When I saw this in the magazine (Nov issue of Living, From My Home to Yours, starting on p. 29), I thought there is no way I am ever making that! Not only did the length of time intimidate me, but if you’ve been following along with me, then you know I can get squeamish when it comes to meat descriptions that are too closely linked to anatomy! Then Martha and Sarah prepared it for cooking school and I knew I had to give it a try.

Hitting the Stores

First things first! Shopping! My grocery bill for this was about $21(not bad). I had to get a pot though! You’re supposed to use a Dutch oven for this. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t have one. I went to Target first, and they had nothing! Next I went to TJ Maxx. They had the cast iron enameled Dutch ovens like Martha uses for about $50, but they were so heavy!! Not to mention they didn’t have blue which was what I really wanted (yes, it all hinges on color coordination – see! I am just like Martha!). I just couldn’t imagine myself humping that heavy thing around the kitchen (I think you could break your foot if you dropped it, seriously), so I went with a lighter metal Dutch oven for $30.

Getting Started

I decided to make this for Sunday dinner. Let me say here I have never braised anything and didn’t really know what the term meant. I have certainly browned meats before making stew, but never have I done an actual braise. I was a little skeptical of the process.

After browning

I dropped the pork shoulder in the pot to begin browning and it smelled so good! It was a little hard to turn it over to get all the sides brown, but with a little help from Mr. MarthaAndMe, it all worked out ok. As it browned, it smelled even better! There was a momentary panic when the kitchen filled with smoke, but I opened a window and turned on the vent and all was well in Marthaland.

Veggie Tales

Once that was done, it was time to saute the veggies. Another confession

Cooking the veg

here – I have never cooked with leeks or celery root! Leeks have been off limits ever since my mother tried to poison Mr. MarthaAndMe with some leek soup she made for Thanksgiving, then left on the porch overnight (thinking it was cold enough). He ate some the next day and got really sick (sorry, Mom but it’s the truth!). Leeks were a little more challenging to work with than I expected – the dirt gets inside them and you’ve got to really clean the heck out of them. I’ve never had a reason to use celery root. Parsnips I do make once in a while (I roast them with carrot and rutabaga with some oil and balsamic vinegar). The veggies cooked up nicely and I added the meat to the pot.

Hitting the Bottle?

Adding the liquid

Next it was time to add liquid.  Here was another hurdle for me! The recipe called for hard cider. I have never had hard cider in my life and have absolutely no idea where to buy it! Do you know? The local hooscow shop? I seriously have no idea. The recipe says you can substitute sparkling cider. That seemed stupid, so I just used regular cider (just one cup as directed if substituting) and used stock and a little white wine for the rest of the liquid. I boiled it and popped it in the oven.

Finishing Up

I cooked it 2 1/2 hours and strained it and added the veggies. Then I cooked

Ready for the last 30 min

it for another 30 min. When it came out it looked and smelled good. I made the beurre

Beurre manie

manie Martha is all excited about, but really, 1 tbsp of flour does not do much thickening. I like my gravies thick, so I dumped in Wondra and got it to the consistency I like.

Serving

The recipe says to pull the meat apart with a fork into pieces. I did this, but

Finished meat

really, it didn’t look very nice to put out a platter of hunks of meat. I also think this is nicer if you shred it a little more finely. I did that on my plate before eating and it made it look and taste better. This had a nice, moist consistency. The flavor was tasty. The gravy was good (although I would use more cider next time). The leeks were ok. The parsnip and celery root were good.

Shredded meat

This is not something I would serve to guests since it just does not look very appetizing with all those hunks of meat on a platter. I don’t think I would make it again. It took all afternoon to make and was kind of a big deal. I think I would rather have a pork roast than this.

Side Dish

To go along with this, I decided to make Big Martha’s Mashed Potatoes (p. 221of

Dinner is served

the Nov issue of Living). The key ingredient is cream cheese. I didn’t really care for this. I always make my mashed potatoes with sour cream and much prefer that flavor. This was too sweet somehow. They weren’t awful, just not how I like them. Overall, this was a good dinner. Mr. MarthaAndMe really enjoyed it. The 10 year old son (Mini-Martha) liked the mashies but wouldn’t eat the meat. Surprisingly, the 16 year old daughter loved it. I was lukewarm on it.

Your Thoughts

Do you think braising is an essential cooking technique everyone should know how to do? Do you braise a lot of meats? If you tried this recipe, I would love to know how it turned out for you!

When I saw this in the magazine (Nov issue of Living, From My Home to Yours, starting on p. 29), I thought there is no way I am ever making that! Not only did the length of time intimidate me, but if you’ve been following along with me, then you know I can get squeamish … Read more →

When I started this project, my family didn’t really get it. Now that I’ve been at it for a few weeks, it’s starting to sink in. Whenever I cook something now, the kids ask, “Is this a Martha thing?” I think they are enjoying all the new foods. I’m not sure if they appreciate the other things  – crafts, home organization, etc.

I’ve been caught a few times talking to Martha as I work on a project (mostly muttering under my breath at her as I work through directions) and I feel like a small child with an imaginary friend. My 10 year old son wanted to know if I have arguments with Martha (I explained that mostly it just helps me to talk to her while I’m doing something hard).

All of my Martha work must be rubbing off though. This same son, who has a creative streak, has always liked to make messes in the kitchen. From the time he was a toddler standing on a chair, he has liked to “cook” in my sink – mixing together everything he can get his hands on. He’s come up with some pretty gross concoctions. Well, his technique has apparently become more refined lately. The pumpkin he and Mr. MarthaandMe carved for Halloween has been sitting on the kitchen table. My son, mini-Martha, decided to carve away at the back side of it. This left him with a pile of pumpkin. I left him alone in the kitchen and came back to discover this, all neatly plated:

It is a truly gross mix of pumpkin that he mashed and many other items in my fridge and cupboards. What struck me was the beautiful plating technique. Clearly Martha is rubbing off on all of us.

Although he has a creative streak, he also has an organizational streak. Halloween evening, he came home, sorted his candy into neat piles on my table and then asked for a plastic storage box. He proceeded to neatly stack the candy up inside the box. This same child can pack a suitcase in a way that would make Martha beam.

Now I know that if I end this blog like this I’m going to be in big trouble. My 16 year old daughter will be insulted that she wasn’t mentioned. Let me pacify her by mentioning here she has the baking gene (My grandmother was raised a Mennonite. If you know anything about Mennonites, you know they can bake. We always joke that I got the Mennonite gene since I love to bake).

How is the Martha project affecting Mr. MarthaandMe? He’s been doing a lot of dishes, I’ll say that! He’s happy to taste test. Although he grumbled a bit during the linen closet makeover, he seemed to appreciate the results.

When I started this project, my family didn’t really get it. Now that I’ve been at it for a few weeks, it’s starting to sink in. Whenever I cook something now, the kids ask, “Is this a Martha thing?” I think they are enjoying all the new foods. I’m not sure if they appreciate the … Read more →

I’ve got a few Martha odds and ends to wrap up, so here goes.

Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin muffin batter

First of all, after I made the Pumpkin Swirl brownies (as reported in October), I had pumpkin left over. I decided I wanted to make some pumpkin muffins for weekend breakfasts. I did a recipe search on Martha’s site and only found one (called, surprisingly and creatively enough, “pumpkin muffins”). The recipe called for whole wheat flour and yogurt, so I was happy that it was somewhat healthy. It tasted healthy too – and not in a good way. They muffins were heavy and doughy. They had a heavy floury taste. I won’t be making those again.

You’ll see in the photo above that I use an ice cream scoop to scoop the

Muffins ready to eat

batter into the muffin tins – a trick I learned from Paula Deen. It has to be one of those sccops with the little windshield wiper that pushes it out of the scoop. It makes just the right size for a muffin. Martha  – that’s a good thing!

Butternut Pear Soup

In Cooking School segment #2, Martha and Sarah talked about making cream soups. I must say I found this confusing – cream soups that have no cream in them! I guess I always just thought of these as pureed soups. I often make a pureed carrot soup as well as a roasted butternut squash puree soup. Martha has a recipe for Butternut Pear Soup in the Cooking School book, so I decided to give it a go.

Onion and pear

The process is pretty simple. You cook onion and pear, add your roasted squash (she says roasting is optional, but I always roast mine first) and then add chicken stock. You puree it with your boat motor (this is what Emeril calls those hand held immersion blenders and I find it an apt description!). Seriously, this recipe

Roasted squash

has nothing else in it. No salt or pepper or herbs or spices of any kind. It tasted like baby food squash (which, I have to say, both of my kids adored the most out of all the jarred baby food veggies!). So I went to work doctoring this. First in went salt and pepper. Then some cumin. Then some ginger. I even added a dash of garlic salt. At the end, I poured in some leftover cream. By the time I did all this, it at least had some flavor. I served it with some homemade croutons and it was yummy.

Ready to be blended

Perfect for a cool night!

Blogging Martha

Here are some great posts about Martha from around the web. Got a

great one to add? Put it in a comment!

Martha Moments has great video up from BN.com where Martha talks about her first disastrous Thanksgiving. She also talks about her many cookbooks.

Mad about Martha is doing great interviews with MSLO employees. I also love the study

carrel craft.

Good Things has photos of new Martha craft items up

I’ve got a few Martha odds and ends to wrap up, so here goes. Pumpkin Muffins First of all, after I made the Pumpkin Swirl brownies (as reported in October), I had pumpkin left over. I decided I wanted to make some pumpkin muffins for weekend breakfasts. I did a recipe search on Martha’s site … Read more →

In the November issue of Living, there’s a piece about Plimoth Plantation, fitting in, of course, with the Thanksgiving theme of the issue. I don’t know if Martha herself has ever been there, but can’t you just picture her mulling around, picking up tips on how to thatch a roof or suggesting to an enacter that she add some thyme to her stew? (As a side note, didn’t you love the show about Mexico yesterday? I really enjoyed it, although I couldn’t help thinking it was a nice way for Martha to write off her vacation!)

We vacationed on Cape Cod the summer of ’07 and made a stop at Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth is where the Cape connects to the mainland). Whoo-hoo – something in this issue I have actual experience with other than cooking a turkey!

PP welcomes you - MOO

So here’s my personal scoop on PP. Honestly, Williamsburg is much, much better. Obv (as my teenager would say), it’s not the same time period, but if you want living history, Williamsburg is just so much better.It feels more real and it’s much, much bigger. The enacters are much more into it and are doing really complicated trade work.

PP has a huge visitor’s center with films and dining halls. Check out this photo of the cow carrying the Mayflower. what’s the deal with that? This is what greets you. I didn’t get it at all. The actual village did not thrill us to death. The Wampanoag area was pretty sparse – not much there to see and not too many “residents” to talk with. Another thing to keep in mind – there is a very, very long walk in to the visitor’s center, then the Wampanoag village, and then the settler’s village. And it is seriously hot there in the summer. Bring water and wear sneakers.

The actual village itself is built on a hill. The houses are small (again – obv)

PP on a Hill

which makes it hard to squeeze in with other visitors. We didn’t find the “residents” to be nearly as in character as those at Williamsburg and there weren’t as many crafts and trades to observe in action.

Thatched roof for real

You do get to see real thatched roofs and what kinds of gardens were grown. There is some livestock around as well.

I think it’s worth a stop to understand what the settler’s village actually felt like and how they really lived. Dirt floors and open fireplaces are not a lot of fun. And it’s damn cold in the winter.

We’ve made a point in our travels to take our kids to places that will give

Chicken anyone? My son almost got one

them a real perspective on history. The Jefferson Memorial might be grand, but walking through Thomas Jefferson’s house and the room where he wrote and where he died has a lot more meaning. Even though PP is only a reenactment (and not even on the actual location), it was still an important way to understand the beginning of this country.

Let me say this though – the gift shop was pretty darn good (Mr. MarthaandMe just about had a heart attack over all I bought – always a sign of good shopping). Overall – a good thing? Yup – two thumbs up!

In the November issue of Living, there’s a piece about Plimoth Plantation, fitting in, of course, with the Thanksgiving theme of the issue. I don’t know if Martha herself has ever been there, but can’t you just picture her mulling around, picking up tips on how to thatch a roof or suggesting to an enacter that she … Read more →

So Martha’s “Dessert of the Month” in the November Living is Butterscotch Pecan Cake. Oh, Martha! Where do I begin? First, I must say the photos of it in the magazine are scrumptious and it sounded wonderful. I like to make cakes, so I was excited to try this. This one just about killed me though.

The Bill

First I had to go to the grocery store. This recipe is extremely extravagant even by Martha’s standards. $40 was my bill. I had to buy 3 blocks of cream cheese, 2 pounds of butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, pecans, and eggs. I already had the other ingredients. If I had to buy everything necessary for this cake it would have cost over $55. That’s just nuts. I could have bought 2 cakes at a good bakery for that.

Crabby Cake?

I’m calling this crabby cake because I was crabby when I started making it and it just got worse as it went along.  First, I was crabby because Mr. MarthaandMe forgot to run the dishwasher the night before, so I had to do that before I could start. Then I didn’t soften the butter enough and butter and brown sugar were flying around the kitchen. This meant the dogs came running and they were licking at and around my feet (since there was sugar on the floor) while I was trying to cook. This makes me INSANE.

Two cake pans instead of 3

The cakes took longer to bake than they should have. Turns out I was supposed to make 3 cakes, not 2! OMG. What a nightmare. I didn’t realize that until they were out of the oven. There was no way I was starting over.  Mini-rant: Don’t most people have TWO matching cake pans, not THREE??? I have 4 pans, but they aren’t all the same. Even if I had remembered to make three layers, I would have had to use a pan that was not quite the same size. Discovering my goof made me want to chuck it in the trash and go read a book for a while, but I perservered, because, after all, that’s what Martha would do.

I was also interrupted about 5 times while trying to make this. I want my kids to come to me when they need me, but somehow the constant interruptions made it impossible for me to think straight and focus on the three components of this cake (cake, sauce, and frosting).

Waiting…

The biggest problem with this cake was all the waiting. Make the

Cooking the sauce

butterscotch sauce, then wait for it to cool. Make the frosting and wait for it to chill. Put the sauce on the cake and wait for it to cool. Frost the cake and then refrigerate for an hour. Frost the cake again and then refrigerate for 3 hours! This project took the entire day. A huge, tremendous time suck. And it used a lot of bowls and cooking

Butterscotch frosting

utensils. Mr. MarthaandMe was nice enough to help with clean up. At one point I said to him, “I am so tired, I can barely stand up”. I probably should not have done this on the same day I attempted cooking school lesson #2 (post coming soon). I was just dead tired by the time this day was over. We ran the dishwasher THREE times.

Assembly

Putting the cake together was a process. Because I screwed up and only made 2 layers instead of 4, I decided to cut my layers in half, which gave me 4. This meant I had to spread sauce

Spreading the sauce

on all 4 layers and create 3 layers of frosting in between. Not hard, but time consuming. I got it all together (a little sloppy as you’ll see below) and then Martha called for a crumb coating (small brag here – the recipe does not call this a crumb coating but I knew that’s what it is called when you put a thin layer of frosting on first to cover up the crumbs!). My layers did not look very neat as you can see, but I covered it in the crumb coating and then of course had to wait while it chilled. Finally, I

My sloppy layers

was able to put the final layer of frosting on. Sticking all those nuts on the sides of the cake was a giant mess.

The Results

Honestly? This was nothing special. Believe me, that fact just about brought me to tears after all the work that went into this. It was pretty dry, despite the butterscotch sauce which soaked into the layers. The flavor wasn’t spectacular. I didn’t even

An impressive looking cake

finish my piece. It really was disappointing. There was nothing really wrong with it, but since it got such a huge spread in the magazine, I really expected it to be fantastic. Sigh. I would not make this cake again.

So I have to at least say Martha taught me a lesson on this one – you can put in a lot of time and effort into a recipe or project, but if it’s not a terrific idea or recipe to start with, all that effort can’t turn it around into something that is great. I’m going to stick with my tried and true cake recipes (including my

Taste test

grandmother’s Miracle Whip chocolate cake which is hands down the best thing ever.). Sorry Martha – this one was not a good thing.

So Martha’s “Dessert of the Month” in the November Living is Butterscotch Pecan Cake. Oh, Martha! Where do I begin? First, I must say the photos of it in the magazine are scrumptious and it sounded wonderful. I like to make cakes, so I was excited to try this. This one just about killed me … Read more →

Martha’s second cooking school segment was about chicken.  She and Sarah Carey showed how to cut up a whole chicken. They emphasized how much cheaper it is to buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself, rather than buying parts. This is absolutely true, but it’s nothing I would ever have done myself. I have been buying organic meat exclusively for about the last six months and my grocery store only has whole chickens or breasts. I have been wishing they carried other combos and parts, but I never did think about actually cutting up a whole chicken myself.

Chicken Fingers

I must confess, I really, really, really hate to touch raw chicken. The idea of cutting up a whole chicken was just about more than I could handle. We do eat meat, but I can’t think too much about it to be honest. I search out free range and pasture fed animals that have been well cared for and we eat less meat than we used to.

Mr. MarthaandMe is the one who carves chickens and turkeys in this family and agreed to be on standby in case I totally freaked out or cut off a thumb. I am proud to report to you though that I did it with no mishaps!

Cuts Like a Knife

I got out a plastic board, my big chef knife and a towel I designated “the chicken towel”. I opened up Cooking School next to me so I could follow along.

On the show, Sarah Carey cut it the way it is described in the book. I have no idea what the hell Martha was doing during this episode. She was totally showing off, hacking through her chicken with a pair of scissors, leaping steps ahead of Sarah so we could all see that she knew what she was doing. Geesh! Sarah’s steps were really pretty clear. The description and photos in the book were not as good as the episode when you could see Sarah actually pulling the joints apart. I wish I had had it on while I was doing it so I could see her do it, pause it, then do it myself.

Removing the leg

So I started in. First was the leg. I cut through the skin then had to cut down to the joint. I did that then had to pull to pop it out. Ew. This was not pleasant and I might have gotten a little

Wings

squeamish. I did manage to do it though. The trick is pulling it apart enough so you can see where the joint is, and then cutting between the joint and the body of the chicken. Then I cut the leg and thigh apart. Next I got the wings off – these were easy compared to the legs.

Hacking the breast from the back was not for the faint of heart. Mr. MarthaandMe encouraged me from the sidelines as I looked up in panic a few

Removing breast from back

times. Somehow I managed to hack through it and got it apart. This was about just using sheer force – it was not easy, I was not enjoying it and I just kept going. I have no idea if I cut it where I was supposed to since I was just hacking through bone. Separating the breasts was harder than it looked too. The book said to use the heel of your knife to crack the backbone. No clue what that means.  Finally I just snapped it with my hands.I had to trim the breasts a bit – there was some big nasty skin hanging off

Cutting the breast

from them. Once I did that, I had a nice tray of chicken though.

My Reaction

I was really intimidated by this, having never cut up a chicken in my life. It was not fun and I admit I washed my hands 6 times throughout the process (OCD, anyone?). However, being able to have

Success!

organic chicken in the pieces I want it in is a pretty powerful motivator. Martha’s right about this being a way to save money. I would rather buy it already cut up (and pay more to avoid having to do this), but since that’s not an option, I guess I would consider doing this again. Or maybe I’ll just delegate this job to Mr. MarthaandMe!

The Recipe

Now that I had my chicken cut up, I had to do something with it for dinner. I decided to go with Martha’s buttermilk fried chicken recipe from the Cooking School book. Let me say here that we vacationed in Hilton Head, SC

Paula's Chicken

a couple of summers ago and we had the pleasure of dining at Paula Deen’s The Lady and Sons in Savannagh where I had the most perfect fried chicken known to man. After that trip, I spent months trying to perfect fried chicken and settled on Paula’s recipe with some minor modifications. Paula says you have to use self-rising flour. I agree. I discovered fried chicken turns out best if you double dip it (egg, flour, egg, then flour). I usually use a mix of peanut oil and Crisco (yes, I know you’re not supposed to mix oils). Mr. MarthaandMe got me a deep fryer for Mother’s Day this year and now I use that. I learned to cook the heck out of it or it will be bloody inside and brown on the outside. I also learned it tastes better if you let it rest before eating it. It’s also excellent the next day.

Paula does not recommend soaking in buttermilk. Martha does – then wants you to let the chicken sit out and dry a bit. Paula uses egg wash, Martha doesn’t. Martha adds cornmeal to her coating, Paula does not.

Martha's chicken

To be true to my Martha experiment, I cooked the chicken according to Martha’s instructions. This chicken cooked very quickly, and turned very brown. I don’t know if that had to do with the coating or maybe because I was using an organic chicken which was also a bit small.

The crust was tasty. I liked the crunch the cornmeal added. However, the skin didn’t really cook and was all mushy and fatty underneath the coating in some places. I didn’t feel as though the buttermilk marinade made much of a difference. I’m definitely going back to Paula’s recipe. Sorry Martha, but you’re not a Southern gal. It was fun to experiment with a different recipe, but Paula really knows her stuff!

Martha’s second cooking school segment was about chicken.  She and Sarah Carey showed how to cut up a whole chicken. They emphasized how much cheaper it is to buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself, rather than buying parts. This is absolutely true, but it’s nothing I would ever have done myself. I … Read more →

One of the things I admire about Martha is she seems to live a life that is balanced. She has a ginormous career, yet she has time to cook and decorate and do things that give her pleasure. So I was interested when I read “Simple Steps to Better Your Balance” in the November issue’s Healthy Living section.  We all know Martha’s into yoga (I’m not), but this is a new take on finding balance in your own body.

The article suggests you test yourself to see if your body is balanced. It says to stand one leg, with the other bent at a 45 degree angle, and your arms folded on your chest for 45 seconds. I felt a bit silly trying this, but it wasn’t hard at all. The key for me was to find a focal point (even saying that makes me remember Lamaze class). Once I had something to look at it, it became a lot easier to hold still. Once you’ve mastered that, the article suggests bending sideways and hopping. Touching the raised leg to the ground is another variation. I didn’t find any of that hard. Who knew I was so very balanced?

The next challenge is walking heel to toe in a straight line. There’s nothing like practicing for a sobriety test. This was easy too. No problems. If you can accomplish all of these tasks, the piece suggests doing them with your eyes closed. Whoa! Much harder! Nearly impossible actually.

The rest of the article was about organizing your home to prevent falls – which all felt a little geriatric to me. What’s the age demographic for this mag? It’s got to be in the 30s or 40s. I totally didn’t get why this was in the mag. Maybe Martha is worrying about her own aging! If she’s worried, maybe she should read my book, which actually deals with some of these concerns!

One of the things I admire about Martha is she seems to live a life that is balanced. She has a ginormous career, yet she has time to cook and decorate and do things that give her pleasure. So I was interested when I read “Simple Steps to Better Your Balance” in the November issue’s … Read more →

Martha decided it was time to organize my linen closet. She was right. As you can see below, it was pretty messy. I sat down and read all her advice about linen closets on the web site. Some was simply not practical. If I had as much money as Martha does, I could probably install drawers in my linen closet (I am totally serious – that is her ultimate solution), but since I wasn’t up for breaking the bank I went for a simple reorganization. Martha’s other organizational solution is to buy shelf brackets and install them on the top of the shelf upside down and use them as dividers (follow the link above and you’ll see how she does it). This is an inexpensive solution, sort of. They aren’t that expensive, but it feels like too much of a commitment to me to nail those in. I’m stuck with those sizes and shapes on the shelves then. Not to mention – you can’t just nail them in – you would have to paint them and wait for the paint to dry. Ugh. Not happening. This was to be a one afternoon project.

Martha also recommends you label the shelves – “full sheets” or “bath towels”, etc. That seems a little nutty to me. I know what’s what and I don’t need to label it.

The Depths of the Closet

Left Side of Closet

Right side of closet

This closet holds linens for the kids’ beds (as well as some for twin beds which we no longer have!) as well as towels (many of which are old and yucky) and supplies for their bathroom. The top shelf is filled with odds and ends (including my Brownie uniform!). The floor of the closet holds our collection of tote and duffel bags, an air mattress and a pile of those plastic zip bags that sheets and blankets come in when you buy them. Our closet has sliding doors that never open and shut properly because something is always getting stuck. In short, it really needed help.

We Began
Mr. MarthaandMe assisted me with this project and we started by taking everything out. Eek. There sure was a lot in there. Then we started with the sheets. We read how Martha recommends you fold a fitted sheet. We even left the instructions up on my monitor while we tried to do it and it never really worked. It always ended up somewhat bumpy and uneven. Have you tried this? If you can make it work, please let me know! There was a lot of under the breath cursing during this phase of the project, I must admit!

Martha did have one idea that I really liked. She suggested taking a set of sheets and stacking them, then wrapping one of the pillow cases around them all. This really did manage to create a cute little package, although I recommend you put the crease side, where the ends of the pillow case meet, down, facing the shelf so it stays together better.

Moving Along
Next we took sheets that we don’t use and put them in some of those plastic zip bags I had. Onward to the towels. I went through them and pulled out some that are now going to be rags. Then we folded them all neatly. Our linen closet shelves are not very deep and the bath towels always catch on the doors. Mr. MarthaandMe suggested folding the bath towels in thirds. He’s a genius! They fit on the shelves then and look very neat. Now he’s channeling Martha!

Our last step was to buy some boxes for the bottom of the closet. This required a trip to my favorite store – Target! I threw out a bunch of duffel bags with broken zippers (some from Mr. MarthaandMe’s elementary school days!) and some ancient stained tote bags. The rest I put in a cute pink canvas box. The air mattress fit into a plastic box with a lid. The plastic zippy bags fit into another canvas box. Voila!

Results

Left Side Completed

I have to say, I was rolling my eyes at the thought of this project going in, but now I love how the closet looks. There’s so much more space! The problem is going to be keeping it that way. Martha doesn’t have a teenager and a 10 year old stuffing things in her closets and knocking over her nicely folded piles. I’m going to try to keep it this way though because it’s easier to find things and put them away. It just feels much more luxurious to have it looking so pretty. This project took us about an hour. It was all the refolding of the darn sheets that took so much time.

Right side completed

So the bottom line was that I’m glad we did this. I have to admit I even went and opened the closet later in the day just to see how cute it all looked. Martha – I’m with you on this. It’s a good thing.

  Martha decided it was time to organize my linen closet. She was right. As you can see below, it was pretty messy. I sat down and read all her advice about linen closets on the web site. Some was simply not practical. If I had as much money as Martha does, I could probably … Read more →

Martha is plugging her new cooking school book in a hot and heavy way. The magazine has a lesson from it and each week on her show there is going to be an on-air lesson. Being a good little disciple, I have gone out and captured a copy (oddly enough in my local B&N it wasn’t in the cookbook section, but on a separate table in the middle of the store, which struck me as very odd). My plan is to follow along with the lessons on the show and post here each week so you can see how it goes.

Do I Need Cooking School?

Am I a little resentful that Martha thinks we all need to go to cooking school? Yes, maybe a little. After all, as she has admitted, she’s never gone. I think most of us who do cook have learned it on our own, or from our mothers. I’m lucky in that I had two grandmothers who loved to cook, as well as two parents who participated in a monthly “gourmet club” (if that sounds totally 70s, it’s because it was) and threw a Martha style Christmas party every year. So I’m not too shabby in the kitchen.

What I’m learning from Martha though is that there are so many things I really don’t know about cooking. While it totally ticked me off to have to have Martha and Sarah Carey (editor of Everyday Food and clearly the one who wrote most of this Cooking School tome) lecture me on how to chop an onion, I must admit I’ve already picked up some things.

The Knives

My knife collection

Martha and Sarah, in the first cooking school on-air lesson, went over the kinds of knives we should have.  Here is a photo of my entire knife collection, next to the photo in the book of what you should have. The first knife on the left on the book is serrated and I bought this knife before Mr. MarthaandMe got married – almost 20 years ago – and it’s still great. The next one is a chef’s knife I bought after seeing Rachel Ray use it! The rest are a hodgepodge that have landed in my knife block over the year. The one with the white handle was bought from a cousin who was selling Cutco knives. I don’t have a cleaver, but other than that, I think I can say I pass this cooking school lesson with a good grade.

Onions

Also in the first tv lesson, Sarah Carey showed how to cut an onion  – sliced, diced, finely chopped and minced. I used to always dump my onions in my small food processor to chop, but (and this is the height of laziness) I hate how the stupid bowl never seems to fit in the dishwasher and it just seemed easier to hack it up myself. I knew what slicing meant. Diced, minced and chopped all sort of meant the same thing to me. So here is where Martha has taught me something.

My onion lesson

Here’s the results of the lesson. From left to right you can see minced, finely chopped, diced and sliced and up at the top is the page in the book with the same thing. Once I learned which was what, this was easy.

I also must admit I did not know the correct way to hold a chef’s knife until Sarah Carey showed me on the show. I have always held on to the handle and sometimes put the other palm on top of it for added pressure. Sarah explained how to hold the knife so your finger and thumb are touching the blade and this really gave me more control. Wow! I didn’t know Martha had so many things to teach me about the basics!

Making Stock

The other segment of the on-air lesson was chicken stock. Martha says we should all make our own. I do make my own when I am making soup or something like chicken and biscuits or chicken and dumplings. Other than that, I buy the cartons of stock and use that. I’m going to make stock when I do the next lesson, which will require me to hack up a chicken.

An Everyday Food Note

Although I know Martha is not knee-deep and hands-on (that’s an image isn’t it?) in the production of Everyday Food magazine, I have been turning to it often. The recipes in Living are great, but on a weekday when I’ve got hockey or lessons to drive kids around to in the afternoon, I just don’t have time to say, braise a pork shoulder for approximately half a day.

Finding myself in a bind one night this week, I turned to Everyday Food’s November issue for inspiration and made Rigatoni with Spiced Meat Sauce (p. 92). Holy cow guys – this was gross. Really, really yucky. Who makes a pasta sauce out of tomato paste, vinegar, cinnamon, and cayenne??? This was so bad I could not serve it as it was. I had to do some serious doctoring of this recipe to be able to put it on my table. First of all, I used ground turkey instead of ground lamb (I like ground lamb when I make Greek food but really no other time) or ground beef. I have been substituting this a lot – in meatballs, meatloaf, tacos, etc and am loving it.

To do something with the nasty sauce, I dumped in a can of stewed tomatoes and ton of Italian herb mix. I added more garlic (the recipe did call for some as well as onion). I also added some parmesan cheese. By the time I did all of that and cooked it for about half an hour, it was edible and the MarthaandMe family ate it happily.

Martha – please do something about Everyday Food. I absolutely know this recipe is not something you would put on your table! NOT a good thing!

Sneak Peek

I’ve got plans afoot for upcoming posts. I’m going to tackle more crafts from the November issue of Living. I’m going to make the big cake from the issue also. We’re going to do a Martha Thanksgiving here. And Martha is going to help me do some organizational things around the house. Currently she is very displeased about the state of my closet and is itching to get her hands on it.

I’m also continuing my search for ways to bring “good things” into my life. This week, I folded the fitted sheet to the bed and instead of just balling it up, I made an effort to fold it nicely (not easy to do at all) and place it on the shelf. It took more time, but I’m finding that if I tell myself I deserve to be surrounded by good things, I feel privileged and pampered somehow. Taking the time to fold something so that it looked nice did give me some satisfaction. I also reminded myself I was “homekeeping” and not just doing the laundry which made the whole experience much more pleasant!

Martha is plugging her new cooking school book in a hot and heavy way. The magazine has a lesson from it and each week on her show there is going to be an on-air lesson. Being a good little disciple, I have gone out and captured a copy (oddly enough in my local B&N it … Read more →

Today my 16 year old daughter passed her driver road test, so I have a new driver (and higher insurance premiums!) in my house. To celebrate her success, Martha and I thought we would whip up a little something.

Over the weekend, Martha sent me a Halloween email of the day with the recipe for Pumpkin Swirl Brownies. I had all the ingredients (ok, mostly – I may have cheated and used chocolate chips instead of bittersweet baking chocolate), so it seemed like a quick little midweek snack to make.

Chocolate melted in the microwave

I started with melting the chocolate. Martha wanted me to melt it with the butter over a bowl of hot water. Sigh. Sorry Martha – I just popped it in the microwave for about a minute and 15 seconds and then stirred and I was all set.

Batter base

Martha then had me make the batter base. I confess I did not whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. I just dumped them into the wet ones. If I had whisked them first, I would already have been up to 3 bowls – 4 if you count the one she wanted hot water in.

Chocolate batter

Pumpkin batter

Ok, so next I separated the batter so that I ended up with a pumpkin mixture and a chocolate mixture. I cheated again.

I did not put the batter in yet another bowl (making that bowl #5) and add the chocolate to it. I dumped the batter into the chocolate and stirred.

Swirled and ready

The layering of the batters was not easy. They never smooth over each other very well for me. The swirling part is fun. I didn’t add nuts since my son doesn’t like them.

Now for the taste test results. Ready? I didn’t like this! It did not taste like chocolate and it did not taste like pumpkin, so I’m not sure what exactly it tasted like. It was also very moist – disturbingly so.

Ready to eat

It was done though – the bottom was getting dark and so was the top. It was moist in the way a pumpkin pie is moist, but that just seemed weird in a brownie.

Sorry Martha – not a good thing.

Want a bite?

Today my 16 year old daughter passed her driver road test, so I have a new driver (and higher insurance premiums!) in my house. To celebrate her success, Martha and I thought we would whip up a little something. Over the weekend, Martha sent me a Halloween email of the day with the recipe for … Read more →