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

And the MARY’s secret ingredients full year subscription winner is…

February 27, 2016 by Mary 2 Comments

Congratulations to Marilyn Scarboro! You’ve won a years subscription to MARY’s secret ingredients. That’s 4 seasonal boxes and the first box of 2016, the spring box, will begin mailing on March 25th.

I know you’re just going to LOVE the spring box. I can’t give too much away, but I will say that the next box has some of my favorite ingredients we’ve had so far plus an extra special handmade surprise!

If you didn’t win, don’t worry, there will be other chances. In fact, this coming Friday, March 4, at 1 pm EST, MARY’s secret ingredients is hosting a Twitter party! We will be giving away 3 spring boxes then. And I will be there to answer all cooking questions. We’re sure to have a lively discussion as we always do. You have to RSVP to win a box. You can enter here.

This is what all of our surprise subscription boxes looked like last year. Full of new gourmet ingredients you’ve probably never heard of but you need to know about. I test all of the products before any of them are allowed in the box. None of them have any unpronounceable ingredients – in other words, no preservatives, no chemicals, no hydrogenated oils. I create recipes using each product and email them directly to you. We have a lot more fun things planned for this year as we’re always challenging ourselves as to how we can inspire your healthy cooking even more, so stay tuned!

We provide items that can easily turn a ho-hum dinner into one fit for company. For example, take a look at this Yogurt Marinated Chicken with Nutraw Pistachio Crust recipe, a totally new way to use a raw bar and an ingenious way to provide a crispy crust on chicken for gluten-intolerant folks. It’s delicious no matter what!

And for our latest announcement, go here to become a new M Club member and buy a full year subscription (4 seasonal boxes) for only $108.00 including shipping plus, all of the other additional perks. Very soon, our MSI Community Cookbook will be available, but only for M Club members.

And remember, every purchase helps in our partnership with Feed The Children. We believe no one should go hungry. Together, let’s wipe hunger off of the face of the earth! YES!!

MARY’s secret ingredients Giveaway Winners announced!

December 18, 2014 by Mary 3 Comments

To all of you who participated in my MARY’s secret ingredients Giveaway, thank you for making it a huge success! Everyone’s responses were just wonderful, and I’m so happy to announce our winners today.

A little background: I wanted to make sure that the winner was picked completely at random so I had Marie, my MSI Project Manager (and resident opera singer), input everyone’s names into this Random Name Picker. First, we chose our Grand Prize Winner who will receive a full year’s subscription to MARY’s secret ingredients, followed by our two runners-up who will each receive a Spring 2015 box!

And The Winners Are:

Grand Prize: Anne Maxfield!!!

Runners-up: Shaunie and Bill Bryan!

Congratulations Anne, I’m thrilled to be sending you a whole year of my specially curated ingredients. To Shaunie, and Bill, thank you so much for sharing your lovely holiday dishes, I’m delighted to be sending you each a Spring box.

Here are our winners’ favorite holiday dishes:

Anne cooks recipes to put into beautifully packed gifts with her friend. This year they made a wonderful Crunchy Granola (you can get the recipe on her blog here: http://wp.me/p2SJwY-1y). Shaunie makes her Great Aunt’s broccoli casserole recipe, and Bill make a special bison chili with 3 different kinds of beans!

Once again thank you to everyone who participated, including our international friends who shared with us even though they weren’t eligible to enter because we can’t ship outside the continental US, yet. You ALL are winners in my book!

Stay tuned for more recipes using the ingredients from my winter box!

MARY’s secret ingredients Fall Box Revealed

October 8, 2014 by Mary 6 Comments

We really are having such a grand time with MARY’s secret ingredients! The fall box shipped out on schedule on September 25^th so everyone should have theirs by now. We hope that all of you who ordered one were just as excited as we were with the mix of ingredients this season. This box is full of wonderful things to spice up your cooking and make preparing a gourmet meal a breeze with all the interesting flavors and the two very exciting new tools enclosed.

A very big thank you to all of you who purchased, as every box sold adds to a contribution to Feed The Children. We will donate 10% of all profits to that global organization at the end of this year. No one should go hungry.

And now our lovely Marie, who will be performing in the premiere of a new opera in November here in NYC, (we’re so excited!) introduces the products to the tune, HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS IN THE MORNING from the musical “Rich, Young, and Pretty”, written by Cahn & Brodzky, and made famous by Dean Martin and Helen O’Connell.

We’re having so much fun!

CALPHALON

Calphalon is a leading manufacturer of professional quality cookware, cutlery, bakeware, kitchen electrics and accessories for the home cook. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Calphalon is a part of Newell Rubbermaid’s global portfolio of leading brands.

Nylon Solid Turner: This spatula is smartly designed with a unique serrated edge to cut food, and the low-profile head is angled to slide under food for easy turning. Crafted with heat-resistant soft-touch silicone accents, this utensil gives you a perfect balance of comfort and control. Dishwasher safe, heat resistant to 400° F, and won’t scratch nonstick cookware. Full lifetime warranty!

FALKSALT

Falksalt sea salt flakes are extracted from pure, clean Mediterranean Sea water using traditional methods. It’s harvested in Cyprus and sold by Swedish Salinity Food with 180 years experience in trading salt. It’s a 100% natural product with no chemicals, no anticaking agents and all natural additives. Falksalt offers a wide range of natural and flavored sea salt flakes.

Falksalt Crystal Flakes Citron: These light flakes add a burst of bright lemon flavor to everything from fish and vegetables to ice cream and chocolate. Bake, cook or just top off your favorite dish before serving. Be daring!

PRODUCT OF CYPRUS BY WAY OF SWEDEN

HARMONIAN

Harmonian is a Greek brand established in June 2013. The company’s aim is to bring a new understanding of “healthy and taste conscious” food to the market.

Kalamata PDO Extra Virgin Olive Oil : Olive Oil is the true “juice of life” and is a secret shared by people at the Mediterranean basin for ages. The land of Messenia, at the southwestern end of Peloponnese in Greece, produces the fine oil of the “Koroneiki” olive variety. Harmonian selects only its top quality crops and embottles their most precious extracts with the utmost care. This oil is silky in texture, keen in flavor and rich in aroma, extra virgin, high quality. It can be enjoyed both raw and cooked.

KIND

KIND® was launched in 2004 with the aim of inspiring people to do the kind thing for your body, your taste buds, & your world. From its delicious foods made from ingredients you can see and pronounce to its commitment to social entrepreneurship, KIND® is focused on making the world a little kinder one act (and snack) at a time.

Dark Chocolate Mocha Almond bar: A brand new flavor! Dark roast coffee and whole almonds blended with honey and drizzled in dark chocolate to form a bar that, with just 5g of sugar, only tastes indulgent.

CHELSEA MARKET BASKET – Kalk Bay Food Smoulder

Their founder’s passion for inspired specialty foods, and thoughtfully designed gifts, led to the creation of Chelsea Market Baskets in 1993. Owner David Porat continues to search the world for innovative products that are distinctly high quality, fresh, unique, and have a certain indescribable charm. Chelsea Market Baskets’ ultimate goal is to delight their customers through their Chelsea Market retail shop in New York City, their mail order gift business, and their wholesale imports. They believe in product integrity and a high level of customer service. Their mission is to heighten each and every customer’s experience with these core values.

Smoulder Spice Grinder – Elements Of Spice By Kalk Bay Food : Warning: Smoking Is Addictive! A few grinds of this mix will conjure up barbeque fun. Everyone’s favorite spices, artisanally cold smoked over beech chips, make the perfect seasoning for meat on the braai. Kalk Bay Food, based in Capetown, South Africa, blends spices from around the globe into unique and delicious combinations. They are known for the quality and freshness of their products. From rare single-origin salts to inventive spice blends, Kalk Bay Food will enhance the flavor of whatever is on the dinner table.

THE PANTRY CLUB

Founded in 2010, The Pantry Club is part of a family business established by Matt and Alicia Webb. It offers ten gourmet-quality dip mix flavors that are made from natural ingredients, are MSG-free, nitrate-free and are gluten-free (with the exception of Bacon Cheddar which has gluten in it). The dip mixes can be made with the classic recipe, or they can be used to create a wide variety of meal ideas; for sauces, soups and marinades – creating hassle-free cooking that is simply delicious.

Spinach Mix Dip (Gluten Free): This special combination of seasonings not only has incredible taste, but it is a delightful complement to fresh vegetables, crackers, baked potatoes, seafood or pasta salad, or use dry as a seasoning.

TOVOLO

Tovolo believes time spent cooking should be fun, and they are honored to be a part of this experience in your home. They challenge themselves to improve the performance, function and appearance of kitchen tools. They obsess over every detail to ensure their product will out-perform expectations. However, performance alone is not enough; they want to put a smile on their customer’s face as well. They strive to add a colorful element of fun to each of their items.

The Perfect Poach: Finally, a solution to make a perfect, delicious poached egg EVERY SINGLE TIME without oil or butter! These handy bags take the guesswork and mess out of poaching eggs. Simply crack an egg into the pouch—use one pouch for each egg—immerse in simmering water, and remove after four to six minutes. Slide your perfectly poached egg onto a plate and enjoy. Bags can only be used once but they are recyclable, biodegradable, and non-stick.

Our Gluten-Free summer MARY’s secret ingredients Box!

July 2, 2014 by Mary 10 Comments

Our summer MARY’s secret ingredients box was mailed last Wednesday, so all of you who ordered should have received it by now. We love these products and as it turns out, they are ALL gluten-free, even the toaster oven liner! And a big thank you to all of you for supporting our mission to eradicate worldwide hunger, as your purchase helps to support Feed The Children.

We have great items to eat and drink, just as they are, at any of your upcoming picnics or BBQ’s, and as I did with the spring box, I will provide inspiration and recipes using all of the ingredients here on this blog over the next two weeks, so please stay tuned.

Check out the video below of our lovely Marie opening a box to the Frank Sinatra tune of HOW ABOUT YOU.

LOVE, Mary

Or you can check it out on youtube here.

ZUKALI MEXICAN GOURMET Big taste, small beginnings. Zukali Mexican Gourmet was born out of a passion for making food and salsas at cookouts with friends and family in their hometown of McKinney, Texas. At Zukali, flavor is foremost.

Cilantro Pineapple Salsa: Inspired by tacos al pastor, this tangy love story of cilantro & pineapple is sure to arouse your tastebuds. We roast fresh peppers over an open flame, we toss in pineapple, and steep it all in a special blend of spices to bathe your mouth in salsa bliss.

COMMUNITY SPICE COMPANY Community Spice Company was founded by nurse Janis Callon in 2010. She comes from a family of foodies. Her father, Stanley, was an executive with Del Monte and her mother, Donna, was a registered dietician. Distressed by the poor quality and the outrageously salty spice blends typically found in the stores, she became adamant to make a healthy low sodium flavored spice blend line that used premium ingredients with realistic labeling for serving sizes.

barbi Q: A perky spice blend that is Community Spice Company’s signature flavor! It is fun, friendly, and the life of the party. Perfect on steak, salmon, ribs, burgers, chicken and home fries.

ka Bobbii: Light and luscious. Lemony with a stimulating twist.
Perfect pick up to fish, chicken, couscous, lentils, & quinoa.

SNP 400: Flexible blend with national appeal. Fantastic with roast chicken, burgers, soups & chili.

mz. Curri: Exotic and confident. This blend takes no prisoners nor will you! Great on veggies, chicken, pork, prawns, fish and onions!

SIMPLY7 The idea behind Simply7 was born because most of the food you are eating everyday is made with ingredients that most people don’t recognize and can’t even pronounce. Simply7 decided to make sure that every ingredient in their products is not only natural but is SIMPLE. Everyone should be able to identify the raw vegetable, fruit, grain, or legume used as ingredients in their products.

Sea Salt Quinoa Chips: All of Simply7 Quinoa Chip flavors are designed to deliver all the flavor and nutrients of the ancient super grain, quinoa. Sea salt is our “original” flavor and truly brings out the slightly nutty flavor of quinoa. You might expect sea salt to be similar to the flavors of other basic salted snacks but it is so much more. The unique flavor of quinoa and the light dusting of sea salt makes for a snacking experience that will keep you reaching for more.

CHEF’S PLANET Chef’s Planet makes life in the kitchen easier. It also offers other innovative, problem-solving kitchenware. They believe you can balance cooking with a busy life, so they are constantly thinking of new ways to make cooking simpler and more enjoyable!

What exactly is an ovenliner? Well, it’s a time saver. A drip and crumb catcher. No need to use chemical cleaners. Chef’s Planet toaster-ovenliner can be easily trimmed to fit on the rack. And, best yet, it’s MADE IN THE USA!

JAXN’S TWICE-BAKED POTATO STIX® The Bodacious Food Company, committed to providing fresh, great tasting premium baked products, created Jaxn’s Twice-Baked Potato Stix® in 2009 as their gluten free and all natural baked snack. Jaxn’s introduces a new, unique concept in better-for-you snacking.

Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper: Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper is a perfect duo of century-old flavors. Experience our snack’s robust blend of cracked pepper and natural sea salt. We sprinkle our flavorsome spice recipe on each twice-baked stix, providing “ingredient conscious” snacks bite-after-bite. Bye bye fries!

BRUCE COST GINGER ALE Bruce Cost Ginger Ale was founded in 2010 by Bruce Cost, author of an award-winning cookbook, a chef and a ginger lover. The original recipe was first created as part of a medicinal dinner. Several years later, after amassing a cult following for the beverage, Cost began bottling it with his partners, entrepreneurs Joseph and Terry Tang. In 2014, Bruce Cost Ginger Ale opened its very own factory, bringing the brewing process to Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Ginger Ale Original: Proud descendent of the first soft drink, Bruce Cost Ginger Ale is delicious, sparking and rich with whole ginger. Made with only fresh ginger (no extracts or oils) and pure cane sugar, this is a fundamentally simple, delicious and spicy beverage. Unfiltered with rich ginger particles, it provides iron and a little vitamin C as well as refreshment. MADE IN BROOKLYN

CLEAN, LEAN AND SEXY Clean, Lean and Sexy was inspired by a mother’s mission to transform her daughter’s health. Suzie Carpenter, a Certified Nutrition and Peak Health Coach founded Clean, Lean and Sexy to provide great-tasting whole food energy products in the form of simple, gluten-free healthy snacks.

Coconut Cashew All Natural Whole Food Energy Bar: Healthy snacks without hidden ingredients are hard to find. Clean, Lean and Sexy Whole Food Energy Bars are made with only pure, all natural, recognizable ingredients; and they taste great! They are made with real coconut and without gluten, corn, soy or dairy ingredients. There are also no processed sugars or artificial sweeteners. Indulge, enjoy and be free (now that’s sexy)! It’s a No Grainer!

2 COUPONS

Please note: Mortar and pestle are a part of MARY’s secret ingredients trademark and are not items included in the box.

MSI summer box and foodies

June 26, 2014 by Mary 26 Comments

Here’s our super happy FedEx man picking up our boxes under Marie’s watchful eye.

Our summer MARY’s secret ingredients (MSI) boxes sold out last week, way before our closing date of yesterday when they all shipped. They are on their way to all of you who ordered. We’re so excited about this box! It’s got great summer treats and I will be posting more wonderful recipes and ideas to use the products, making your BBQ and summer party days ahead a breeze. It turns out that this box is also gluten-free for those of you concerned with this area of your intake, but you would never know it, as everything is so delicious!

I read an editorial by Mark Bittman in the The New York Times yesterday. He was talking about the use of the word “foodies” and how it makes him cringe. How about you? Does it make you cringe too? Are you a “foodie” in search of the next hot restaurant? Or do you like to cook at home to be able to know exactly what you’re putting into your body? Or are you concerned about changing our eating habits or our whole society on the way food is produced, transported and eaten? He brings up some really valid points on all of this.

And then there was this other article I read just last week about how everyone is beating the drum about only eating local, farmer’s market food and really, that’s a very nice idea but you can’t feed a country our size this way. So they were suggesting using a combination of technology (think Wylie Dufresne or new versions of freeze dried) and local, to go way beyond the Alice Waters philosophy.

All are good ideas in my book. Anything that gets us back in the kitchen and makes us fully aware, to want to know what we’re putting into this delicate machine that is our bodies, is a great idea.

Which brings us back to our MSI box. Our whole concept here is to showcase new natural, good-for-you products that will surprise and inspire you and your cooking with fresh ideas to feed your body and keep it healthy. And if you cook with LOVE, you feed your soul too! Happy eating!!!

MARY’s secret ingredients boxes are on their way!

April 27, 2014 by Mary 14 Comments

It’s been a week of preparing and packing the actual boxes. Our team at the office, headed by our amazing Lily, did an awesome job! The boxes have all been lovingly filled with amazing products that I know will inspire your cooking. All of our spring MARY’s secret ingredients (MSI) boxes are on their way. I’m guessing that those of you who ordered them will have them in your hands early this week and I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Our spring boxes are completely sold out. But don’t worry, you can still order the other seasonal boxes right now but really, don’t wait, as we’ve already sold quite of few of those as well, as many people purchased all of the seasons.

The ingredients in this season’s box are from all over the world, and of course, fit our profile of all natural, healthy, gourmet eating. I have been busy working on recipes and serving suggestions using all of them, which will appear here in the coming week.

More importantly, we want to thank everyone – our partners and our customers who have made a commitment with us to eradicate world hunger as we are donating 10% of our profits to Feed The Children. No one should go hungry.

Soon the suspense will be over and you’ll be spicing up your cooking with new flavors and new ingredients! Spread the word and remember, to always cook with LOVE.