I like to make cold dinner salads in the summer, so I was happy to see Mediterranean Tuna Salad in August Martha Stewart Living.  A quick, no-cook salad is just perfect for a warm August night.  In fact, a no-cook salad is likely to get 5 stars from me almost any night of the year.

I had a little trepidation about this one though, since I am not a big fan of capers. I’m a big girl though, so I went ahead with it.

To make the salad you chop up capers, celery and toasted almonds and mix it with canned tuna, lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, dill and salt and pepper. Very simple and no-fuss. You serve the salad on a bed of greens.

This was actually a very tasty salad and the capers were not overpowering, so I didn’t scream and run away. When I sampled the tuna by itself, I was a bit worried that there wasn’t any real dressing that would coat the greens, but when you eat the tuna with the greens, it tastes good. This salad is also good the next day, because the lettuce does not get soggy.

I like to make cold dinner salads in the summer, so I was happy to see Mediterranean Tuna Salad in August Martha Stewart Living.  A quick, no-cook salad is just perfect for a warm August night.  In fact, a no-cook salad is likely to get 5 stars from me almost any night of the year. … Read more →

On our recent trip to England and Scotland we tried to sample local specialties, because that is what Martha would do. When she travels, she seeks out local specialties and good things that can only be found in the place she is visiting. I thought I would share some of the things we enjoyed with you.

Afternoon tea (generally called Cream Tea in the UK) was at the top of my list of must-haves. Prices in the UK tend to be outrageous and a full cream tea at Harrods or the Ritz will run you at least 40 pounds per person (about $60).  And that’s for something that isn’t even a real meal! I found a great alternative. We had tea at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens. Tea here is a reasonable 14 pounds.

First, the tea. We ordered the standard type of tea and did not deviate (later in Scotland I had some Scottish breakfast tea I liked).

The first course with the tea was cucumber sandwiches, which were served on poppy seed bread. They were good, but as I recall, the bread had lots of butter (we encountered this a lot – an egg salad sandwich

had butter on the bread somewhere else). The sandwiches came with a small sausage roll and a little chicken salad roll, with pineapple on a skewer.

Next up was the scone with clotted cream and

jam. To die for.

After we finished sucking that down, the dessert came. Some of us has Belgian chocolate cake with clotted cream (possibly the best cake I have ever, ever had in my life) while

others had an orange cream cake which was also very, very good.  As you can see, we got a little enthusiastic about this and sampled it before we took the photo!

That was one of our most memorable meals. What about pub food, you might be asking? Well we had that too, even though we aren’t drinkers and were not interested in having ale at the pubs. One of the first nights, we had fish and chips at a pub and it was good, but a bit too greasy for my tastes. I don’t eat a lot of fried food and it was a

bit much for me to handle!

We had another pub meal in London at Porter’s. The fisherman’s pie was good. The steak pie was also good. Teen Martha had a lamb and apricot pie which she enjoyed. The salad dressing in London was abominable though. Almost every salad we had was served with a horrible

vinegary dressing that was practically inedible.  A little oil would go a long way in helping it!

At Porter’s we also had dessert – “pudding” as the Brits call it. We had a fab chocolate pudding (which was like a warm chocolate melted center cake) and the traditional sticky toffee pudding. Both were quite good and had us licking the

plates (once again giving Americans a bad name).

Also in London we had a full English breakfast, which consisted of thick bacon (not crisp), sausages, eggs, mushrooms, and tomato.  We struggled to find normal breakfast food that was beyond a croissant. Pancakes were impossible to find. I couldn’t even find oatmeal on the menu, even in Scotland.

We found that in general, the food improved as we got to Scotland. One of our first meals involved cullen skink, which sounds awful, but is actually a very nice soup made of haddock and potatoes, kind of like a fish chowder. We had a bowl of this at a pub in Edinburgh and enjoyed it a lot. At that same pub we sampled an Arbroath smokie fish cake, a salmon fish cake, and a smoked salmon and prawn sandwich. These were ok, but the skink was the hands down winner at that meal. At another restaurant, Teen Martha had potted shrimp, which grossed her out. I had some grilled smoked salmon, but it proved too salty to eat.

By this point in our journey, we had become tired of chips (fries) and peas served with every meal. We had whole peas, mashed peas, and smashed peas. Don’t these people eat any other vegetables, we wondered?

Well that question was answered at a wonderful pub in Aberfoyle, Scotland.

Mr. MarthaAndMe ordered the steak pie, I had the chicken mushroom pie, and Teen Martha had the Ploughman’s Lunch (Dude Martha had his usual fish and chips which I think he ate

almost every day). Every single thing was wonderful. The photos do not do this meal justice at all. The steak pie was like a wonderful, tender stew. The chicken mushroom

pie was like a fabulous pot pie. The ploughman’s lunch had me in ecstasy over the local cheese, delicious bread and wonderful salad.

A few other memorable items include a fabulous roast chicken with mushroom sauce I had in a tiny spot in Pitlochry Scotland. It tasted like something I would make at home which I desperately needed after about 12 days of restaurant food. At the Mountain Cafe in Aviemore, Scotland, which we went to because it was recommended by our wonderful fly fishing guide Jamie from Rothiemurchus Fishery (whom we failed to tip because we didn’t think of it in advance and had nothing smaller than a 20 pound bill on us – again, giving Americans a bad name), I had the best item of the entire trip. I am still dreaming of this at night. And I didn’t take a photo (smacking myself). It was called a quiche, but really it was like a savory Napoleon. Picture this – sweet potato, caramelized onion and spinach layered with what must have been a very small amount of egg. It had a crust, but was cut into a rectangle and had crust on one short side. It was served with a salad with a nice dijon dressing and cole slaw. I am going to attempt to replicate it because it was the stuff that dreams are made of.

Some other things of interest – we sampled some ginger beer, not realizing it has a small alcohol content. I don’t quite understand ginger beer. Is it meant to be beer or a soft drink? It was always listed under soft drinks on the menu, not alcoholic drinks. Dude Martha enjoyed Irn Bru, an orange soda that is sickeningly sweet and tastes of bubble gum.

Mr.  MarthaAndMe may move to England because they seem to like white chocolate there and it is his favorite. Every rest stop (called “services”) on the thruway (“carriageway”) carried white chocolate ice cream on a stick. He was in heaven.

Almost every restaurant has lasagna on the menu, but they tend to have  a cream sauce and not much cheese. Not typical lasagna like you find here.

All in all, the food was much better than expected. I regret not having a Cornish pasty (which a dear departed friend used to serve at his restaurant in New Orleans) and I was hoping for at least an oatcake in Scotland. The shortbread was superb everywhere I tried it. The only reason we can still fit into our pants is because we burned off so many calories by walking all day, every day.

On our recent trip to England and Scotland we tried to sample local specialties, because that is what Martha would do. When she travels, she seeks out local specialties and good things that can only be found in the place she is visiting. I thought I would share some of the things we enjoyed with … Read more →

Welcome to the first Martha Monday assignment (click on the link to see the page I’ve set up about this – PLEASE READ – more details are on that page!!!!).  Martha Mondays is a weekly joint venture. Each week we will cook, craft, or do a Martha project together on Monday, with the goal being to add a little Martha to our lives.  I’ll post my results here and you can post yours on your blog and leave a comment here with a link to you blog or just lave a comment letting everyone know how it went for you if you don’t have a blog. The idea is we will all do the project on Monday (if possible – obviously, feel free to do it another day if you’d like). Then post on your blog or post a comment on mine about your results. To get things started, I’ll pick the projects, but once we’re up and running we’ll take turns choosing the projects (I’ll set up a schedule and email folks once we get to that point).

If you’d like to join, you can sign up here. Everyone is welcome. Once we get going, we will take turns picking the weekly project. And, as I mention on the main page I set up for this, if you don’t have the recipe or instructions for that week’s project, just let me know and I’ll email it to you. I can’t post it since it is copyrighted. This way you don’t have to be a subscriber.

Here’s the first assignment. For Monday, August 10, let’s make Grilled Vanilla Peaches, page 78 of Martha Stewart Living August issue (not up on Martha’s site yet, but just leave a comment if you want me to email it to you). Are you game? If so, ready, set, cook! Post your results on your own blog and/or on mine (I will try to always have my post up about it on Tuesday). And please – tell your friends to join in. The more the merrier!

Welcome to the first Martha Monday assignment (click on the link to see the page I’ve set up about this – PLEASE READ – more details are on that page!!!!).  Martha Mondays is a weekly joint venture. Each week we will cook, craft, or do a Martha project together on Monday, with the goal being … Read more →

We arrived home on Monday night from our two week UK trip. Jet lag is a killer. Tuesday was hard. I was tired, but I woke up far too early. All day long it seemed my brain was not keeping up with me. Poor Mr. MarthaAndMe had to get back on another plane and head off to a business meeting, so it was me and the kids for dinner. I decided to make Martha’s Grilled Pizza with Fontina and Arugula (August Martha Stewart Living) for dinner. Fortunately, I was functioning well enough to plan the meal and buy the ingredients at the grocery store.

I’ve never grilled a pizza and the recipe made it sound WAY too easy I thought, but I gave it a try. You shape your dough and brush it with oil. The recipe says to fold it in half, move it to the grill and unfold. Eeek. This was not easy, since the dough stretched when I picked it up and it kind of crumpled when I got it on the grill. I set the grill to medium as the recipe said and let it cook 3 minutes.  I came back and the dough was looking puffy, which was encouraging. Then I flipped it and revealed the horror of what had happened. It was burned to a crisp. Take note – set your grill to LOW not medium if you try this recipe! I immediately turned the grill off and began trying to scrape the burned parts off. I wasn’t very successful. The dough kept ripping and I had to take big chunks off. There were pieces of dough all over the grill and all over the deck (I was too tired to clean it up, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a pack of raccoons or some other animal feasted on the deck last night).

Finally I dumped the cheese on top and closed the cover to let it melt. Things at this point had gone from not pretty to heinously ugly.

I tried to put the cheese on the parts that were the least burned, so it was rather uneven and awful looking.

I got this monstrosity off the grill with no trouble and went to get my bag of arugula. Another demerit for me. At the store, they did not have any plain arugula. They had a bag of spinach and arugula, so I decided to buy that. Well, in my jet lagged state, somehow I grabbed the wrong bag and ended up with a bag of spinach and “zesty greens”. There was some arugula in the bag, so I just went with it.

The pictures are a little blurry because apparently I was not thinking clearly enough to even use a camera! The results? Well it was certainly ugly looking, but I have to say the parts that were not burned were delicious. This is actually a really great recipe. I am going to attempt to grill pizza again sometime, when I am more awake, and I will set the grill to the lowest setting and watch it like a hawk. The moral of the story: when jet lagged, get pizza delivered.

We arrived home on Monday night from our two week UK trip. Jet lag is a killer. Tuesday was hard. I was tired, but I woke up far too early. All day long it seemed my brain was not keeping up with me. Poor Mr. MarthaAndMe had to get back on another plane and head … Read more →

My son loves baked beans. Usually I buy the store brand of baked beans and doctor it up with ketchup, mustard, Worchestershire, garlic salt, vinegar and brown sugar. But making my own would be very Martha. There is a Lucinda recipe for it in the August issue of Martha Stewart Living, so I gave it a try.

This is not for the faint of heart my friends. It was a two day extravaganza of beans and I am not recovered yet.

The instructions say to cover the dried beans with water and boil, then simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Ok. No problem. On another place on the page (not in the actual recipe) it says you can make the beans up to 2 days ahead by refrigerating them after this step. It does not say you HAVE to.

I went to the next step – cooking onions, bacon, and garlic, then adding beans and vinegar and BBQ sauce (which I made myself). Add water and boil. Simmer for 2 1/2 hours. After 5 hours of this, I still had pretty hard, nasty beans. I must have added at least 4 more cups of water than the recipe said. Finally, I gave up, added some more water and stuck it in the fridge for 24 hours. I took it out and heated it up the next day and they still were not soft enough. I cooked this another 3 hours, adding more water as I went until finally, finally, finally, it was edible. I still wasn’t happy with it. I thought some of the beans were still a bit tough to the tooth. And let me tell you, by the time we sat down to dinner with this, I didn’t want any because I had taste-tested it so many times along the way that I was sick of it!

My son liked it though. Mr. MarthaAndMe said they were “ok”. I wanted to put my head on the table and weep at that – 2 days of tending to these beans and all it got was an ok. My advice? Buy the canned beans and doctor them up yourself. This was ridiculous.

My son loves baked beans. Usually I buy the store brand of baked beans and doctor it up with ketchup, mustard, Worchestershire, garlic salt, vinegar and brown sugar. But making my own would be very Martha. There is a Lucinda recipe for it in the August issue of Martha Stewart Living, so I gave it … Read more →

Chicken salad is a great summer meal – no oven, no big heavy piece of meat on your plate, plus you can tell yourself that you’re just having a salad. Martha has a recipe for Chicken Salad with Tomatoes and Cucumber in August Martha Stewart Living. It sounded like a nice light meal.

I poached my chicken – the recipe says to cook it in the oven, but I prefer poaching for this kind of salad. Then you mix it with tomato and cukes that have been salted and drained, yogurt which has been drained, and add lemon juice, garlic and mint and oregano. Serve it on a pita with lettuce.

I loved this. The yogurt is much lighter than traditional mayo in the salad and the fresh herbs give it some pop. I like the tomato and cuke in it as well. This is a great recipe, easy to pull together and very tasty. It also takes great just by itself without the pita.

Chicken salad is a great summer meal – no oven, no big heavy piece of meat on your plate, plus you can tell yourself that you’re just having a salad. Martha has a recipe for Chicken Salad with Tomatoes and Cucumber in August Martha Stewart Living. It sounded like a nice light meal. I poached … Read more →

Whenever I make something with buttermilk, I think that I need to use it more often. I made Lucinda Scala Quinn’s Buttermilk Potato Salad (August Martha Stewart Living). Obviously, if it’s Lucinda it will be a winner. And it was.

I was really intrigued by this recipe. You’re supposed to use baby red potatoes, but I used regular and just cut them up. You mix the cooked potatoes with creme fraiche (so different!), buttermilk, horseradish, dill, chives and salt. OMG it was fabulous. So much lighter tasting than a mayo based potato salad and the herbs give it a nice flavor. The buttermilk adds a hint of tangy-ness which is perfect. I went light on the horseradish (not to mention the jar I have is rather old) but it did add a nice flavor to it. This is a truly amazing recipe and I’ll definitely turn to it again.

When is Lucinda going to break free and write her own cookbook? Everything that woman cooks is gold.

Whenever I make something with buttermilk, I think that I need to use it more often. I made Lucinda Scala Quinn’s Buttermilk Potato Salad (August Martha Stewart Living). Obviously, if it’s Lucinda it will be a winner. And it was. I was really intrigued by this recipe. You’re supposed to use baby red potatoes, but … Read more →

I got one of Martha’s daily emails about a Grilled New England Seafood “Bake.” There’s something about New England in the summer…. I had to make it.  I was imagining myself on a rocky coast in front of a fire with the tide going out and the smell of salt water and seaweed in the air. Well, if I couldn’t really be there, at least I could pretend my dinner was from there.

This fabulous little recipe is something you MUST make. I don’t say that very often, but I’m giving this one 100 stars.

You start with red potatoes. Martha says to use baby reds. I had regular reds, so I sliced them and parboiled them. The recipe does not say to parboil, but I just can’t see the potatoes getting done any other way, so definitely do that.

You put the potatoes on the foil. Then you add cod and shrimp and some sections of corn on the cob. Mix up some butter with garlic and dill (I melted the butter – Martha says to make it soft). Pour that on top. Put some lemon slices on top. Seal up your packets and stick them on the grill for 12-14 minutes.

Mine were perfectly done. Martha says to dump them out into a bowl. We just opened the packets up on our plates and ate right out of them. Oh, it was wonderful. I can see making this with other ingredients – throw in some clams or mussels or maybe a lobster tail that’s been halved.  Sigh. This is making me hungry all over again.  It was really, really good.

I got one of Martha’s daily emails about a Grilled New England Seafood “Bake.” There’s something about New England in the summer…. I had to make it.  I was imagining myself on a rocky coast in front of a fire with the tide going out and the smell of salt water and seaweed in the … Read more →

I have not been a very big fan of kale in the past, but Lucinda has a recipe for Kale Slaw with Peanut Dressing in August Martha Stewart Living, so of course I had to try it since I trust Lucinda implicitly.

You slice the kale very, very thinly – and I think this is an important part of the recipe, so make sure you do it!

You cut up some red pepper and carrot and mix it with the kale and some peanuts.

The dressing is simple – oil, vinegar, peanuts, brown sugar and salt in the Cuisinart. It comes out pretty thick, like a thin peanut butter.

Toss it all up and somehow it becomes this amazing delicious salad. I could not get enough of this and had 2 helpings of it. The peanut dressing combined with the very thinly cut kale makes for a very tender and interesting salad.  I didn’t even know I was eating kale and I enjoyed this very much.

I have not been a very big fan of kale in the past, but Lucinda has a recipe for Kale Slaw with Peanut Dressing in August Martha Stewart Living, so of course I had to try it since I trust Lucinda implicitly. You slice the kale very, very thinly – and I think this is … Read more →

The August issue of Martha Stewart Living has a recipe for Barbecued Pork-Shoulder Chops (a Lucinda recipe). I could not find shoulder chops, so I used regular loin.

You start by rubbing the chops with garlic, sage and salt and letting it sit for 2 hours. Then you are supposed to pour lager over it. I substituted apple juice. Let that sit again, then grill with a barbecue sauce.

The chops were moist and very tasty. I’ve never actually put BBQ sauce on pork chops before and it was a good match. I didn’t feel as though I really tasted the garlic, sage or apple juice, but I think they all contributed to the depth of the flavor.

My mom (Big MarthaAndMe) likes to say that you can’t buy a good pork chop these days. They used to be juicier and more flavorful. I don’t remember chops any other way than they are today, but I do find that they always taste better if you do some kind of marinade with them before cooking. This was a pretty good one and one to keep in my bag of pork chop tricks.

The August issue of Martha Stewart Living has a recipe for Barbecued Pork-Shoulder Chops (a Lucinda recipe). I could not find shoulder chops, so I used regular loin. You start by rubbing the chops with garlic, sage and salt and letting it sit for 2 hours. Then you are supposed to pour lager over it. … Read more →