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

Barbecued Ribs or Santorini Grilled Chicken?

May 29, 2016 by Mary 12 Comments

BBQ ribs – perfect for this holiday weekend. Those are fiddlehead ferns garnishing the platter – they’re in season now!

If you’re thinking of ribs for today or tomorrow, I’ve got you covered with my great rib recipe here. People rave about this recipe and it’s so simple and easy. Or if pork is not your thing, how about a Santorini Grilled Chicken recipe that’s sure to please everyone as it’s stuffed with tomatoes, cheese and onions and oregano. And I’ve added on for you some salads too – one tomato and two potato. So fire up the grill, whip up the salads and enjoy this lovely long weekend with your family – and don’t forget to thank our fallen heroes for their service to our country, as that is what Memorial Day is all about.

Here’s a shot of my Dad’s cavalry hat from WWII. We proudly display it on the wall as a piece of art. (That pie in the back gives a hint of one of our products coming up in our summer box!)

These recipes are all reprise recipes so I’ll just show you the pictures, which all link back to the original post.

We are all out of sorts today. My mother-in-law is passing. She is 96 years old, almost 97, in August. She lived a good long life. I’ve dealt with a lot of passing of people close to me. My mom passed in 1995, my dad in ’98 (of a broken heart from losing my mom. He always thought he would go first.), and then we lost a brother to MS in 2000. All of these were sudden events and a surprise. This, with Steve’s mom is maddening. His sister is in Baltimore with her and has called in hospice. We are both on pins and needles.

Today I spent an hour tearing through the house looking for my reading glasses and then I went to wash my hands in the bathroom and looked up in the mirror – there they were on my chest – hanging from my necklace. Hope this isn’t a sign of things to come! Once I left my car keys at a greeting card store and then they closed and I couldn’t drive home! I was so engrossed in reading funny cards and laughing so hard, I got comfortable, sat on the carpeted floor and left my keys there too. That was a tough one to retrace. Then there was the time I left my keys in the freezer. Don’t ask.

Love your family more. Our time here is precious. Cook with abandon and always serve with LOVE!

Santorini Grilled Chicken

Greek Salad, salad with feta cheese tomatoes cucumbers greek

Tomato, cucumber and feta Greek salad

Best potato salad with fennel, parmigiano cheese, cippolini onions and piccholine olives.

Or here’s a great mayonnaise-based potato salad – my Midwest Potato Salad – that was featured in the Tanglewood Cookbook!

Midwest Potato Salad at Tanglewood!

July 11, 2013 by Mary Frances 10 Comments

So we had the potato salad competition and got lots of great recipes but surprisingly, none that really matched my original, traditional with a twist, potato salad recipe that I know is good, because every time I serve it, people ask me for the recipe. So I made this for last Friday night, as we were going to the opening night at Tanglewood and this recipe has become sort of a tradition for that picnic dinner. Usually, it is also the one time of the year that I make buttermilk fried chicken. But this year, since it was just Steve and me, I made this new recipe in the most recent edition of Food and Wine Magazine. It’s a marinated roasted chicken that can be served at room temperature, with a chimichurri sauce. It was delicious! For one chicken, of course use 1/3 of the ingredients, except for the garlic in the chimichurri – I used 2 large cloves.I love Tanglewood, so I will make whatever it takes to do the outing. If this potato salad makes my husband happy, okay! (there’s my husband)

Here is this mayonnaise based recipe, with some different instructions on how to handle the potatoes, making sure you chill it ahead of time, and yet let it come close to room temperature before you serve it.

MIDWEST POTATO SALAD – serves 8
2 lbs. Yukon Gold or farmstand potatoes
3/4 cup chopped onions
1 stalk celery, mandoline sliced
3/4 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise
1 dill pickle, minced
3 cornichons, minced
1 pickled hot cherry pepper, stem and seeds removed, minced
1 tbs. white wine vinegar
2 tsp. Colman’s dry mustard
1 tsp. French grey or Kosher salt
1 tsp. Hungarian sweet paprika
20 grinds black pepper
1 hard boiled egg, minced

Wash and scrub potatoes. Place in a large pot and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Salt the water with coarse sea salt and bring to a boil. Turn down heat to a simmer, partially cover and check in 20 minutes. This will take 20-30 minutes and the potatoes should be tender when tested with a skewer, but not fall apart. Drain in a colander until cool enough to handle. This will take some time so be patient. You do not want to cut warm potatoes as they will fall apart and you do not want to put this dressing on warm potatoes.

Combine all other ingredients into your dressing. Do not peel the potatoes, cut them into 3/4” pieces and place in a pretty bowl. Distribute all the dressing, carefully folding it over with a spatula until evenly distributed. Chill at least one hour before serving and take out at least 1/2 hour before your meal, so it’s not so cold. This tastes even better the next day.
Our plate! That’s a sugar snap pea salad with poblano peppers and a balsamic vinaigrette.

Our neighbors behind us had this beautiful salad with grilled peaches and chicken on her garden lettuce. I commented on how pretty it was. My new friend, Jan gave me a big taste. She was so sweet and she said I made her day. I think she made mine. Her salad dressing was so interesting – one whole grilled peach (skinned and pitted) with some grainy mustard and olive oil – puree it all in a food processor. It was delicious!! The sweetness of the peaches offset the vinegar in the mustard, which was really a nice combination. Thank you Jan! That’s a great idea.There’s Jan in the mint green shirt – and some of the Tanglewood audience behind us.

Just look at this cute loving couple in front of us. This is the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing an All-Tchaikovsky Program – Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 5 – Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, conductor, Joshua Bell, violin. It was magnificent!!

Potato Salad Winner Announced!!

July 2, 2013 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Soon after Memorial Day, we set out to find the best potato salad recipe we could before the next big picnic holiday – the Fourth of July – this week! So I asked for my readers’ favorite recipes and had almost too many to choose from, in the best way. The submissions were about as varied as possible, and I recruited my team to vote for the top three.

Those top three were: the decadent and complex Salat Olivier from Misha, the bread-and-butter-pickle-sweetened Mom’s Potato Salad from Nicky, and Aunt Rose’s Potato Salad with anchovies from Nikki. Thank you to everyone who submitted a recipe. They were, quite frankly, all good!

Our team chose the last one as the big winner. It’s simple but really delicious, verging on a “classic” non-mayo potato salad recipe. It is a neat trick to take out the cooked egg yolks and combine them with the olive oil and herbs. That makes a kind of homemade, safe (because the yolks are cooked) mayonnaise. The anchovies give it that boost of flavor. (and you know I LOVE anchovies) It’s possible that people who are turned off by the idea of anchovies will still enjoy this recipe because there’s only one – but to be honest, I would add even more anchovies (3.5) and chives (1 tbs.).

Here is the recipe. Thank you, Nikki Landau!! Your prize, our wonderful LOVE apron, will be coming to you soon.

AUNT ROSE’S EGG AND POTATO SALAD RECIPE – serves 4

1. Boil 1 pound of yellow new potatoes in their skins. Peel and chill.
2. Hard boil 4 eggs. Peel and chill.

Dressing:
1. In a bowl put 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper.
2. Add 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar, 5 tbsp. light olive oil, 1 tsp. chopped chervil, 1 tsp. chopped chives, and 1 anchovy fillet, minced.

Remove yolks from the hard boiled eggs and crumble into dressing. Whisk to combine. Cut egg whites into pieces. Cut the potatoes into thin slices.

Fold everything together, mix well and serve chilled. It’s simple and very good! Yum!

Potato Salad Contest of Sorts – Help!

June 3, 2013 by Mary Frances 24 Comments

I need you!

I have this fabulous potato salad recipe but I called it “the best” only because it’s that good, not because I had tried enough to be sure it really was. But now I want to be sure.

Before the 4th of July, I am on a mission to find the BEST potato salad recipe out there. I’ll be testing recipes, but I need your help. If you have a fantastic potato salad recipe, please share a link to the recipe (or the recipe itself, or even just a list of the ingredients) in the comments. I’ll be making three of the most eye-catching, mouth-watering recipes we can find.

If you submit the “best” recipe, I’ll say thank you by sharing it (with your permission) here on the LOVE blog and by sending you a LOVE apron!

Now take a look at this!

The famous chef, Daniel Boulud is growing vegetables in planters on the Manhattan sidewalk on Duane Street, right outside of his restaurant, Bouley! How cool is that? There’s tomatoes, various lettuces, broccoli, Swiss chard, mint, dill, dandelion greens – amazing!! And beautiful.

I wonder if people passing by will try to pick the tomatoes?

Tanglewood!

July 1, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

I love going to Tanglewood. Before we had our upstate house, I had always dreamed of being able to be close by to there to do exactly what we did last Saturday. I love the setting, I love the whole picnic dinner, I love the music. Diana Krall was playing and she was fantastic! So last weekend, two of my brothers and their wives joined us at our upstate house, which is not far from Tanglewood. (My dream came true!) On Saturday afternoon, I fried up two and a half chickens, made a fabulous potato salad (if I can say so myself) along with a tomato and peach salad and some brownies. My sister-in-laws filled in with a wonderful vegetable slaw, a selections of cheeses, nuts and grapes. Add some fantastic bottles of wine from my brothers and we were all set!!

We were so set, that I forgot to take pictures of all the food and our plates!!

But here’s the evening – and what was left of the buttermilk fried chicken.

Two of my brothers at Tanglewood

This was full of buttermilk fried chicken

This is what was left.

The remains of the dinner

The scene!

Elegant couple with candlelit picnic dinner at Tanglewood.

This elegant couple gladly posed for me. Notice the silver candlesticks and flowers. The guy told me he chose his shirt on purpose to match!

Diana playing.

I need to talk to you of what I have learned of the importance of voice – and what Diana Krall has taught me. She is so soft, so mellow, soooo sexy with that contralto voice of hers. She could almost say anything to you and you would agree. If you got mad at your husband with her voice, he’d just have to kiss you and do anything you wanted. Seriously.
I think we don’t pay enough attention to our voice and the strength of it – and we should. So pay attention to not only what you say but how you say it. It makes a huge difference.

The Best Potato Salad

May 27, 2012 by Mary Frances 8 Comments

The Best Potato Salad with fennel, Parmesan cheese, cipollini onions and picholine olives.

The first time I made this was one year ago. Our oldest son was having a party at his apartment where they also have use of the roof. We were invited – unusual for parents! I brought a quadrupled recipe of this along with a rhubarb upside down cake. Both were huge hits!! This potato salad recipe is unusual, surprising and so very tasty. You will love it! This is an adapted version of a Martha Stewart recipe. (Robin – this is for you!)

THE BEST POTATO SALAD – serves 6

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 1/2 pounds baby Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and halved
3/4 pound cipollini onions, peeled (drop in boiling water for 1-2 minutes to make this easier)
1/8 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
1 cup homemade or store-bought low-sodium chicken stock
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon white-wine vinegar
1/2 cup picholine olives, pitted (2 1/2 ounces)
1 small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced (use a mandoline)
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 ounce Parmesan cheese, shaved (1 cup)

Heat a medium skillet over medium-low heat with oil. Add garlic, and slowly saute for 8 – 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Turn heat to medium-high and add potatoes, onions, and red-pepper flakes. Cook until onions are golden, about 7 minutes.

Add stock, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until potatoes and onions are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove potatoes and onions with a slotted spoon. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking liquid.

Combine reserved liquid, vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Pour over warm potatoes and onions. You must do this while the potatoes are still warm to ensure maximum flavor. Stir in olives, and let cool completely.

Add fennel and parsley, and combine. Season with salt and pepper. Top with Parmesan.

Take a look at my garden after I took off the “winter blankets” yesterday. My mint, oregano, sage and chives went wild!

My herb garden – “winter blankets” removed!