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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 7 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 8 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!

Easy Cheesy Sautéed Squash

August 19, 2015 by Mary 19 Comments

This is a time-tested recipe. My mother was a good cook. My husband, bless his heart, says that I am a much better cook than she was, but for her time, she was great!! I know you’ll LOVE this Easy Cheesy Sautéed Squash recipe.

My Mom always made fresh vegetables when possible but when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, all the rage was convenience, with the newfangled canned and boxed foods that came out in the marketplace. Think, Suddenly Stuffing (whoever named that??), all the canned vegetables, and Dream Whip and Cool Whip. Think, how many chemicals can you possibly put into anything! Of course those were the days when we biked behind the mosquito killing trucks – probably agent orange blowing out – because we thought the smoke was cool.

In the mid seventies before I left to go to NYC for college, we did have fresh eggplant, always fresh asparagus, green beans and my mom grew lettuces, tomatoes, strawberries and peppers. We still had canned peas – yuk! When I met my future husband in New York, he had never eaten fresh eggplant. I couldn’t believe it!

My Mom always made this recipe with fresh zucchini and yellow squash. Cheesy gooey, comforting, my husband still asks for this today, nearly 39 years later from when he first had it.

EASY CHEESY SAUTEED SQUASH – serves 4

1 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 Tbs. olive oil
1.5 lbs. zucchini and yellow squash – I used 1 Patty Pan, 1 yellow and 1 zucchini, each cut into 1/4” thick pieces
2 small – medium yellow onions, cut in ¼” thick rings,
Salt
Pepper, fresh ground
2.5 oz. NY state sharp Cheddar cheese (or any sharp Cheddar), cut in very thin slices
1/3 cup fresh grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Warm the oil in a large skillet and melt the butter on medium heat. Saute the onions for 4 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 6 – 8 minutes until onions are softened.
Uncover, raise heat to medium, and add squash. Toss and sauté for 4 minutes. Season squash with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Meanwhile, grate your Parmigiano while the squash is cooking.

Reduce heat to low again, cover and cook for 4 minutes more until squash is crisp tender.

Uncover and turn off heat. Make sure the squash and onions are in an even layer in your skillet. Cover the top evenly with the slices of Cheddar and then sprinkle the Parmigiano over all.

Wipe dry the inside of your lid to remove all moisture. Cover the pan and let sit for 5 more minutes until all the cheeses melt.

Serve with LOVE and enjoy!!

Now I have a beef to talk about.

Does your husband like to wear raggedy shirts and pants that are so frayed and ripped you wonder when you’re washing them, why you’re even washing them at all or wasting money by spraying Shout or Oxyiclean on them because they really should just be thrown out?

My husband has several of these numbers. One sweatshirt is surely 24 years old. I know because I remember we had just bought our (expensive) house in NJ and he went to the Short Hills mall and bought this fancy hooded sweatshirt and I was like, why did you do that now? We lived there for 16 years and we’ve been back in NYC for over 8 years so the math is right.

The cuffs are so frayed, they’re completely split apart! It is pitiful. I threw it away once and he took it out of the trash. (I was guilty of that with cut-off jean shorts when I was about 15!)

Does this happen with your husband? Or wife? Drives me nuts!!!

Sauteed Kale and Beet Greens with Maguey Sweet Sap

July 15, 2015 by Mary 18 Comments

Maguey Sweet Sap from Villa de Patos is the second item in our MARY’s secret ingredients summer box! This is the coolest product – a delicious sweetener low in fructose and glucose with a delightful “green” taste as it comes from the maguey (pronounced mah-gay) plant that is native to the arid highlands of Mexico. The plant needs to be at least 12 years old before you can get any syrup out of it!

Since ancient times, the maguey plant has served as a source of nourishment, shelter and textiles for the people of Mexico. The Aztecs worshipped the maguey as the goddess Mayahuel, naming it the Plant of the Gods because of its alleged medicinal properties. The plant also serves as a soil protector and regenerator, helping to prevent erosion and acting as a natural healing agent for the land.

The sap is rich in naturally occurring phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and prebiotic fiber. The prebiotic fiber found in Maguey Sweet Sap helps balance the ecosystem of your intestinal flora and serves as the “food” for probiotics.

Wow!!

It’s all that and more importantly, it’s super delicious!! Use it on anything and in anything that needs a little sweetener. It has a thinner consistency than honey but like honey, it is also a raw, unrefined and an unprocessed product. The color of the syrup will change over time, getting a little darker. It is super yummy drizzled over plain Greek yogurt, in tea or on pancakes. I chose to use it in this kale and beet greens recipe and it was divine! Because of its more “herbal” taste, I felt it went particularly well with these sautéed greens. I wanted to combine these two different greens because I think it just makes the dish more interesting. Kale is good and all the rage, but personally, I adore beet greens. To me, they’re even much more interesting than the beets (and I do love beets). Separate your stems from the leafy greens when cooking as the stems do need to cook longer and hmmmm (!), just delicious!! The pancetta with the Sweet Sap addition along with the acid from the vinegar – total YUM!!! Savory and sweet – my kind of thing!
SAUTEED KALE AND BEET GREENS WITH MAGUEY SWEET SAP – serves 4

1 Tbs. olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 bunch of beet greens, washed, stems separated from the greens, all cut in 11/2” pieces
½ medium red onion, cut in 1/8” slices, and each slice cut in half
One ¼” thick slice of pancetta, cut in 1/4” cubes
1 bunch of Russian kale, washed, stems removed and cut into 11/2” ribbons
2 Tbs. ginger rice vinegar or plain rice vinegar
11/2 Tbs. Maguey Sweet Sap
Maldon sea salt flakes to taste, crushed
Black pepper, fresh ground, to taste

On low heat, in a medium sized skillet, warm the oil. Add the garlic, beet green stems, red onion and pancetta and stir to combine. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Remove cover and raise heat to medium. Add kale. Toss and cook for 3 minutes.

Add beet green leaves, toss and sauté for 3 – 5 minutes, until done.
Turn off heat and remove from hot burner. Sprinkle all over the 2 Tbs. ginger rice vinegar and 1.5 Tbs. of Maguey Sweet Sap Syrup. Stir to combine all. Top with crushed Maldon Sea Salt Flakes and fresh ground pepper. Serve with LOVE and enjoy!!
I served this as a delicious vegetable “bed” to some spice rubbed roasted salmon. Delish!!

I also used this Sweet Sap in place of the honey in my Sweet and Sour Coleslaw recipe and it was totally great!!

Our fall box ships on September 25th and it’s going to be great! The supply is limited so best to order now before we run out.