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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!

My New Normal Dinner of Roasted Vegetables with Prosciutto

November 19, 2017 by Mary 9 Comments

As you know, I’ve moved to Italy for 3 months, trying to sort out my head, my life and yes even my dinners, after Steve’s passing. My support system of friends here is totally amazing, but my whole life has changed. I so miss Steve.

In Italy, dinner is eaten usually not any earlier than 8:30 pm, which is actually about the time we used to eat in NYC but it’s different now, not coming home from an office and with the time change, 9 am in New York is 3 pm here. It is kinda cool that I have all that time in the morning to myself but then I can work until midnight because it’s only 6 pm there, and that is not healthy, I know.

So lately, I’ve been eating bigger lunches – pasta, at that time, if I want it, – and then a salad or just vegetables for dinner. Often I’ll meet one of my friends for an aperitivo (cocktail) in town at 7 or so and then come home to make a light healthy dinner, eat, check in with the office and do some more work.

I don’t know what we have done to our food supply chain in the US. Here, everything is so darn flavorful and DELICIOUS! For example, sauteed escarole, just simple with olive oil, salt and pepper, is divine!! In the States, we used to buy our vegetables from organic farmers, but even those veggies cannot compare to the ones here. I think we’ve ruined our food system forever in the U.S. 

So one evening, I made the dish below, roasting cauliflower and yellow peppers, then throwing in tomatoes at the end, letting the warm combination sit on cool baby arugula (that still tastes peppery here), basil leaves and some avocado to add some creaminess. The prosciutto adds big flavor and protein. Serve this with a slice of bread, some great olive oil and you’ve got a fantastic dinner!!

My New Normal Dinner of ROASTED VEGETABLES WITH PROSCIUTTO.ROASTED VEGETABLES WITH PROSCIUTTO – serves 2

2 small handfuls of arugula
12 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
½ head of cauliflower, cut in small flowerets
1 yellow pepper, cut into 1/3” strips and then cut each strip in half
6 thin slices of prosciutto, trimmed of fat, cut into 1/4” strips
1.5 Tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper, fresh ground
12 large basil leaves
1 small avocado, halved, and each half cut into strips

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Toss cauliflower and yellow pepper with olive oil, season with salt and pepper to taste and roast for about 12 minutes on a parchment lined, rimmed baking sheet. Then add the tomatoes and toss all to combine. Roast for 10 more minutes until all is tender and wonderful. Lightly salt again now, if you wish.

Place a small handful of arugula on each plate. Tear up 4 basil leaves and scatter on top of each plate of arugula. Arrange the half of the avocado on each plate, in a circle.

Scatter ½ of the prosciutto slices on top of the avocado and mound ½ of the roasted cauliflower, yellow pepper and tomatoes on top.

Tear up the rest of the basil leaves and sprinkle around on top, leaving one or two leaves as an accent.

Serve with LOVE and bread, if you’d like. Total delish!!

Thanksgiving is coming this week (and so is my birthday) the first of many firsts without my honey, Steve. I am so, so sad. Not much to do to relieve the sadness. I just cry a lot.

But that is not for you. Here is my Thanksgiving book for any of you who need it. 

I will be hosting this Thanksgiving on the Saturday after – on the 25th – at my friends, Tiziana and Andrea’s house as they have a table big enough to seat 14 people. Our younger son, Zach and his wife, Agata, will be flying in from Poland. Our older son and his wife, Kate will spend it with my brother and sister-in-law and their family in Connecticut.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving to you all. Sending lots of LOVE and great food!!

Filed Under: Dinner, Vegetables Tagged With: avocado, cauliflower, new normal, prociutto, roasted vegetables, yellow pepper

Try it!

March 7, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

Over roasted green beans in a white bowl.

Delicious Oven Roasted Green Beans

Our wonderful farmer friends, Ethel and Tom, once told me that all the local restaurants that they sell their vegetables to, always oven roast them as their method to cook. Ethel said they all swear that oven roasting brings out the natural sweetness in the most marvelous way.

Now I’ve been a big fan of roasting eggplant, turnips, zucchini, mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, all kinds of squash, Brussel sprouts, peppers, and of course potatoes but green beans?

So with my shrimp and pasta dinner the other night, being so tired and exhausted, and wanting to eat quickly, I decided to try it. They were delicious!!! Give it a go!

OVEN ROASTED GREEN BEANS
– serves 3 – 4

1 lb. green beans, washed, cleaned and dried
2 tbs. olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Make sure your beans are all dry – use a dish towel if you don’t have time to air dry them. Place in a pile in the center of a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle olive oil on and salt and pepper. Toss well and spread out all across the pan in a single layer. Roast for 20 – 25 minutes until tender. Toss once in the middle of cooking. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Sides, Vegetables Tagged With: asparagus, Brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, eggplant, farm vegetables, green beans, mushrooms, olive oil, oven roasted green beans, peppers, potatoes, squash, turnips, zucchini

Revise yourself!

October 22, 2011 by Mary Frances 5 Comments

Roasted cauliflower with cumin and tomatoes in a green bowl.I have been oven-roasting cauliflower with olive oil, salt, pepper and cumin for some time now and it is delicious. But sometimes you need a change. So I am always on the lookout for quick cooking, delicious vegetables to get on the table fast for a weeknight meal. I look at weeknight meals as it’s okay to spend a little time on the main dish but then the vegetable and carbohydrate should be simple and easy. Like rice in a rice cooker while oven roasting asparagus with olive oil and finishing with lemon juice and lemon zest, plus a little more olive oil. So this week, I had a prospective client dinner meeting on Wednesday and my husband cooked for himself and Zach. I had asked him to please use up the plum tomatoes as they were getting too ripe. He forgot. So I’m looking at these soon overripe tomatoes as I’m preparing my cauliflower and say why not? It was great, adding an additional flavor along with some juiciness and color – so important!

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH CUMIN & TOMATOES
Serves 4

1 head of cauliflower
2 – 3 tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1 tbs. ground cumin
3 plum tomatoes, quartered lengthwise, then cut into 4 or 5 chunks.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Wash, dry and separate or cut flowerets of the cauliflower to be approximately the same uniform size. Pile in the middle of a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle on 2 – 3 tbs. olive oil, sprinkle with salt, fresh pepper and cumin. Pile on chopped tomatoes and toss the whole thing well with a spatula/flipper/pancake turner.

Roast on a top shelf for 20 minutes or more until cauliflower is fork tender. Toss again when testing.

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Dinner, Vegetables Tagged With: cauliflower, cumin, olive oil, tomatoes, vegetables

Correctable mistakes

September 29, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

We all make mistakes. And fortunately, some can be fixed.

I happen to love salt, And I like to only use French grey salt, which has so much more flavor than Kosher or regular sea salts. My husband and one son are not big on salt whereas my oldest is more like me.

correctable mistakes too much salt.So the other night I was fixing a pan of cauliflower, olive oil, salt and pepper to roast in the oven. In preparing it, I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been and I immediately knew I over salted. And my husband HATES that. I could already hear the coming comments.

So what to do? When the cauliflower was done, I pulled the pan out and lifted each piece of cauliflower out with tongs – no scraping of the olive oil and all that salt with a spatula to put on the platter. No no.Then I squeezed some fresh lemon juice over all.

It worked! No comments from the peanut gallery. They ate it all up!

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: cauliflower, lemon, mistakes, over-salting

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