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

Savory Choice Vegetable Pho Spring Soup

April 20, 2016 by Mary 11 Comments

I love this concentrated Pho. This is a reprise item in our spring box just because 1.) I love it so much and 2.) it is a staple in my pantry and should be in yours too.

The other day I made this super fresh spring soup for a dinner party to absolutely rave reviews – and it’s so easy, it’s ridiculous!!

So when my husband asked me to make it again, I could say, “Sure!!” Cuz it’s easy peasy and takes no time! It’s a wonderful light first course to start a springtime meal.

This delicious broth with comforting soft rice, crisp asparagus and lovely green peas combined with the fresh dill – well it’s so fresh, pretty and tasty, how could you not LOVE it?

And since this is a reprise product, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my two other delicious recipes using this concentrated Pho.

But you can use this Pho for anything. When I was feeling very sick with the flu a while back, Steve made me a delicious quick chicken soup with this broth, some shredded leftover roasted chicken and a little bit of this and that in vegetables from the fridge. Perfect and just what the doctor ordered.

Keep some always on your shelf! Cook like a pro as many top chefs use these Savory Choice products in their famous restaurants. Enjoy!!

SAVORY CHOICE VEGETABLE PHO SPRING SOUP – serves 4

3 packs of Savory Choice Vegetable Pho
6 cups of water
1/2 cup long grain white rice, rinsed very well and drained
8 spears of asparagus, tough ends broken off, cut on an angle into 1″ pieces
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas
Fine sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped dill

Dissolve Pho stock concentrate in 6 cups of hot tap water. Whisk together in a medium pot to combine and bring stock to a boil. Add well rinsed rice and simmer for 2 minutes less than the package instructs.

Add asparagus and peas and simmer 2 minutes. Test to make sure the rice is tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste and stir in dill.

Ladle soup into bowls and serve with LOVE!

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!

Kale & Farro Salad with Spicy Butternut Squash, Broccoli, Radishes & Cashews

April 10, 2016 by Mary 10 Comments

There are so many snack boxes out there — Graze, Love With Food, Snack Nation and Nature Box to name a few. I went to a food conference last Saturday called Founder Made, where numerous new food product founders participated. A lot of discussion was had about how millennials eat, much of it revolving around snacking. And Graze was there touting their “healthy” snacks.

Well I’m here to tell you that while their snacks may not be fried potato chips – they are “healthier” than that – but they are high in calories and sugar just the same. And if you eat three well-balanced meals, you should have no need to snack at all. Come on – one of their snacks was pecan pie pecans – that’s full of sugar and super fattening! That is not a healthy snack.

So the millennials will be overweight and even more detrimental, not understand the value of eating right, balanced meals in the first place. This is like the “low fat” craze of the 80’s – total hogwash!

So what we aim to do with MARY’s secret ingredients is to introduce you to new healthy products that will easily turn a ho-hum ordinary meal into a special gourmet “company” meal. We want to show you how to create fantastic dishes, super easily, with the new healthy products we have curated for you. It might be a new flavored natural jam or a condiment that can be used on steamed vegetables to create a sauce that gives it a wow factor, or creating a unique marinade with tea or how to make a spectacular sauce for grilled fish. Suddenly, “ordinary” moves to “extraordinary” with a few simple moves utilizing our new natural products. And you will know EXACTLY that what you’re putting into your body is good for you, wholesome and will make you feel terrific!!! And we want to eradicate hunger with our partnership with Feed The Children.

All good things!

The spring box shipped last week and I’m excited to share with you the recipes for those new products starting later this week.

I found this today on The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation site – one of my faves:

The first wealth is health. – RALPH WALDO EMERSON

When you regard your life as a trust, you realize that the first resource you have to take care of is your own body. This can be startling. Even your body is not really your own. It belongs to life, and it is your responsibility to take care of it. You cannot afford to do anything that injures your body, because the body is the instrument you need for selfless action. That is the fine print of the trust agreement: when we smoke, when we overeat, when we don’t get enough exercise, we are violating the terms of the trust.

If you want to live life at its fullest, you will want to do everything possible to keep your body in vibrant health in order to give back to life a little of what it has given you.

So on to my recipe of this Kale & Farro Salad with Spicy Butternut Squash, Broccoli, Radishes & Cashews, which was super delicious!

I always think of butternut squash as a winter vegetable so I want to tell you about this dish I made up the other night before spring really gets here, even though it should be here already. All of us on the East coast are still wearing scarves and winter coats. It’s crazy!

This was totally yummy with a lot of ying and yang – cool and hot, spicy and not, crispy and soft textures – a beautiful symphony of flavors and a very satisfying vegetarian dish. Make it tonight – with LOVE – and all will be right in the world.

Promise.

KALE & FARRO SALAD WITH SPICY BUTTERNUT SQUASH, BROCCOLI, RADISHES & CASHEWS – serves 4

4 oz. chopped kale leaves
1 cup farro, cooked
1 small butternut squash, cut in generous ½” squares
1 large onion, cut in ½” squares
2 Tbs. coconut oil
3 Tbs. spice rub* (recipe below – also great for pulled pork)
1 bunch of organic broccoli
1/3 cup chopped roasted, salted cashews
4 thinly sliced radishes
Olive oil for drizzling
2 wedges of lemon

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

*SPICE RUB RECIPE:

1½ Tbs. sweet paprika
½ Tbs. garlic powder
½ Tbs. brown sugar
½ Tbs. dry mustard (Coleman’s)
1½ Tbs. coarse sea salt

Mix the paprika, garlic power, brown sugar, dry mustard, and salt together in a small bowl.

This makes more than you need and is also great to rub on a pork butt to make pulled pork. Double it if you’d like to have some extra on hand. Keep in a tightly closed container

Combine the squash and onions with the coconut oil and spice mix on a rimmed baking sheet. Toss all to combine and roast in the oven for 35 – 40 minutes until tender. Toss at the halfway point, at about the 20 minute mark.

Meanwhile, cover the farro with about 3 inches of cold water. Salt with a little coarse sea salt and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 30 – 40 minutes. Taste test with a fork for tenderness. It should be a bit chewy. Strain in a fine mesh colander when done.

Wash all the kale in a lettuce spinner, removing any large stems. Spread on a clean counter to air dry, then chill in a paper towel lined plastic bag in the refrigerator.

Wash and peel stems of the broccoli. Cut each stem into 4 or 5 smaller stems and steam for about 10 minutes, until bright green and crisp tender. When done, remove the steamer of broccoli from the pot so it can air dry a bit.

Wash and trim the radishes. Using a hand mandolin, slice into very thin slices.

Coarsely chop the cashews.

Everything should be done all around the same time, so now you’re ready to assemble!

Line low flat bowls with the kale leaves. Place ¼ of the cooked farro in the middle, with the kale forming a ridge around the edge. Place a scoop of the butternut squash on top of the farro.

Chop the steamed broccoli into 2” lengths, leaving the flowerets intact and place them around the edge of the farro. Tuck in sliced radishes in four places around the bowl as shown.

Place chopped cashews on top of the squash. Drizzle some olive oil on the kale edge of the bowl, and follow that with a squeeze of lemon juice around that same kale edge.

Serve with LOVE, a Vouvray and enjoy!!!

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!!

Arugula, Fennel and Persimmons Salad

December 10, 2015 by Mary 18 Comments

Is it just me?

Why does it seem like Christmas is so soon right after Thanksgiving?

I know it’s the same date every year but time sure seems to fly these days.

So with all the holiday rich foods and drinks happening now, I thought you might like a lovely little clean salad that I made up the other night – actually the night before Thanksgiving is when I first served this – the night before another eat-a-thon!

It is the season for persimmons! I LOVE them and I have been using them everywhere! From pasta dishes to roasted fish to meats to salads, you name it!

I love the color (orange is my fave), and they’re surprising, sweet, refreshing and oh so lovely.

So this salad of baby arugula, shaved fresh fennel, and chopped persimmons with a champagne vinaigrette is super simple and the taste is light, crisp, fresh and sweet with a little heat from the greens – just delish! The perfect starter to clean your palate!

May you enjoy this in the coming weeks to add a little health to your merriment!

ARUGULA, FENNEL AND PERSIMMONS SALAD – serves 4 – 5

5 oz. baby arugula, washed, dried and chilled
½ of a large fennel bulb, shaved on a mandoline
2 persimmons – flat bottomed, cored and cut into chunks

Champagne Vinaigrette:

1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. Champagne vinegar
scant 1/2 cup of olive oil
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a jar. Cover tightly and shake. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

Divide the arugula among the four or five salad plates. Top each with the shaved fennel slices, then top with the persimmon chunks. Drizzle with the champagne vinaigrette and serve immediately.

Watch people’s expressions when they think they might be eating a tomato and it turns out to be a sweet persimmon. Surprise!!

With salads, I find the simpler the better. Really, the ones with the least ingredients are the best. I always remember those restaurants that try too hard – their salads give them away – with waaay too many things in them.

KISS (you know, Keep It Simple Stupid) works with salads too!

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!