Simple, Nutritious Tostadas

Lightly fried in safflower oil, these corn tortillas are topped with fat-free refried beans that have been seasoned with New Mexico chile-powder. A refreshing garnish for these tostadas is made with lemon juice, olive oil, cilantro, romaine lettuce, grated carrots, roasted jalapeños and finely-diced red onion (optional).
Courtesy of M-J de Mesterton ©2013

Granola Balls

Compact and therefore neat to eat, these granola balls contain oats, oat bran, walnuts, ground almonds, a little buckwheat flour, one egg, coconut oil, cold tea, barley malt, sea-salt and spices. It doesn't matter very much what you put in these, as long as they are oat-based and moist enough to hold together (a purely vegan version would omit the egg). Additions include dried pineapple bits, currants, coconut shreds, diced dates, muscovado sugar, sesame seeds and other nuts. I baked these granola balls at 350° F. The mixed ingredients are shaped with a cookie baller/Swedish meatballer. ©M-J de Mesterton 2013 Click Here to Read M-J's Main Website, Elegant Survival

Angel-Food Cake with Strawberries and Cream

A slice of angel food cake is adorned with fresh strawberries and whipped cream applied with a pastry bag, for an easy-to-prepare, elegant dessert. This angel food cake was store-bought, as it is challenging to produce at home. Serve strawberries-and-cream on any sort of vanilla or white cake to create a brilliant ending to luncheon or dinner.
Courtesy of Jeanne "M-J" de Mesterton ©2013

Elegant Dining: Tablecloth Size-Chart

Choosing the Proper TABLECLOTH SIZES		Fabric or Linen, Total Sizes
		70" Round	90" Round	108" Round	120" Round	132" Round
Table Size, with a Standard 30" Height	30" Round	20" Drop	To the Floor	Too Large	Too Large	Too Large
	36" Round	17" Drop	27" Drop	Too Large	Too Large	Too Large
	42"  Round	14" Drop	24" Drop	Too Large	Too Large	Too Large
	48" Round	11" Drop	21" Drop	To the Floor	Too Large	Too Large
	54" Round	8" Drop	18" Drop	27" Drop	Too Large	Too Large
	60" Round		15" Drop	24" Drop	30" Drop	Too Large
	66" Round		12" Drop	21" Drop	27" Drop	Too Large
	72" Round			18" Drop	24" Drop	30" Drop

The typical size for 10-person table is 72" round.

A white tablecloth is formal, while a coloured or black one is less-formal, and a patterned cloth is casual. White-on-white weaves  such as brocade, jacquard or white embroidered on white cloth make very elegant formal tablecloths.

©M-J de Mesterton 2013

Super-Nutritious Smoothies

Jeanne's Smoothie-Boosters for a Cancer-Preventing, Liver-Detoxifying, Health-Promoting Breakfast Drink:

Snip off a leaf of aloe vera per day and incorporate it into your morning health-drink.

Dumplings and Dipping Sauce

Yesterday's dumplings or gyoza were filled with mung beans, water chestnuts, celery, red onion and ginger, all processed in a mini-prep Cuisinart. For a dipping-sauce, I combined hand-squeezed orange juice, organic shoyu sauce, and home-made red-chile sesame oil. I also offered Edmond Fallot authentic moutarde de Dijon.

Courtesy of M-Jeanne de Mesterton, The Elegant Cook

Won Ton Skins are dipped in water and laid on a cutting board for a few minutes to soften before filling, which makes them easier to crimp. Then, filling is applied to the centre of each skin using a teaspoon or Swedish "meatballer" before the dumplings are folded over and sealed. As you see here, the dumplings/gyoza do not necessarily all look alike when finished. My gyoza are sautéed on each side in safflower and/or sesame oil until golden brown. These dumplings may be steamed after frying by adding a half-cup of water or green tea to the pan and covering with heat for three minutes, or just be dipped or drenched with sauce. A sprinkling of gomasio or toasted, salted sesame seeds is a welcome garnish for these simple dumplings. Dumplings are a great vehicle for leftover meats, beans and vegetables. "Necessity is the Mother of Invention", and with your chosen leftovers or ingredients combined into a dumpling, you may just invent a family-favourite.

Courtesy of M-Jeanne de Mesterton, The Elegant Cook

Traditional Brioche

Click to Visit M-J’s Brioche-Making Pictorial and Recipe 

“Proper Brioche Texture”

Photos of Elegant Brioche Copyright M-J de Mesterton

Jeanne's Elegant Tofu

Marinated in Soy Sauce or Miso, Dusted with Soy Flour, then Fried in Safflower and Sesame Oils,
This Tofu Makes an Elegant Hors d’Oeuvre or a Meal
Courtesy of M-Jeanne de Mesterton, the Elegant Cook

Jeanne's Elegant Macrobiotic Apple Pie

 

Elegant Simplicity: Macrobiotic Apple Pie

Ingredients: (Crust) Organic Whole Wheat Flour, Organic Safflower Oil, Water, Sea Salt,

(Filling) Fuji Apples, Cinnamon and Brown Rice Syrup

Courtesy of M-Jeanne de Mesterton, the Elegant Cook

Protect Food with Simmer-Mat on the Stove

My black Dutch oven is sitting upon a simmer-mat that has been placed on the back burner. The metal accessory is also known as a "flame-deflector." This inexpensive, invaluable tool protects the pot and its contents from scorching, while slow-cooking at low temperatures. Many cookers just cannot be set low enough to prevent burning foods or even destroying the vessels in which they are cooked. Simmer pads solve that problem in an easy and elegant manner.

©Jeanne "M-J" de Mesterton

A Great American Coffee: Starbucks' Blonde Roast

Starbucks' Blonde Willow Coffee: Do Not Confuse Light Roast with Weak Cup!

Fresh-tasting and robust, Starbucks' new Blonde Roast is coffee the way it tasted in the United States and Scandinavia before the dark-roast craze made everyone forget.... Yes, there is a good, old-fashioned coffee available in the ubiquitous Starbucks cafés, and you can take home a bag of the ground beans and brew it to your desired strength. My Scandinavian mother-in-law brought me this bag of Starbucks Blonde Willow Blend ground coffee recently, and as I made it for dessert in our French press, we passed it round the table so that we could breathe-in its lovely aroma. Usually, coffee smells better than it tastes, but not in this case--this new offering, which I brewed using two tablespoons per cup because we Scandinavians prefer it strongly-brewed--tastes delightful (many who patronise Starbucks confuse strongly-brewed with darkly-roasted, and they are two vastly different things).

©Jeanne "M-J" de Mesterton

Elegant Cheese from Ireland

Ballyshannon is a flavourful Cheddar style cheese that is soft and properly crumbly at room-temperature.
Dubliner, also made in Ireland by Kerrygold, is a rich, mild and clean-tasting cow's milk cheese.
©Jeanne "M-J" de Mesterton, THE ELEGANT COOK, 2012

Low-Carb Green Chile Cheeseburger

Shape and fry hamburgers (I use a Green Pan from Belgium), then array them in a baking dish. Spread a light layer of mayonnaise over the burgers. Cover them with chopped green chiles (Hatch or Old El Paso brands). A few shreds of chopped pickle may be added to the chiles. Bake for fifteen minutes. Remove from oven and top with shredded cheese (I used Colby-Jack blend here). Bake again until the cheese atop your green chile cheeseburgers is melted, or browned if you prefer. These green chile burgers are so sumptuous that they are edible without buns, making them a low-carb main dish.

Recipe and Photos Copyright ©M-J de Mesterton

M-J's Elegant Spinach Salad

M-J;s Spinach Salad features bacon, toasted walnuts and Parmesan cheese, in a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.
©M-J de Mesterton 2012

Elegant Beefsteak Fajitas

Beefsteak strips are seasoned (combine your choice of chile powders, comino, seasoning salt and/or onion and garlic powders; shake in a bag to coat meat bits) and fried in olive oil, then served on a sautéed flour tortilla, accompanied by yellow pear tomatoes and sliced avocado.
©M-J de Mesterton 2012

Broccoli with Cheese Sauce

Steamed broccoli is set in a buttered Le Creuset baking dish and covered with M-J's Swiss cheese and Dijon sauce. Raw broccoli may be steamed in this baking dish by filling it 1/4 full with water after buttering, and laying in the broccoli, then covering with foil and baking for fifteen minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the foil and add the cheese sauce of your choice. Bake until lightly browned.
©M-J de Mesterton 2012

M-J's Elegant Cornish Pasties

Cornish Pasties: a Centuries-Old Austerity Food, Still Popular Today
See M-J's method in  The Elegant Cook

Elegant Smoothie for Winter Health

Broccoli, Celery, Jalapeño, Parsley and Lemon are Blended with Buttermilk or Yoghurt to Make this Elegant Smoothie

This elegant, piquant green smoothie has properties that help to prevent colds, flu, 

water-retention and cancer.

 ©M-J de Mesterton

M-J's Piquant Yam Casserole

Boiled yams, sliced fresh jalapeños, crushed pineapple and cream cheese are seasoned to your taste (I use Tajín chile-lime-salt seasoning from México) and baked in a dish after being crushed and mixed with my Braun hand-mixer.

Courtesy of M-J de Mesterton, the Elegant Cook
Thanksgiving, 2011

Elegant Taco Salad

Cook ground beef with typical taco seasonings: chile powder, onion, and cumin (optional), or a pre-packaged taco-seasoning mix. Mash the meat while it is cooking, until fine texture has been achieved. Distribute taco meat among individual bowls. Decorate with tortilla sections or chips, shredded cheese (Cheddar, Monterey Jack or Colby are good choices), tomatoes, lettuce and avocados. Garnish with sour cream or offer ranch-style dressing at table

©M-J de Mesterton 2011

M-J's Roast Beef Salad

Lettuce, Sliced Roast Beef, Thinly Sliced Parmesan Cheese, Balsamic Vinegar, and Olive Oil
©M-J de Mesterton

Elegant Home-Made Lasagne

Egg-based "fresh pasta" is hung to dry on the handle of my stainless-steel kitchen cart, after being rolled and cut by hand. It will be boiled and set into a rectangular pan on top of a layer of meat sauce, covered with a ricotta-cheese mixture, which will then be covered with more of this pasta, on top of which will go some more meat sauce, pasta and béchamel (balsamella) sauce. See Elegant Cook for my recipes.

Here is the assemblage of lasagne and fillings, ready to bake:

M-J's Tahini and Cucumber Canapés

Making the canapé cups from Guerrero Fresqui-Ricas thin, raw tortillas is easy. Coat them with olive oil on both sides, cut into small round shapes (I use an empty tomato-paste can) and place in a mini-muffin pan, then bake them in a moderately hot oven until puffy and light brown. Mix tahini with lemon juice and seasoning salt. Using a pastry bag, fill the puffy areas of the cups with this sauce, or simply spread it onto their surfaces. Top these with pieces of cucumber.

©M-J de Mesterton

Dessert Brioche

M-J's Brioche Dough, Dipped in Egg-Wash and Rolled in Sugar
See Elegant Cook for M-J's Original Brioche Recipe

Home-Made Brioche

See Elegant Cook for M-J's Original Brioche Recipe

It Was a Very Good Year

Review of 2008 Domaine la Blaque Coteaux de Pierrevert by Jon Rimmerman

Gevalia Kaffe at American Markets

Kraft Foods corporation have chosen to market Gevalia, the favourite coffee of Sweden, known for its traditional medium-roast. The Swedes' own Gevalia Kaffe brand will be available this summer at more than 20,000 retailers throughout the United States.

Gevalia, a $400 million-dollar global mail-order Swedish brand, has long had a following in the U.S.A. "Gevalia is known and loved by millions who've purchased it online because it delivers on its promise of rich, smooth taste that's never bitter," said Domenic Borrelli, Vice President of Kraft's U.S. coffee-branch. "We're telling retailers the good news now. And, we're confident the convenience of being able to purchase Gevalia in stores will attract and delight an entirely new audience of discriminating coffee lovers."

Kraft Foods has a $5 billion global coffee-purveying business, which includes the  French brand Carte Noire and Jacobs from Germany.

Kraft said that Swedes drink more coffee than citizens in almost any other country (rivaling Finland, another Scandinavian country), adding that Gevalia Kaffe is the top Swedish coffee brand. Gevalia is the official coffee of the Swedish Royal Court.

In my opinion, having drunk Gevalia Kaffe for half of my life, it is the natural antidote for popular over-roasted varieties that seem to all taste the same (Starbucks' wide variety of dark roasts that are indistinguishable from one another comes to mind, all naturally-occurring flavours having been systematically burnt out of existence). The current coffee monotony will soon be passé. Americans will soon be able to taste real, high-quality coffee without establishing a mail-order contract with Gevalia. That is great news for coffee-connoisseurs!

©M-J de Mesterton 2011

Elegant Pot-Roast

Elegant Pot Roast of Beef
I marinated the beef for two days in Burgundy wine. Then I dried it off, dusted it with salt, pepper and flour and in a hot, buttered Dutch oven, browned the meat. I added herbes de Provence, summer savoury, chopped onion, celery, carrots and new potatoes, then doused the lot with the marinade. After simmering the pot for an hour, I added more wine to it. After two hours of cooking on low heat, I had an elegant pot roast that was fit to serve company. My photo shows it in the pre-simmering stage. Cooking with wine will usually soften the toughest cuts of meat, an important tip for these days of austerity.
©M-J de Mesterton

Elegant Japanese-Style Radish-Cucumber Salad

This refreshing and elegant cucumber-radish salad is dressed with a rice wine vinegar-honey vinaigrette.

Elegant Smoothie

One carrot, two yellow Cubanelle peppers, a quarter of a lemon, peel and pulp included; two celery stalks, five radishes, and a cup of buttermilk whirled together in a blender or food-processor make an elegant morning smoothie. This particular concoction is loaded with vitamins A and C.