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

What constitutes a vacation?

July 14, 2012 by Mary Frances 9 Comments

Doing something different? Removing your mind from everyday things? Being with your children 24/7? Having the freedom to do what you want when you want – such as staying in bed, reading or sleeping on and off until 10, or napping at 4 or having a beer at lunch?

You know what makes it for you. For us, last week was a first of being at our little upstate home, with glorious weather all week except for rain one day, no kids, no conventions or meetings and just doing what we felt like, when we felt like, and having some close friends over for dinner on the 4th. It was really perfect. We had sunset cocktails, wonderful local food, tried new recipes, dinner out twice (a treat), and lovely walks after dinner. You know, you feel like you eat too much and you drink too much and you’re bound to gain weight but surprisingly, I didn’t. I did ride my bike from 8 to 21.5 miles almost every day so I guess that helped and worked to sweat the toxins out as well. It is so quiet there and I love having all the windows in the house open to feel the clean soft breezes. (Rare for me because in NYC, it just makes the apartment dirty.) It was a real, clear the head, simply lovely time. We saw two great movies – The Avengers (silly fun) and Moonrise Kingdom – a quirky, must see, coming of age movie with great music and fantastic graphic scenes of Rhode Island.

I hope you get to clear your head this summer as well.

Here are some visual highlights.

Driveway with bike in upstate New York. Road to heaven.

I always think this looks like the road to heaven or the road to nowhere. There actually is a large house way over to the right and this is their driveway.

Upstate New York waterfall.

Our neighborhood waterfall.

Corn field in upstate New York.

The corn is growing!

Yellow roadside flowers in upstate New York.

I love these little yellow roadside flowers.

Horse farm in upstate New York with tractor.

Local horse farm – see the tractor?

Breakfast outside with eggs, toast, and orange juice.

Breakfast outside – my favorite!

Filed Under: Breakfast, Travel Tagged With: bike rides, breakfast, Columbia County, corn, farm fresh eggs, horses, orange juice, roadside flowers, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, toast, upstate NY, vacation, waterfalls, willow trees

Our week upstate

July 7, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

We are rounding home stretch here on our vacation week upstate. We had glorious weather the whole time to be greeted by rain this afternoon. But that’s okay, it feels like a Nantucket day today so I am writing and reading and hopefully napping soon, a true vacation luxury.

I always end up saying to my husband, after my daily bike ride, that there is no prettier place than here. (Well Bali may be prettier but I’ve not been there yet.) It is just so darn pretty here – the sky even competes with a South African one! We often just sit staring out at our backyard, watching the show of animals that randomly appear, which provides a great sense of renewal to us city dwellers during the week.

Here are some photo highlights of our week. I’ll post some bike riding pictures soon!

Nantucket green backyard.

Our backyard sunset cocktail lounge

Hudson Valley sunset.

Hudson Valley sunsets can’t be beat!

Blueberry pie.

My 4th of July blueberry pie – served with Blue Marble vanilla ice cream and fresh raspberries to make it complete!

Blueberry pie with flakey crust.

I’m very proud of this super flakey crust.

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: bike rides, Blue Marble ice cream, blueberry pie, cocktails, Hudson Valley, outdoor cocktail lounges, raspberries, sunsets

Hudson Valley

June 11, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

Horses at a fence. Stallions at Silvernails sign.My bike ride yesterday was so lovely. I keep saying that the Hudson Valley is just so, so pretty. The light here is so spectacular. No wonder all the artists and painters congregated here.

I have several routes that I go on for my rides. This particular one is about 8 miles and takes in numerous horse farms. Spectacular pieces of property and interestingly enough, the horses and cows all came to their fences to say hello to me as I was riding by yesterday!

Here are just a few shots for your pleasure.

Corn just starting to grow in cornfield.

The corn is just starting to grow!

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: bike rides, bike routes, horse farms, horses, Hudson Valley, Hudson Valley School of Art, Silvernails stallions

Waiting for a bike ride

June 10, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Lemon Anchovy dressing on salad with tomatoes.
While waiting for the rain to stop and the sun to come out in order to take a bike ride today, I went out and cut some arugula (It grows so fast) and whipped up this dressing for a little salad. It doesn’t get any better than this – so fresh, so clean, so delicious!

I love anchovies. They’re packed with flavor and I remember making a creamy salad dressing years ago for an arugula salad and for the life of me I cannot remember where I got that recipe or what, exactly, was in it. I searched everywhere I could think of, with no luck. So I made this one up and it’s terrific, although not yellow in color like the one I remember. This one looks like a pretty green goddess dressing because of the parsley.

Now if you don’t have a mini chopper and grinder from Cuisinart, go get one. Bed Bath and Beyond will special order it for you. They’re only about $20.00 and they are the best little tool. I use it to make this dressing or grind spices for a spice rub. It’s the best!

LEMON ANCHOVY DRESSING
2 tbs. fresh Italian parsley leaves
2 tbs. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3 anchovy fillets, patted dry of oil in a paper towel
3 tbs. olive oil

Combine everything except the olive oil in a mini processor or grinder and process until smooth. Add oil 1 tbs. at a time and process after each addition until thoroughly combined and smooth.

Enjoy!! I gotta get on my bike!

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: anchovies, bike rides, Cuisinart mini chopper and grinder, lemon anchovy dressing, lemons, parsley, process, salad dressing

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Mary Frances

Mary Frances

Spread love through cooking.

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