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

Happy mistakes

May 6, 2013 by Mary Frances 16 Comments

Yesterday morning, while I was making our Sunday breakfast, I was doing too many things at once and kept on messing up. No matter how many people tell you that multi-tasking is good, it is not! I was rushing, trying to get a load of laundry in, thinking about planting my tomatoes and how I could con my husband into digging a new garden and listening to the Sunday morning TV political talk shows on the radio, while I was making sausage patties, eggs, fruit salad and warming bread.

After my sausage patties were all done, I realized I had forgotten to put in the half of the minced shallot that I wanted to. Ah, no matter, I thought, I’ll put them in the eggs! So I put some butter in the pan and the minced shallots with the heat on low. Then I went to spray Shout on the laundry, went to the bathroom, and went upstairs to make up the bed, totally forgetting about the shallots in the pan. I came back and they were nearly burnt. So as I was about to throw them out, I thought, wait, these could be crispy minced shallots on TOP of the scrambled eggs and voila – it was really good!

The sausage patties were really good too! Here’s the recipe:

BREAKFAST SAUSAGE PATTIES
– makes 10 – 12 patties

2 tbs. of a combo of herbs – minced sage, rosemary and mint leaves
1/2 large shallot, minced
1 small egg (or beat an egg and use 2/3 of it – the rest can go in your scrambled eggs)
1 lb. ground pork – I use a local grocery store’s bulk ground pork breakfast sausage that is seasoned with salt, pepper and a little dried sage. So if you start with plain ground pork, add salt, pepper and 1/4 tsp. dried sage leaves crumbled
1/4 cup of panko
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper (skip this if your ground pork is already “seasoned” for sausage patties)

Mix all ingredients together with your hands. Shape into small patties. This should give you 10 – 12 patties. Sauté in a non-stick skillet on the stove, medium high heat, about 5 minutes per side, with the pan covered. Pork should be at 155 – 160 degrees. Enjoy!

And oh – I burnt myself too. I had warmed a casserole dish in the oven, to put the finished scrambled eggs in. I forgot that it was hot and picked it up with bare hands!

TIP: Always have Tea Tree oil around as that is the best for burns! (but, the smell is strong and not very good around food)

P.S. Seriously, due to the tea tree oil, I am fine today!

Frozen pancetta

October 19, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Some years ago, my butcher in the city, Bob, of Espisito’s Pork Store gave me the greatest tip. As he noticed, I like pancetta, so one time he mentioned that I could keep several slices in the freezer at all times, take them out one at a time and they will thaw very quickly to use. As you may have figured out by now, I adore pancetta. Just a little bit gives huge flavor to any dish. (although I am not a fan of the latest craze of bacon on desserts – yuk!) For instance, the Broccoli Rabe recipe outlined earlier is usually made with pork sausage, with the fat left in the dish. So making it with chicken sausage is so much healthier and just a touch of pancetta give the big rich pork flavor that the chicken sausage cannot impart on its own.

So always have some on hand in your freezer!

Friday night

October 10, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

My oldest son wanted to come out to the country house with 3 friends this past Friday afternoon, to spend the night, on their way to a farm in Massachusetts for a cider pressing event. Now I was already expecting 4 guests on Saturday for the weekend. After initially being taken aback, what’s a little more laundry? These kids are fun. And I have to tell you, it is so nice to drive up to your own house with the lights all on and all warm inside and have someone greet you to offer their help in bringing things in, martini glasses on the coffee table and laughter and music. What could be a better greeting on a Friday night – or any night for that matter?

He said he would make dinner. Great!! See – they all cook! He made the most spectacular chili – with tender pork cubes and no beans, served over polenta that his good friend Martha made.

I’m telling you, it was so, so good. I have to get the recipe and I was so very glad he did not take the leftovers which I cleaned up completely today – and I didn’t want to share. Not with anyone.

Later yesterday, I received this photo of his bounty from the farm. Beautiful!!

Sunday Night Stuffed Peppers

September 12, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

When I was a little girl, my mother made stuffed peppers as a special weeknight dinner. I always loved them and I’m not a green pepper fan. So I decided to try to recreate her recipe and use a combination of red and green peppers to stuff. (It’s an early Christmas!) I have all of her recipes, but I must admit, she’s been gone since 1995 and I have not ventured to try to find it. She was a wee bit organized but not much. I am terrible at keeping some sort of sense of my mass of recipes. (How should you categorize – main ingredient or meal part or when you served it?) Luckily I have a good memory (so far!) and there’s always the internet and online sources to go back to.

So I made this one up to the best of my memory of hers. My family thought I did a great job. I remember my Mom used to put an extra dab of tomato sauce (she used Hunt’s!) on top of the meat mixture in the peppers. I opted to put the cheese. I think here it’s better as the tomato sauce in the meat mixture is so rich with the wine, extra is not needed. I think she would think so too.

You let me know what you think.

SUNDAY NIGHT STUFFED PEPPERS – serves 4 – 6
2 tbs. olive oil
1 medium-large onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed, with juices
2 tsp. dried Greek oregano
10 thyme springs, leaves only
½ cup dry red wine
1+ lb. bulk sweet Italian sausage
1+ lb. bulk hot Italian sausage
¼ cup chopped parsley leaves
3 tbs. chopped tarragon leaves
½ -3/4 cup cooked white basmati rice
6 large peppers, red or green or a combo
9 tbs. grated parmesan cheese
1- 11/2 cups chicken broth

Pre-heat oven to 350 degree

Warm the olive oil on low heat, add onion and garlic, cover and sweat for 15 minutes. The onion and garlic will get sweet and soft, stir every once in a while to make sure it doesn’t brown. Add tomatoes and juices, oregano and thyme, raise heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add red wine and simmer for 15 more minutes until sauce is thickened. Salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, sauté the sausage meat together, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until all pink is gone. Line a large platter with 3 layers of paper towels. When meat is cooked, spread it out on the paper towels to drain the grease.

Prepare peppers. Wash and cut off the tops. Remove the stem, wrap in plastic and save for another use. Remove the seeds from the peppers so you have nice hallowed- out cups.

When the sauce is thickened, remove from heat and fold in the cooked rice, parsley and tarragon. Add the drained meat and combine well. Fill the peppers with this mixture and stand them upright in a baking pan. Top each pepper meat mixture with 1.5 tbs. grated parmesan cheese. Pour chicken broth in the bottom of the pan to a depth of 3/8” – ½”. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 – 35 minutes. Remove and serve.

Enjoy!!!

Smells

September 10, 2011 by Mary Frances 1 Comment

Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Our offices were located downtown near the towers at One Wall Street Court at the time. While our building was unharmed and all of our employees safe, we were not allowed in to the building or area for a full week. With all the horror with what happened down there, two things stick in my mind. The smell of burning flesh, plastics and toxins, and how long that lasted – about a year for me. It was acrid and burning in your nostrils. (I have an acute sense of smell which is sometimes not a very good thing. I had sinus surgery years ago to relive migraine headaches, which it didn’t do but it left me with this.) After about two weeks, if you were on the upper East or West side, it was as if nothing happened! While us downtowners dealt with everything for many many months. They are still dealing with it. I urge you to read Frank Rich’s article in New York Magazine – Day’s End – published Aug. 27.

I pray that nothing happens this weekend, with the heightened alerts from possible terrorists attacks again, which we all learned about on Thursday. The police are everywhere in Manhattan.

In 2006, we traveled to India. My husband was asked to give a speech at an international business conference in Calcutta. I got to travel along as the wife! We had to stop and spend the night in New Delhi, on the last leg of travel to our destination. New Delhi has that same acrid, burning smell which took me right back to 2001. Their burning smell is from the poor who live on the streets and build fires to cook and keep warm. No doubt they are burning plastics and toxic materials. I questioned the Indians about the smell – they said, “What smell?” My good friend Sumantra later explained it to me, but seriously, they don’t smell it.

Of all your senses, I believe smell is the most memorable. Which is why good smells wafting from your kitchen can create memories beyond belief for your family. We are in the country and last night I decided to make a new spice rub for pork chops. My husband called it smooth and “elegant.” Isn’t he cute? I called it very fragrant and delicious.

SPICE RUB FOR PORK CHOPS – for 6 pork chops
Make sure your spices are fresh!
1 tbs. cumin powder
1 tsp ground coriander (preferably Moroccan)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp. ground Nigerian cayenne pepper
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. garlic powder.

Combine everything together very well – toss with a fork. Wash and dry your meat. Salt one side of each chop and spread rub on both sides and massage into the meat. Grill until temperature reaches 140 – 145 degrees. Let sit for at least 5 minutes before serving. They will continue cooking and this allows time for the juices to collect inside the meat and be totally yummy.

Let me know how you like this!