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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!

Chicory salad with walnuts and parmesan

October 11, 2013 by Mary Frances 32 Comments

A head of the most beautiful chicory.

Chicory. I grew up with the smell of baked root chicory brewing with coffee that my father got from his Southern business colleagues. It’s a New Orleans favorite and he traveled there often. My mother and father just loved it and I remember that very distinctive smell. I think it made Mom and Dad feel special and exotic. No one in our St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves had ever heard of it in those days. So just recently, on this past Father’s day, my son made a warm wilted green salad of chicory to go with his Beef Wellington he made for my husband. It was a riff on a recipe from Tyler Florence. Tyler wants you to use Swiss chard, radicchio or escarole. I liked my son’s choice of chicory much better. I loved that salad so much that I have tinkered with it and made this chicory salad with walnuts and parmesan mine.

Chicory is a bitter green but with the dressing of warm honey and balsamic vinegar, it combats the sharpness and just makes the whole thing interesting and a bit addictive. Then adding the chopped toasted walnuts along with a bite here and there with a sliver of Parmigiano Reggiano, and well, I think you have a little bit of heaven in your mouth.

At our upstate farmer’s market last week, they had the biggest, most beautiful head of chicory. I was smitten and grabbed it up and starting excitedly telling the farmer about my recipe and what I was going to do with it. Suddenly, I noticed that everyone around was listening and taking notes. The farmer was so happy to hear my recipe as he said that most folks just don’t know what to do with chicory. Poor misunderstood thing, it needs some new positioning as a favorite wilted salad green, as it is mine. Try this and you’ll fall in LOVE too!Chicory in a bowl with shallots.

WILTED CHICORY SALAD WITH WALNUTS AND PARMESAN – serves 3 – 4

1/8 cup honey
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup of toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 medium or ½ large head of chicory, washed, spun dry and cut into 1½” pieces
1 shallot, very thinly sliced
½  tbs. grainy mustard
½  cup extra-virgin olive oil
Parmesan cheese shavings, for garnish

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place walnuts in a baking dish and toast for 7 – 8 minutes. When you can just begin to smell them, remove from the oven and let cool on a cutting board. Coarsely chop and set aside.

Cook honey and balsamic together over medium-high heat in a small saute pan, about 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk. Do not let it boil. Pile chopped chicory and sliced shallots in a large salad bowl.  Whisk the grainy mustard into the balsamic-honey dressing, then whisk in the extra-virgin olive oil. Season the dressing with salt and pepper to taste and pour over greens and shallots. Toss. Toss in toasted chopped walnuts, and garnish with shavings of Parmesan and serve immediately.

Enjoy!
Warm wilted chicory salad with chopped toasted walnuts and parmesan cheese with a honey balsamic dressing.

Now because these greens are so sturdy, the leftovers even held up for the next day. Of course they weren’t as good as when first made but they were still respectable. I do have one sister-in-law who loves a day old salad, all wilted and wet. I guess it’s an acquired taste?

 

 

Filed Under: Dinner, First Course, Lunch, Salads Tagged With: chicory, chicory salads, honey and balsamic vinegar dressing, parmesan slivers, toasted walnuts, warm salads, wilted salads

Figs wrapped in prosciutto

July 6, 2013 by Mary Frances 25 Comments

Figs are here!! I LOVE fresh figs. I get so excited when I see those compartmentalized boxes filled with the beautiful purple variety or the green, all lined up in neat little rows. If they are semi-soft – ripe, unblemished with a beautiful shape and stem, I’m pretty much in heaven.

That was the case a few days ago and I made the little first course you see below. This is not so much a recipe, but a suggestion of the combination of great ingredients to make a fantastic dish. Once again, this is all about the ingredients. If the figs are great, the prosciutto from Italy (de Parma) and very thinly sliced; the English Stilton, divine; the walnuts, super fresh and toasted; great quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar; then you are set to make something truly amazing! It’s easy and you always should have the good quality ingredients on hand as much as you can – you will use less of them, because they pack more flavor and they’re most likely better for you.Figs wrapped with proscuitto topped with Stilton, toasted walnuts, olive oil and balsamic vinegar on a white plate.

FIGS WRAPPED IN PROSCUITTO – serves 2

4 fresh purple or green figs, washed, dried, stemmed and cut in half
2 slices of prosciutto
2 thin slices of English Stilton cheese, crumbled
6 toasted walnut halves, chopped (Oven “toast” at 375 degrees in a cake pan for six to eight minutes – you will probably smell them, then take them out. Toast extra to have on hand for the next time or for green beans.)
Good quality, extra virgin olive oil
Good quality balsamic vinegar, preferable aged, but not necessary

For two plates, place 4 fig halves on each. Take the slice of prosciutto and tear into 4 pieces and wrap around each fig half. Sprinkle on the Stilton and chopped walnut pieces. Drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil (like a tsp. on each plate) and then drizzle with a tiny bit of vinegar too (a few drops). Serve immediately and listen to your guest tell you how much he/she LOVES you!Chilled gin martini.Now, we have been upstate all week, taking a little R and R. Look at this beautiful martini my husband made me!! (my kind of R and R!)

 

 

Filed Under: Appetizers, Dinner, First Course, Meat Tagged With: balsamic vinegar, chilled dry gin martini, English Stilton cheese, figs, figs wrapped in proscuitto, first course, martini, olive oil, perfect summer dish, toasted walnuts

Our celebration/bon voyage family dinner party

June 9, 2013 by Mary Frances 28 Comments

I have been wanting to tell you about this for some time now. The Friday of Memorial Day weekend, we decided to throw an impromptu dinner party with just our family. We suddenly realized we had so much to celebrate! Our oldest is loving his new job, his girlfriend was leaving for Kuala Lumpur the next day to give a presentation during a convention there, our youngest, Zach was leaving for Vienna on Sunday to study German for six weeks and then vacation in Poland and Eastern Europe. Agata, his Polish girlfriend, just became a US citizen that week and her birthday was the next day! So we definitely needed a party, right?

So rather than going to the country on Friday afternoon, we stayed in the city and went grocery shopping. Everyone pitched in and after arriving home at 6:30 pm with the groceries, we had a full three course dinner to sit down to at 8:30 and we even had appetizers before. While we shopped, Zach and Agata set the table and sliced gobs of garlic for the mushrooms and the tatsoi. I wanted to do red snapper fillets and my fish market was too busy to deliver to me so I asked my Brooklynite son if he could hook up with his fish monger. He didn’t call to answer – he just texted me this picture!Fish monger filleted a whole Red Snapper in Brooklyn, NY.

We started with a leftover hummus dip that I had made earlier in the week and a wonderful store bought artichoke dip with vegetable dipping sticks and some crostini. The girls put together the pancetta wrapped mushrooms and I grilled those in a grill pan while the beets were roasting, rice was steaming, arugula and tatsoi were being washed. Corn nuts and toasted almonds rounded out the cocktail hour.Pancetta wrapped mushrooms that have been stuffed with garlic and grilled.

Roasted red and golden beets on a bed of arugula with toasted walnuts, gorgonzola and a sherry vinaigrette.Here’s our salad to start – roasted golden and red beets on a bed of arugula topped with toasted walnuts, Gorgonzola cheese and a sherry vinaigrette. My husband picked a beautiful Pinot Noir to go with the whole dinner.Roasted red snapper fillet with tomatoes, baby artichoke hearts, olive oil and oregano with steamed parsley buttered rice and garlic sauteed tatsoi on a burgandy rimmed plate.

Our main course was red snapper fillets topped with olive oil, salt and pepper, a little dried Greek oregano, sliced plum tomatoes and thawed frozen baby artichoke halves, all oven roasted. I finished the fish with a drizzle of O & CO Olive Oil with Lemon and served it with steamed Jasmine rice on which I had drizzled some melted unsalted butter with chopped parsley. Everyone oohed and awed at the rice. (Sometimes just a little bit of good butter suddenly makes it special.)

And the sautéed tatsoi with olive oil and garlic was a huge hit. I found that at this little farmers market by my office, right outside of the mayor’s building, City Hall. I’m sure it was just picked that morning in New Jersey. The greens were amazing! And of course the fish was so fresh and so delicious! It could have stood on its own with just olive oil and salt and pepper.Bowl of vanilla ice cream with Swedish butter cookies spread with Nutella.

Dessert had to be simple – Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream with Swedish butter cookies spread with Nutella. Simple, but really good! (Who doesn’t like Nutella?)

Many toasts were had and we all sang the Star Spangled Banner to Agata, which put her in tears. She and her mom are so happy to be citizens and they can even still keep their Polish passports. God Bless America followed while we all cleaned up. Sing-a–longs are just so much fun! It was a wonderful LOVE filled party.

P. S. Everyone arrived safely to their destinations, thank Goodness.

I share this story with you to encourage you to not let a spur of the moment reason to celebrate pass you by because of some silly justification, such as that you hadn’t planned it. We all need to celebrate these special moments in life. Dinners don’t always have to be a big deal with numerous recipes. All of this I just made up on the fly (when you cook a lot, this is easy to do; if you don’t, check back with me and I’ll keep sharing my secrets) and I used some good store bought items (the dip, the frozen artichokes, the whole dessert). The quality of your ingredients do matter – the fish was so darn fresh, and good quality olive oil and finishing butter also matter, along with super fresh vegetables. With these you can have a feast, made simple, as long as it’s made with LOVE. The real point is about getting people together to celebrate the good times, the accomplishments, the travel, whatever is on your plate (no pun intended). Sure, you could even order up food, but if you make it yourself, you also get the bonus time of everyone working and being together in the kitchen. Why is it that even with large parties, everyone always ends up in the kitchen? Because kitchen parties are always the best, because that’s where the real co-creation happens!

Filed Under: Dinner, Fish Tagged With: baby arugula, gorgonzola cheese, Jasmine rice with parsley butter, Nutella, O & CO olive oil with lemon, red snapper fillets, roasted red and yellow beets, sherry vinaigrette, Swedish butter cookies, tatsoi, toasted walnuts

Mother’s Day!

May 15, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

It is my all-time favorite holiday. I get to feel like a queen and do whatever I want for the day and my boys and husband are just the BEST!

This past Sunday I woke up to a dining room table set for four, which meant that my oldest son was even joining us for brunch! The younger one made fabulous waffles from scratch, with maple syrup from upstate New York, thanks to our friend Mary Beth who was just over for dinner and brought it as a gift! The meal was complete with artisanal sausage and tea.

And now dinner was amazing. They had asked me what I wanted and I said, “Surprise me!”

They started with a baby arugula salad with roasted beets, toasted walnuts and English Stilton. Yum! The main course was swordfish steaks, stuffed with a parsley, anchovy, caper, pesto sauce and topped with it too (a Mark Bittman recipe) and a quinoa vegetable dish that the younger one made up and promises to share. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with sauteed figs in butter with a vanilla bean, plus my husband supplied some fantastic chocolate truffles. But the boys did everything! I could truly taste the LOVE – everything was scrumptious! I am very lucky.

And then dessert was followed by gifts! A totally fantastic day!

Baby arugula, roasted beets, toasted walnuts and English Stilton

Baby arugula, roasted beets, toasted walnuts and English Stilton

 

Broiled swordfish with parsley pesto and quinoa with sauteed vegetables

Broiled swordfish with parsley pesto and quinoa with sauteed vegetables

 

Ice cream and sauteed figs in a white bowl.

Ice cream with sauteed figs

 

Chocolate truffles.

Can’t you just smell the chocolate?!!

Filed Under: Breakfast, Dinner Tagged With: anchovies, arugula, capers, chocolate truffles, English Stilton, figs, ice cream, Mark Bittman, Mother's Day, parsley, pesto sauce, quinoa, roasted beets, sauteed figs, toasted walnuts, vanilla bean

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Mary Frances

Mary Frances

Spread love through cooking.

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