for that dish every so often, so I know the combo of onions, zucchini and cheese is good. But I had some feta that needed to be used and then these oil-cured Moroccan olives were hanging around too and the dish needed a punctuation of color. So there you have it. That’s how I created this dish – really using my skillet as a palette as I do when I paint.

I think you will LOVE this!

SAUTEED ZUCCHINI WITH ONIONS AND RADISHES, TOPPED WITH FETA AND OIL-CURED MOROCCAN OLIVES – serves 4 – 5

3 medium zucchini – washed and thickly sliced in 1/4” slices
1 sweet Spanish onion – peeled and trimmed and sliced into 1/4” slices
6 multi-colored or red radishes – washed, trimmed and quartered
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. unsalted butter
Salt
Pepper
1/4 – 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup of pitted oil-cured Moroccan olives

Warm the oil in a large skillet on medium heat, add the butter to melt. Add the sliced onions, cover and stir often, cooking for 10 – 15 minutes. Add the zucchini and radishes and toss until crisp tender. Lower heat to low. Season very lightly with salt and pepper. (remember the feta and olives are salty) Sprinkle the feta cheese and olives on top. Cover for 3 – 5 minutes to warm the cheese and olives. Serve right away using a large pancake turner to pick up a section and keep it pretty. Enjoy!

Roasted Butternut Squash with Crispy Sage Leaves

November 24, 2013 by Mary 17 Comments

I love butternut squash. I will be serving a butternut squash and bourbon soup for Thanksgiving as a first course. That recipe, is of course in my e-cookbook. (That soup is bowl-licking good. In fact, I just finished making it for Thursday – delish!) But this past week, I made one of my favorite recipes for a side dish – Roasted Butternut Squash with Crispy Sage Leaves. You roast the squash with onions, put on some good honey three quarters of the way into the roasting period and then top it with some browned butter and crispy sage leaves. It’s the perfect fall dish!

This past week, The New York Times dining section talked about how you must have something orange on your table for the Thanksgiving feast. I have my sweet potatoes with maple syrup and ginger, but you could easily have this dish too, if you’re making a different soup, as you wouldn’t want to repeat the vegetable in the meal.

Here’s my recipe to make and serve with LOVE.

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH WITH CRISPY SAGE LEAVES – serves 6

One butternut squash – 2.75 – 3 lbs. – peeled, seeded and cut into 1” chunks
One large yellow onion, cut into 1” chunks
2 tbs. olive oil
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
2 tbs. honey
4 tbs. butter
36 large fresh sage leaves, washed and thoroughly dry

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine squash and onion on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle on the olive oil, sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste. Toss all together thoroughly and roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Take pan out and toss again. Drizzle on honey and return the pan to the oven for 10 – 15 minutes more, until the squash is fork tender.

When squash is nearly done, melt the butter in small skillet or saucepan until really hot. Throw in the dry sage leaves and stir until butter is browned and leaves colored a bit.

Transfer squash to shallow bowl, so you have more surface area on top. Drizzle on the browned butter and distribute the crispy sage leaves. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

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