• Blog
  • About
  • Recipes
  • Tips & Tools
  • International LOVE
  • Love Notes
  • Shop
  • Powered by MSI Media Group

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

Let’s talk about temperature

July 5, 2015 by Mary 16 Comments

Tomatoes on a blue and white towel.I hope you all had a great July 4th holiday weekend! We certainly did and the weather is glorious today, not too hot, actually amazing for July 5th, with the temperature in the low 80’s accompanied by cool breezes. We are here in upstate New York and had our friends Margaret and Wayne over for dinner last night. Margaret said she had even turned on the heat yesterday in her house!!

For our meal, I followed my own instructions, if you got our recipe email from MARY’s secret ingredients for dinner suggestions for the 4th. I made Barbecued Ribs, Corn on the Cob, Sweet and Sour Coleslaw, and I started our dinner with my Smoked Tomato Soup, (minus the Nueske’s sausage and Flathaus Cheese Straws) but decided to serve it at room temperature, which turned out to be a fantastic idea. Some time ago, I remember reading an article in Food & Wine magazine about famous chefs and their mentors. This one focused on April Bloomfield and she said her mentor taught her the most about temperature. Something she was making, she served way too hot. Her mentor said, in so many words, that all of the flavors were not blossoming with all that heat.

Well my soup, because the tomatoes were smoked and it contained smoky bacon, was actually intended to be served hot, but who wants hot soup on July 4th? So then, I thought, I’ll serve it cold and it’ll be a different form of gazpacho. But no, I said to myself, that won’t work. Serving it cold would obliterate the beautiful bacony, smoky flavors that I had worked so hard to create. So after I pureed it, I just let it sit on a cool burner on the stovetop, letting it come to room temperature – and it was divine!!

I made this decision to take a leap of faith – fortunately we were with good, forgiving friends if it turned out to be a really bad idea. However, this was a really great idea! So I just thought I’d share.
Smoked tomato soup in a white bowl.This soup also contains one of our new ingredients from our summer box. You’ll find it to be surprising so stay tuned for the upcoming posts where I’ll reveal all of the great new products!
Blueberries and strawberries in  an American flag formation.

Let’s all appreciate our freedom and give thanks!!

Filed Under: Dinner, First Course, Soups Tagged With: barbecued ribs, best way to cook corn on the cob, coleslaw, July 4th, smoked tomato soup, temperature of serving food

The Very Best Way to Cook Corn on the Cob

June 18, 2015 by Mary 45 Comments

Corn on the cob on a plate ready to eat.It’s the season!! And there are so many ways to cook corn on the cob. Boil it in regular water, water with a little sugar, water with a little milk, place it in boiling water, turn the heat off and let it sit, shuck it and steam it, shuck it and grill it and so on. However, this way, I guarantee will become your favorite. This produces the freshest cooked corn on the cob because you don’t remove it from its natural packaging until you’re ready to eat it. Never, ever water-logged, cooking corn this way turns out so wonderful, (assuming it’s good corn), and so sweet, you won’t even want butter!

Really.

It’s that good.

Plus, you won’t have all that sticky silk all over your kitchen floor because you had to shuck it beforehand. No siree!!

You’re gonna LOVE this!!

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Buy your corn by feeling the heft and weight. Do not peel back the husks and peek. Corn on a baking sheet.

Just remove any dried and damaged outer leaves, trim dark silk ends hanging out at the end with scissors and put all your ears on a cookie sheet. Bake in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes, each ear with its full husk on. Corn on the cob out of the oven.When done, remove and peel husks off using hot pad mitts and serve. You don’t even need butter on this corn because what happens here is that the silk melts into the corn and makes it so sweet. Plus, it isn’t water logged so it’s crisp, and you don’t have the awful job of shucking them beforehand with all that silk making a mess. This is great, naked, fresh corn. (and low in calories with no butter needed) Enjoy!! Roast an extra ear or two, shuck and wrap in plastic wrap to store in the refrigerator and use another night. Cut the corn off the cob for a salad. Use a serrated knife for best results.

Now here’s the sad part, corn is one of those things, of all vegetables, that is most likely to be genetically modified, so try to buy your corn from a local organic farmer who knows his seeds were not GMO. Ask first. 🙂

 

Filed Under: Dinner, Sides, Vegetables Tagged With: best way to cook corn on the cob, corn on the cob, roasting corn on the cob

Join 32k+ followers!


Never miss out on a recipe!

Subscribe to receive new posts via email:

Mary Frances

Mary Frances

Spread love through cooking.

Summer Favorites

Easy Cheesy Sautéed Squash The Best Potato Salad Super Quick Chicken and Summer Vegetables Stir-fry Chimichurri-ed Wilted Endives with Walnuts Chilled Curried Zucchini Soup with Apple Garnish Best Strawberry and Rhubarb Crisp to make now!

Categories

  • Appetizers
  • Breakfast
  • Brunch
  • Cocktails
  • Contest
  • Cookies
  • Cookware and tools
  • Desserts
  • Dinner
  • Events
  • First Course
  • Fish
  • Food Responsibility
  • Guest Post
  • Lunch
  • Meat
  • Pasta
  • Poultry
  • Products for sale
  • Salads
  • Sauces
  • Sides
  • Soups
  • Tea time
  • Travel
  • Vegetables

Pages

Blog
About
Recipes
Tips and Tools
International Love
Love Notes
Shop
Mary's secret ingredients

Blogs We Love

  • 1840 Farm
  • A Pug in the Kitchen
  • Cottage Grove House
  • Food, Photography & France
  • Food52
  • From the Bartolini Kitchens
  • Go Bake Yourself
  • Hotly Spiced
  • Jovina Cooks Italian
  • Lavender and Lime
  • Orgasmic Chef
  • Smitten Kitchen
  • Sophie's Foodie Files
  • Steven’s Wine and Food Pairings
  • That Skinny Chick Can Bake
  • The Pioneer Woman
  • The Squishy Monster
  • Tips on Food and Drinks
  • Yummy Chunklet
  • LOVE - the secret ingredient


  • GET IN TOUCH
  • E mary@lovethesecretingredient.com

· All Rights Reserved ·© 2016 Love- the secret ingredient. All rights reserved. Disclaimer | Privacy Policy Disclosure Policy Terms & Conditions