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

Pasta with Flounder in a Red Sauce and Roasted Broccoli with Radishes

March 17, 2014 by Mary 28 Comments

I’m so embarrassed, I forgot to mention in my last post that 10% of Mary’s secret ingredients’ annual profits will be donated to Feed the Children, a wonderful, worldwide organization that provides nourishing food, hygiene items, educational books and supplies for boys and girls in need.

I have always said that there is plenty of food in this world. It just needs to be redistributed and to not go to waste. Please take a look at these links and articles. No one should go hungry. I’m very excited to be able to give this non-profit a helping hand with MARY’s secret ingredients. Man, I would love to play a part in eradicating hunger in this world – it’s on my bucket list. You can help. All the more reason to order a box! Feed yourself and your family while feeding the needy children of the world.

This past week, the day after we arrived home from California, at around 5 pm, our youngest son informed me that he and his girlfriend would be home for dinner. That morning, I had taken two flounder fillets out of the freezer and had planned to roast them for Steve and me and make a simple vegetable for dinner. So now I only had a little over 1 lb. of fish for four people. I was tired and crabby from the travel and time change and had no desire to go to the fish store uptown to buy more fish and a decent vegetable. What to do?

Walking to the subway on the way home, while talking out loud to my husband, I decided to make it stretch. I called my son, Zach, and asked him to mince 5 cloves of garlic, pit and chop 15 olives, take the anchovies out of the fridge and make sure the flounder fillets had thawed. (They hadn’t.) I thought, let’s make a pasta dish with the flounder in a red sauce! Add some anchovies and olives for an extra boost of flavor! I stopped in the grocery store downstairs in my building and bought some broccoli and a beautiful bunch of large radishes. I tossed those with some olive oil and salt and pepper, and roasted them at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes, along with the recipe below and we had a super delicious, satisfying dinner for everyone; quick to boot, with everything ready in about 40 minutes. Suddenly I wasn’t crabby anymore! (A little food does wonders – think of what it could do for the world!)

Now, because I only had buccatini in the apartment, which is a big noodle, I did not toss the sauce with the pasta, but served the pasta in a bowl, drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil on top and then ladled the red fish sauce on top. If I would have tossed it all together before serving, I would have broken up all those beautiful little pieces of flounder and made mush out of them. Not a good thing, nor pretty to serve. Now I know the true Italians would disagree with me here but that’s what I did, allowing each individual to mix it up in their own bowl.

PASTA WITH FLOUNDER IN A RED SAUCE – serves 4

2 tbs. olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 of bunch of parsley leaves, washed, dried and chopped
2 tsp. tomato paste
1 – 28 oz. can of whole San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed, with the sauce
5 flat anchovy fillets, patted dry with a paper towel, chopped
Salt
Pepper
2 fillets of flounder, about 1.3 lbs., washed, dried, cut down the middle and then cut into 1/2” chunks
15 olives, black and green in oil, pitted and minced
1 lb. pasta – bucatini or fettuccine

Put a large pot on water on to boil for the pasta.

Warm olive oil in a large skillet. Add minced garlic on low heat and stir for 5 minutes. Raise heat to medium – medium high and add the chopped parsley and cook and stir for 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and stir for 1 – 2 minutes. You must always try to brown the tomato paste in order to get the most flavor out of it – this is key!

Then add the hand crushed can of tomatoes with the juice along with the anchovies and let the whole thing vigorously simmer for about 10 minutes to thicken.

Meanwhile your pasta water has probably boiled. Salt with course sea salt to taste like ocean water (you know what that means, do not taste it and burn your tongue) and add your pasta. Stir and cook until al dente.

Salt and pepper the sauce to taste and add the cut up flounder fillets. Lower the heat a bit and stir gently, often. Fold over with a rubber spatula to stir so you don’t break up the pieces of fish. This will take about 7 minutes to cook the fish. Then taste the sauce to adjust salt and pepper and at the very end, add the chopped olives. Remember the olives will add more salt so take that into consideration. Turn your heat off.

Drain the pasta when done. Place pasta in bowls and drizzle a little olive oil on top so the noodles don’t stick together. Then ladle some beautiful sauce on top in the center. Serve immediately, with LOVE.

ROASTED BROCCOLI WITH RADISHES – serves 4

1 head of broccoli, washed, stems trimmed and peeled, each stalk quartered or even cut more
5 large radishes, scrubbed, dried and quartered
2 tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Toss broccoli and radishes with the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 15 – 17 minutes until broccoli stems are fork tender to your liking. The broccoli heads will become a little charred, but I like them that way. They are so tasty. Serve immediately, very hot, on a side plate, with LOVE.

Enjoy!!

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.

Vegetarian Delight

February 11, 2014 by Mary 11 Comments

Vegetarian delight finished dish - baby spinach, beans and roasted vegetables topped toasted pine nuts and goat cheese.

Once on week I make a meatless meal, much to the disconcertion of my husband. He hates them. He knows, intellectually, it’s a good idea but the complaints beforehand, egads, it drives me crazy!! But I soldier on, try to ignore him and cook up something, with LOVE. You probably know by now that I love salads, but salads are not very inviting with all this cold weather we’re having here on the East Coast. And raw foods are very good for you. So I made up this Vegetarian Delight with warm beans and roasted veggies, including the tomatoes, on a base of raw baby spinach leaves.

By golly, he loved it! He kept on talking about it – even the next morning! BINGO, I know something is really good if he’s still talking about the next morning AND it’s meatless too! This is packed full of nutrients, delicious with the contrasts of the cool baby spinach leaves and the warm roasted vegetables, even on a frigid winter night. The roasted shallots and crushed garlic cloves were a brilliant addition providing bursts of flavor, complementing the sweet parsnips while the warm, slightly roasted tomatoes provided the right acidity. The Midnight Moon goat cheese is a wonderful splurge, but not really necessary if you are a true vegetarian. We loved this dinner and it’s going to be repeated often in our household.

Truly, I just made this with the vegetables I had on hand. You can try your own combination but I will say that this blend was really yummy. I hope you’ll try it and it makes your recipe regulars too.

VEGETARIAN DELIGHT serves 2

2 large handfuls of baby spinach leaves – about 4 – 5 oz., washed and spun dry
1 – 15 oz. can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed and drained again
1 Italian eggplant, cut in 3/4” slices, roasted
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into julienned strips
1 zucchini, cut into 1/4” slices
2 shallots, peeled and quartered
1/2 of a poblano pepper, cut into 1/4” strips
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tomato from the vine, cut into 6 or 8 wedges
3 grape tomatoes, cut in half
Sherry vinaigrette
Midnight Moon hard goat cheese, cut into small strips
Toasted pine nuts

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Slick a cookie sheet or flat roasting pan with peanut oil. Arrange eggplant slices on the sheet, salt with fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

On another rimmed baking sheet, toss parsnips, zucchini, shallots, poblano pepper and garlic with 2 tbs. olive oil, salt and pepper.

Roast the eggplant on the bottom rack of your oven for 20 – 25 minutes, until nicely browned on the bottom while you roast the other vegetables on the top rack at the same time. Roast the top mixed vegetables for 20 minutes, then add the tomatoes and toss and roast for 5 – 10 minutes longer, until all the vegetables are fork tender. Toast the pine nuts in a separate pan for 5 – 10 minutes until lightly browned.

Meanwhile, make your dressing, prepare the cheese and warm the beans in the microwave for a minute on high.

Assemble your salads. Place the spinach leaves on the plate, top with the warm beans (you may not use all of them – save them for tomorrow’s lunch), remove the eggplant slices with a metal spatula so you don’t loose the lovely browned bottom.

Place 4 eggplant slices on each salad, browned side up. Toss the other vegetables and place a nice amount on top. (You probably won’t use all of these either). Drizzle dressing over all and top with cheese and pine nuts. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Vegetarian Delight, just before drizzling dressing and topping with toasted pine nuts.

Vegetarian Delight, just before drizzling the dressing and topping with toasted pine nuts

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.

What’s Most Important

December 28, 2013 by Mary 24 Comments

I have been totally preoccupied, which explains my recent radio silence. Our youngest son has encountered some serious health problems involving his digestive system, which has been accompanied by numerous trips to the hospital. Talk about being frightened out of my wits, many sleepless nights and feeling utterly helpless. They have figured out a way to stabilize things and he is now pretty okay pain-wise but this has been quite a journey into unfamiliar territory for our family. When they say that all that really matters is good health, it is so true. It is without a doubt, what’s most important.

He went for a week without consuming anything orally. Not even water. He was hooked up to an IV of course, but nothing to digest to give all of his organs a rest. He lost a lot of weight.

He can now eat gingerly, trying tiny bits of things as we go along, with everything being very low fat. So obviously, this is a new way of cooking for me. Starting with clear broths (only vegetable stock, not even chicken) and steamed rice, we are graduating to skinless, boneless chicken breasts, plain steamed carrots and green beans and trying to figure out ingenious ways to do everything with little or no butter or oil. Now I’ve never been a fan of using a lot of butter but this is a heightened awareness, and you know what? I think I like this super clean way of cooking and eating. This forces you to really stretch and consider ingredients that will add the most flavor and interest. And I’m finding this particularly enjoyable and a welcome respite in the midst of this fattening, rich holiday season. There’s a silver lining in everything!

So here’s the vegetable broth I made. I remembered that roasting vegetables at a high heat always coaxes the most flavor out of them so I just put a very light film of peanut oil on a large baking sheet, laid out all the veggies and roasted them at 425° for 15 – 20 minutes, before creating the broth with white wine and water on the stove top. It was so rich and flavorful, hard to believe it was just vegetables. Here’s the recipe.

ROASTED VEGETABLE BROTH – makes 10 cups

Peanut oil
2 plum tomatoes, cut in half, lengthwise
4 leeks, white parts only, cut in half and carefully washed
4 cremini or baby bella mushrooms, stems trimmed and cut in half
4 carrots, scrubbed, cut in half lengthwise and into 3 inch pieces
4 celery stalks, cut in half lengthwise and into 3 inch pieces
1 red pepper, seeds and membrane removed, cut in half
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 cup of dry white wine
1 tsp. Kosher salt
½ tsp. fennel seeds
15 whole peppercorns
1 bay leaf
10 cups of water
3 parsley sprigs
5 thyme sprigs

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Put a little peanut oil on a paper towel and slick the surface of a large rimmed cookie sheet. Lay out all your vegetables as shown in the photo and roast for 15 – 20 minutes on the top shelf of your oven. You should be able to smell them and have coaxed some liquid out of them. The leeks and red pepper should also be a little browned on the bottom.

Scrape all the vegetables and their juices into a stock pot and place on medium high heat. Add the cup of white wine and reduce to ½ cup. Add the 10 cups of water, the salt, fennel seeds, peppercorns, bay leaf, parsley and thyme. Bring to a boil and simmer partially covered for 90 minutes.

Let cool. Strain broth and store in clean containers in refrigerator or freezer.

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