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

Great Valentine’s Day and Super Bowl recipes

February 3, 2013 by Mary Frances 7 Comments

Our latest newsletter went out this past Thursday with two very special recipes, never before seen here and perfect for a Valentine’s Day dinner. If you haven’t signed up for it, you won’t receive it. But, you can sign up now, in the upper right hand column of this blog, and I will personally make sure you get one pronto.

Also, don’t forget, our LOVE the secret ingredient aprons make a great gift for any time of the year, reminding you to always cook with LOVE. When you do, everything will always taste better! If you order by February 5^th, you can still receive it in time for V-day!

And for the Super Bowl tonight, check out these recipes – Super Easy Nachos, Nacho Burgers, Artichoke dip, and my Bean Dip!

Enjoy!!– Nachos made fresh and easy

How’d it work out?

November 25, 2012 by Mary Frances 13 Comments

Thanksgiving roasted turkey. So how was your Thanksgiving? Ours was fantastic! My family said our dinner was the best ever. But then they seem to say that every year I cook, so I guess I keep on improving? But truly, they’re still giving me compliments today so I guess it was really, really good!

I was particularly pleased this year with our appetizers. They were different and just the right touch, pre-feast. I made two recipes from Food and Wine magazine. One was for Texas smoked salmon tartare and grilled pancetta-wrapped mushrooms along with my artichoke dip. You can make the smoked salmon tartare and the artichoke dip the day before. I also had help. Agata made all of the mushrooms while I assembled the tartare on the chips with a cilantro leaf each. It was easy!

Texas smoked salmon tartare on blue corn chips

-Pancetta-wrapped grilled mushrooms

My butternut squash soup was the best ever, I’m told. See this quick pic of the kids licking their bowls – seriously I did not ask them to do this for a photo op! This soup is based on David Waltuck’s recipe of Chanterelle fame, except that I have made my own revisions. One important one is that instead of cooking the squash by simmering it in the chicken broth, I oven roasted it at 425 degrees and then scooped it out of the skin to add to the broth and onions. Much tastier and you skip that difficult-to-peel step that makes your hands all wrinkly. Three kids licking their soup bowls clean

Oven-roasting butternut squash and sugar pumpkins

Oven-roasting squash and pumpkin

Pumpkin puree draining

I also made two pies this year. One pecan and one pumpkin, from a fresh sugar pumpkin I roasted with the squash and then let it drain for several hours through four layers of cheesecloth. You need to do that to get all the water out and get to the true pumpkin flavor. The pie was so light and yummy!! Definitely give that a try.

Pumpkin pie with fresh roasted pumpkin and pecan garnish

– Super light pumpkin pie

The best Southern pecan pie from Mary Frances.

My pecan pie – Mrs. Fowler’s recipe

I hope you enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving, full of good family times, providing you with sweet memories to last the year through.

Three pumpkins at nightime - the end of Thanksgiving.

The end to a lovely day.

Getting ready.

December 2, 2011 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

With the holidays coming, a lot of entertaining may be on your calendar. It’s a great time to get together and toast to your friends!

I love to entertain. I love to plan the dinners and dessert, but when it comes to the appetizers, I admit I struggle. I usually never get a chance to eat much of them as I’m busy preparing dinner. I don’t like to serve things that are too fattening or filling and how often can you buy the same dips (which usually aren’t very good, except for hummas) or serve more cheese? Other things are great but more complicated and take up too much time unless you’ve taken the whole day off of work.

This is something I wanted to share with you. This dip is my friend, Diane’s recipe. I knew we liked her and her husband the first time we were invited to their home for dinner as they were the only other martini drinking couple we knew in Summit, NJ when we all lived there. Our sons were friends and played soccer together.

I love straight up gin martinis but these days I really can’t take more than 2 sips and then I need to put some ice in it. (I really just love drinking out of the straight up glasses.) I remember the first time I had this dip, that night we each had two martinis before dinner! I must admit, I don’t remember what she served for dinner.

Oh no wait, she served a way overdone boneless leg of lamb.

She had forgotten about it in the oven.

But the dip was great!!

Once again I have altered this recipe for our tastes. This has a nice spicey bite to it that most people love. If that doesn’t suit your taste, skip the Sirachi sauce.

ARTICHOKE DIP
One 14 oz. can of artichoke hearts, drained of juice
One 4.5 oz. can of green chilis with the juice
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese, packed
1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use Hellmann’s light)
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1 tsp. Sriracha sauce (the hot sauce with the red rooster on the label)

Take each artichoke heart in your hand, hold upside down, and squeeze the juice out of it and place in the food processor bowl fitted with a steel blade. Add all other ingredients and process until smooth. Place in an oven proof dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 30 minutes, until browned around the edges and a little bubbly.

This dish tastes great but is not pretty so top it with some chopped parsley leaves or snipped chives.

Serve with whole wheat pita chips, red pepper strips, fresh fennel strips or celery sticks.

The nice thing is you can make this ahead of time, even the night before, just cover with plastic wrap to store in the fridge, and heat up before serving.

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

How’d it work out?

Getting ready.

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