I Love You Recipes

If you enjoy spicy foods, try this lively side dish recipe. Small roasted red potatoes team up with mustard and cayenne for a burst of flavor to create a memorable meal.

2-1/2 – 3 pounds small red potatoes, less than 2″ in diameter
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1-1/2 – 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped

You will need two roast pans for this recipe. I find that shallow jellyroll cake pans work perfectly. Situate your oven racks so that one is in the upper third of the oven and the other in the lower third of the oven. Preheat your roasting pans in a 475° oven for 8 – 10 minutes before adding potatoes.

Place the butter in a small saucepan near an oven vent to begin melting.

Wash, dry and quarter the potatoes. Put the potatoes in a large bowl and sprinkle with 1-1/2 teaspoons of the salt, add the vegetable oil and toss to coat. While the potatoes bake, wash the bowl and set aside to use in the finishing step.

Place the potatoes, cut side down, on the preheated roasting pans and bake for 12 – 15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove one pan at a time from the oven and flip the potatoes so their remaining white side is against the pan. Return the pan that was on the high rack to the low rack and vice versa to assure even baking. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender and the white surfaces become golden.

While the potatoes finish roasting, move the butter to a burner and whisk in the vinegar, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon of the cayenne and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Taste and adjust the cayenne to your liking.

When the potatoes have finished roasting, transfer them to the large bowl. Add the hot butter mixture and parsley; toss to coat.

Yield: 10 – 12 servings.

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Ham can be a great value for the family on a budget. Ham and Swiss cheese are a classic combination for this easy casserole recipe.

1 pastry crust, prepared and fitted into pie pan

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1-1/4 cup Swiss cheese, grated
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cooked ham, diced
2 tablespoons diced pimentos

Melt the butter over medium heat; blend in flour and nutmeg. Add the milk and stir constantly until it thickens. Add 1 cup of the grated cheese and stir until it melts. Allow the sauce to cool slightly. Temper the eggs by adding a couple of tablespoons of the cooled sauce to the eggs; mix well. Add the tempered eggs to the sauce, mix well. Add the diced ham and pimentos to the sauce and stir to coat. Pour your mixture into the pastry shell.

Bake in a 375° oven for 30 minutes. Sprinkle top with the remaining 1/4 cup of Swiss cheese and allow the casserole to set for 10 minutes before serving.

Yield: 6 – 8 servings.

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Recipes for using leftover holiday ham are great to have on hand. You can enjoy this Sherried Ham and Eggs with Swiss cheese for breakfast, brunch or a quick supper.

8 slices ham, cooked
16 eggs
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/4 cup dry sherry
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 cups grated Swiss cheese
2 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley, optional garnish

Preheat oven to 400°.

Butter 8 ramekins and place a slice of ham in the bottom of each and place on a baking pan. Without breaking the yolks, break two eggs into a small bowl. Slide eggs, two by two, onto the ham in each ramekin. Breaking into a small bowl will allow for easier removal of broken yolks or stray egg shell. If your egg breaking skills are superior, skip the extra bowl

Stir together the half-and-half, sherry, Worcestershire sauce and cayenne. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of the mixture over the eggs in each ramekin.

Place the pan of ramekins in the hot oven and bake for approximately 6 minutes. You’re looking for sunny side up eggs with set, but not cooked, whites. Add a sprinkling of grated cheese to each ramekin and continue baking for 3 – 5 minutes. Now you’re looking for firm whites, but you don’t want them or the yolks to become hard.

Warm the remaining cream and sherry mixture (I set the bowl near the oven exhaust vent) and pour a little of the warmed mixture over each ramekin, garnish with parsley just before serving.

Yield: 8 servings

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Calypso Rice with Cashew Nuts is a bright and tasty recipe with great textures. It’s a surprising side dish and makes a perfect light lunch.

2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 Golden Delicious apple
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, sliced
1 cup uncooked long grain rice
1/2 cup raisins
2 cups apple juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dry roasted cashew nut halves

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over low heat. Add the apple and curry powder. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove the apple and set aside. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the onions and celery to the pan. Cook for one minute, stirring constantly.

Add the rice, raisins, apple juice and salt to the pan and bring to a boil. Cover tightly and reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Cook for 15 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. Gently stir the apple and nuts into the rice.

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I decided to go out for breakfast.

My regular place was packed. Wanna-be eaters had spilled onto the street. Eaters, I guess unnerved by so many eyeballs and tongues pressed against the windows, were shoveling it down like piranhas at a buffalo crossing. Waitresses were blurs, and sweating like Sumo wrestlers. No, thanks!

So I asked a stranger on the street who looked like he knew his way around a pancake, if he knew a place close by that was good. He pointed toward first one and then a second spot that were in opposite directions. I picked the one that was downhill.

Same story, only less so. The line outside was maybe ten minutes long, the timbre inside like feeding time for goldfish. After a short wait, I scored a counter seat.

Now you have to understand something about this place. It was kind of French. The art on the walls was of umbrellas and bicycles and of cars that looked like they’d sucked a lemon, all rendered in wispy inks that I’m sure contained meanings that I didn’t understand, but which Sartre could have elaborated upon for five or six-hundred pages, which I wouldn’t have understood, either. Staff obviously sensed that my education was hayseed, because I didn’t get a menu or so much as a glass of water for so long that I feared I would hatch my stool.

Then someone I suspected was the proprietor, who’d gone out of his way to not notice me, started staring. Then suddenly he was on me like a bee on a bear with a jaw full of hive. No matter which way I looked, he turned up with a Cheshire Cat grin and a jug of water or another napkin or a new fork or a knife or spoon…though I still hadn’t ordered a thing.

I’d noticed him get excited and speak to his staff. I’d thought maybe George W. had floated through the door, and had even turned and looked. Though all I’d spotted was a skinny kid in a frayed shirt that said something about not being able to dance with nuclear arms. So I’d returned to playing eye ping-pong with the waitresses and hoping for some service. Then he’d arrived with that smile and his bucket of water and his stash of silverware and paper products, and all of a sudden I almost couldn’t breath, for all the service I was getting.

“You’re the Phantom, aren’t you?” he whispered as two waitresses elbowed each other to give me a menu and the busboy stood by with another two gallons of water.

“Huh?” Surprise had locked down the rest of my vocabulary.

“The Phantom. You’re He, aren’t you?” He was nearly slobbering on my knuckles.

“No!” I swore.

He smiled wider and nodded almost imperceptibly, implying that the two of us had our little secret, and he glided away. Though I felt his eyes for every moment that I remained in that place of bad service and wimpy paintings and, I have to admit, pretty darn good food, once I got some.

I never went back and I never found out who or what is the Phantom, though I’m guessing he’s a restaurant critic. I am sure though that he casts a long shadow, at least in one restaurant I know. Because I must have been offered a dozen more glasses of water and barely had time to chew between answering, “No, I don’t need anything more,” before I escaped through the door.