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

Lunch on Friday

March 9, 2013 by Mary Frances 14 Comments

Now look at this beauty. I have some leftover red leaf lettuce underneath the baby arugula, topped with grape tomatoes, red pepper and avocado slices. If I don’t have any leftover meat, I go for a half of an avocado. So rich and creamy – comforting – like mashed potatoes to me. And that’s my new favorite garnish on top, roasted and salted pepitas. My dressing is always a simple oil and vinegar combo I bring from home. For ease, I throw it all in a jar with a mason lid and shake it up. I can literally make this in two minutes. Here is my approximate recipe, because I really don’t measure anymore.

BASIC SALAD DRESSING

1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 tbs. red wine or sherry or Champagne vinegar
scant 1/2 cup of olive oil
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a jar. Cover tightly and shake. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

To healthy eating!!

Zucchini, fennel, red pepper and mint torta

January 23, 2013 by Mary Frances 8 Comments

Several of you asked for this recipe from our “Birthday Linner”. The truth is that my older son made it up, on the spot, based on vegetables that I had in the apartment, plus some herbs from our grocery store downstairs, which does not have a broad selection, particularly on a Sunday. He originally wanted some basil but they had none. He came back with a beautiful bunch of fresh mint instead. And, I just learned last night from my fellow cooking friend, Margaret, that mint is a relative of basil, so that was a very good choice indeed.

He meant to put in fresh grated Parmesan, but forgot. But as a dish in the middle of this many-course celebration, it did not need Parmesan. The clean tasting vegetables were a welcome interlude between the pasta with spinach and Pecorino Romano cheese and the very rich and super delicious short ribs with polenta.

This son is a big cook – he just gets in there and does things! Fearless and big, that’s what I call him. He says, “Thank you!”

Here’s a stab at his recipe.

ZUCCHINI, FENNEL, RED PEPPER AND MINT TORTA
3 zucchinis
1 and 1/2 fennel bulbs
2 large red peppers
3 – 4 tbs. olive oil
Salt
Pepper
½ bunch of fresh mint leaves

Broil red peppers, checking and turning until all skin is blackened. Using tongs, place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap until cool. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Slice zucchini and fennel on a mandoline, somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. Using 1 or 2 tbs. of olive oil for each vegetable, toss separately in a bowl, with salt and pepper (test and taste for proper seasoning) and lay out each on separate baking sheets. Roast zucchini and fennel until crisp tender. Check in 20 minutes. The fennel will most likely take a little longer. This is why you keep them on separate baking sheets.

Peel the red pepper, core, remove the seeds and cut into 1 inch wide strips.
Layer the zucchini, fennel, red pepper and mint leaves in 10 inch round dish, repeating again until all is used up. Place a plate on top and weight it down to press ingredients together. We used a 28 oz. can of tomatoes with a large heavy mason jar of honey on top of the plate. Press for an hour or two. Then carefully slide the torta out, top side up, on a large round cake plate. Cut into pie wedge serving pieces and enjoy!

We used only two red peppers but three might be better. You could also add a layer of grated Parmesan cheese. We talked about that and then forget to do it.

A great bean dip

December 31, 2012 by Mary Frances 21 Comments

We all need something to eat during cocktail hour, whether your cocktail is wine or a martini. I don’t want it to be fattening or filling, but it needs to be something. I am also a big protein fan. My body, as I was told by one doctor, needs a lot of protein, so I made up this clean tasting, protein-laden dip, with vegetables as the dipping device. This is great for any party, particularly New Year’s Eve!

MARY’S BEAN DIP

One 16 oz can of cannellini beans, drained, rinsed and drained
2 – 3 rounded tbs. hot horseradish, with juice drained, let your taste decide amount
3 tbs. olive oil
1/2 head of roasted garlic
1/2 of a lemon squeezed – add gradually and taste
1 tsp. ground cumin
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
3 tbs. chopped fresh parsley
Olive oil to drizzle on top
Cumin powder to sprinkle on top

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Take one head of garlic and slice the whole thing in half, horizontally. Place on aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Close up the two halves on top of one another and make a tight closed packet with the foil. Roast for 45 minutes to one hour until the garlic is soft and brown. (You can use the other half for many things – add to mashed potatoes, vegetables, anything!)

Place beans, horseradish, olive oil and squeeze 1/2 head of the garlic cloves into the bowl of a food processor and process until chunky. Add half of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cumin and process again and taste. Add more lemon if you like and process until a nice smooth consistency. Use more olive oil if you need to, to make it smooth. Add the parsley at the very end and pulse just once or twice. You just want the parsley distributed throughout the dip. Alternatively, you can fold it in by hand.

Place in a bowl to serve, drizzle on more olive oil and sprinkle some more cumin on top.

Serve with fresh fennel, celery, red pepper, endive spears or any other fresh dipping vegetables you like.
You can’t have a more LOVING presentation than this! This hand bowl was a gift from our friends Carl and Roger – from the MoMA Design Store – isn’t it great?!!

A disaster!

January 11, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

So I came home last night, all pumped to make this Classic Chicken Teriyaki recipe I had read about in the January issue of Food and Wine magazine.

I have all the ingredients but the sauce seems a little too sweet to me, but then again, what do I know about classic Japanese cooking – nada! However, 1/3 cup of sugar, mirin and sake all at once, with chicken broth and soy sauce sounds like a lot of sugar. So you’re supposed to boil this mixture for 20 minutes and reduce it down to 1/2 cup. Well, at about the 12 minute mark, I had turned away from stirring and was at the sink for a moment and suddenly it started smelling bad – like burnt sugar. I whip around, try to stir this mixture and it is suddenly a hard, dark black mass of concrete!! I take it to the sink, knowing it’s ruined and run water into the pot – it is awful and disgusting and suddenly the room starts to fill up with a thick smoke and smell terribly and I’m convinced that not only have I ruined our dinner but I’ve also completely ruined and charred my All-Clad pot. Booooo. What a disaster!!

And now it’s late and we have no dinner. Fortunately, that was just the sauce but I have to think quick and get moving. So I decide to make a one dish meal, combining the sliced garlic, bok choy, boneless, skinless chicken thighs (which I cut into strips), and red pepper rings all together. I season it with Tamari sauce, 1/2 of a jalapeno pepper sliced thin, and then I add in 3 heaping tablespoons of shallots confit from France that my friend, Mary Beth, brought over one night. I wanted to achieve a salty, hot, sweet combination, and quick! So I was grabbing at what seemed good and was handy.

The dish was amazing! Probably much better than any Chicken Teriyaki could have ever been. Unfortunately this Shallot Confit has a lot of wonderful ingredients like black current cream and wine and olive oil and a touch of lemon juice so I can’t really tell you how to duplicate this recipe unless you have this handmade stuff. But the picture looks pretty, doesn’t it?

Regarding the teriyaki sauce, I guess the heat was too high and it should have been simmering rather than boiling but still, that’s a little sensitive, don’t you think? My dear husband did manage to get the pot clean, but boy, he scraped out this thick black stuff that was thick and shiny on the outside. It actually looked like car paint. Maybe I invented a new process to make plastic?!?

Chicken teriyaki disaster on a white plate.

Served plate of “chicken teriyaki disaster”

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

Lunch on Friday

Zucchini, fennel, red pepper and mint torta

A great bean dip

A disaster!

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