Mary Anne here. The inspiration for this soup actually came to me in October when the hospital where I work ladled up a delicious blend of apples and fennel for “Food Day.” I wanted to recreate it precisely, but since fennel can be pricey in these parts, I opted to divine the soup with a[…]
Sun-Dried Tomato Caprese with Smoked Mozzarella
Sun-Dried Tomato Caprese with Smoked Mozzarella Tip: You can prepare this up to 2 days before. Bring the tomato mixture back to room temperature before serving. Store the toasted baguette rounds in a sealed plastic container. Serves 10 Ingredients: 4 ozs. sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil – $2.49 2 cloves garlic, minced – stock 1[…]
Crispy Kale Chips
Mary Anne here. This fall, I spent a glorious eight hours up north in horse country with my favorite girl, Mariel. I just love those quiet, mom-daughter days. On this particular adventure, we stopped for coffee on the way and, while sipping from our paper cups, we perused the goodies at a local farm stand.[…]
Lacy Florentine Cookies with Almonds and Chocolate
Mariel here. With Santa arriving in less than a week, it seemed only logical to post a cookie for this month’s Secret Recipe Club. I took a stroll on over to My Danish Cooking, which chronicle’s Gitte’s endeavors to keep her Danish traditions alive while living with her husband and grown son in the US.[…]
Spinach-Ricotta Spread on Crispy Parmesan Squares
I’ve become a serious deadbeat in the kitchen. Apparently my culinary inspiration has gone the way of the Walkman and every week I scratch my head over what to make for Feast. Stew Leonard’s prepared foods have become my new bestie – ditto for Progresso soups and frozen ravioli – and gone are the days[…]
Old-Fashioned Hermit Cookies
Mary Anne here. Hermit cookies are hands-down my ex-husband’s favorite treat. Tim is very conscientious about his diet, but when it comes to eating these chewy gems, all thoughts of eschewing sugar are cast aside. When a certain baking company stopped mass-producing the bars a few years back, I swear he was bereft. He needn’t[…]
Glazed Carrots with Ginger and Fresh Orange Juice
Mary Anne here. Mariel is right – when it comes to our Thanksgiving feast, it’s all about the side dishes. I have to admit, I’ve gotten into a bit of a rut in terms of trying out new veggies, but who wants to mess with success and risk disappointing the “kids” on such an important[…]
Gingersnap Cheesecake
Mariel here. The women in my family are queens of the cheesecake. If you haven’t already given my grandmother’s versions a spin – both the chocolate and the regular – you better hop to. My mom has become a cheesecake pro in her own right and regularly dishes up these treats for her nearest and[…]
Popovers aka Yorkshire Pudding
Mary Anne here. So here at last is my final installment to our Sunday dinner of Roast Beef and Horseradish Cream with Haricots Vert and Roasted Shallots. One Christmas, when I was still the proud mother of two (number three was my post-New year’s surprise!), we hosted a lovely family from London for the holidays.[…]
Roast Beef with Horseradish Cream
Mary Anne here. I must confess, I am not an ardent carnivore, but some of my warmest childhood memories center around Sunday family dinners. Oftentimes my mom would pull out all the stops and serve her bawdy brood a rare roast beef complete with all the trimmings. In those days, we ate gravy and butter[…]
Spiced Cheddar Cheese Twists
Spiced Cheddar Cheese Twists Makes about 3 ½ dozen Note: You can see in the photo some of these are twists while others were fashioned as the straw variety. I was simply playing with length, width and shape and found that a 6 or 7-inch long straw works best as the longer ones tend to[…]
Black Bean and Candied Sweet Potato Soup
Mary Anne here. Black beans were on sale at my local grocer and so I decided to take these beauties out for a spin. Most – if not all – of the bean soups I’ve sampled are pretty predictable in a sort of monosyllabic way. But as I considered my seasonal culinary options, visions of[…]
Potato and Canadian Bacon Galette with Sage and Gruyere
Mary Anne here. Mariel’s recent complaint about mayo-laden potato and macaroni salads got me thinking about this old catering standard of scalloped potatoes and cheese. But first, a little reminiscing. When I was a young girl, my mom used to dish up “Au Gratin Potatoes” when she was feeling gourmet-ish. Her genuinely thoughtful attempt at[…]
Michael’s Black-Eyed Pea Salad with Crunchy Scallions and Fresh Cilantro
Mary Anne here. Well, it seems Michael is getting the hang of contributing to our little blog. This afternoon, in preparation for the holiday weekend, he whipped up this salad (it’s become a standard in our home) and actually WROTE DOWN the measurements – yippee!! Michael is a pretty cute guy and I think he[…]
Memorial Day Recipe Ideas
I took a look at last year’s holiday menu and realized that we’ve added a boatload of family-friendly Memorial Day recipe ideas for this weekend’s start-of-summer feast. While we tend to stick to tradition when it comes to our own Memorial Day “picnic” – Deviled Eggs, Barbeque Spare Ribs, Southern Fried Chicken and Macaroni Salad[…]
Spicy Cheddar and Chutney Palmiers
Mary Anne here. It would seem that I’m on a puff-pastry binge these days, but I’ve got a pretty good excuse. Mariel and I are busy with a flurry of catering activity, whether it’s dishing up cocktail fare or composing menus for clients for everything from buffet dinners to week-long private chef requests. No wonder[…]
Puff Pastry Bites with Stilton, Fig Jam, and Candy-Glazed Walnuts
Mary Anne here. Living in the Northeast, this wickedly wild winter left me wanting to hibernate. And while our spring has certainly had its fair share of dark and dreary days, we’ve also enjoyed intermittent bouts of sunshine and warmth. I am SO ready for real spring weather that I’m determined to dust off the[…]
Gluten-Free Chocolate Mousse Cake
Mary Anne here. Ah…the holidays are upon us once again, and this year Passover and Easter arrive within a week of each other. As I’ve written in the past, when my mom married my step-dad, George, the Ellicott brood donned both Easter bonnets on Sunday and Yarmulkes on Friday night (the boys, of course!). And[…]
Corned Beef and Cabbage with a Boozy Peach Glaze (a.k.a New England Boiled Dinner)
Mary Anne here. In general, I prefer to prepare most meals from scratch and that includes brining a fresh piece of brisket for homemade Corned Beef. But alas, my day job is interfering with my true love, our little blog, and I simply didn’t have the four days required for brining the beef. Thankfully, my[…]
Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Crabmeat
Mary Anne here. So I guess it seems I’m in splurge-mode these days, while my dutiful daughter has been shopping her market’s sale shelves. That being said, I do have a pretty good excuse for this pricey dish: I was serving my Osso Bucco to very special guests (Mariel, my niece, and their respective husbands!).[…]