Is Martha Trying to Kill Me?
Posted by in FoodAnother dinner, another severe allergic reaction. Is this Martha project bad for my health? Well, it certainly seems so. You may recall that I’ve experienced two severe allergic reactions to Martha meals in the past couple of months. The first was from pan-sauteed sole, the second from fish tacos. After that, I assumed it must be fish. Apparently, that was the wrong conclusion. I made Martha’s Chicken Fajitas (Martha Stewart June Living).
Things started out innocently enough. I decided to make the whole shebang for this recipe – mojo de ajo, guacamole and pico de gallo as well as the fajitas themselves.
cooking the garlic
I started with the mojo de ajo which is basically garlic cooked in oil with lime juice and red pepper. Easy. Next the guacamole – avocado, lime juice and salt. The pico de gallo was tomato, onion, jalapeno, and cilantro (I used dried).
Once I had all of that made, I chopped up the onion and peppers for the fajitas and cooked those, then added the chicken. It really was not a lot of
guacamole
work and this cooks up quickly.
I admit I did not heat the tortillas before serving. I served them with sour cream and cheddar cheese. They were really, really good. Better than I expected, I have to admit. The 3 additional sauces and topping really added to flavor and I really enjoyed it.
Until 3 hours later. When I turned bright
pico de gallo
red all over my body, was burning hot, developed itchy hives, felt sick to my stomach and was dizzy. Benadryl worked its magic and I didn’t have to go to the hospital, but this reaction was even more severe than the previous two. I don’t know what to make of it, so I’ve made an appointment with an allergist. I’ve never had anything like this happen before I began the Martha project, so it’s quite disturbing. There are some common ingredients between reaction #2 and reaction #3 – lime, garlic, cilantro and avocado, however these are all things I’ve eaten before with no problems. I guess I’ll let the allergist figure it out. Until then, I’m a little nervous about trying new Martha dishes, I must admit.
Chicken, peppers, and onions
making the fajita
rolled up and ready to eat
Another dinner, another severe allergic reaction. Is this Martha project bad for my health? Well, it certainly seems so. You may recall that I’ve experienced two severe allergic reactions to Martha meals in the past couple of months. The first was from pan-sauteed sole, the second from fish tacos. After that, I assumed it must … Read more
Everyday Food, June – again, another recipe that isn’t on the web site). But I love, love, love salmon, so I thought it was worth a 
try. First I poached my salmon (wild, not farmed!) and then flaked it into pieces. I cooked the onion and mixed it with the salmon, breadcrumbs, egg, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt and pepper.
Despite my trepidation, this was really quite good. The yogurt sauce was interesting. It didn’t taste like apple – more like onion somehow. The cakes themselves were good – very salmon-y and not too much breading. If I made this again, I would first of all only do it to use up some already cooked salmon. I would not poach a piece of salmon to make it into a salmon cake, but this is a good idea for leftovers. Secondly, I think I would eat it on a roll with some lettuce and tomato and mayo and lemon juice, kind of like a grouper sandwich.
The recipe is straightforward – cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, egg, milk, buttermilk and melted butter. This batter is very wet. The first batch I made was without blueberries. The pancakes I am used to making firm up very nicely and flip easily. Not so much for Martha. I put the first batch on (sans blueberries) and when I went to flip them they were wet and heavy. One ended up on the floor. I managed to pick up the big pieces and the dogs happily cleaned up the rest.
while the pancakes were cooking (and cooking and cooking).
The steaks grilled up nicely and the marinade gave it a nice flavor. I think I would probably add some herbs to this next time – maybe some thyme. I would also use more garlic and more lemon juice. It just needs a little something extra. It was good, but not fabulous.
So there I was on a Friday night, making cream puffs. I’ve never made cream puffs before. They were a little more complicated than I expected. First you cook sugar, water, butter and salt and then you add flour and cook it again. Once that’s done you beat in eggs. You know it’s ready when you can touch it and take your finger away and a string follows your finger. I was worried it wasn’t going to work, but it did. It was quite similar to Gougere, an hors d’oevres I’ve made often.
on the baking sheet. Piffle. I just used a spoon. And really, that worked out quite well. The recipe says it makes 10 but I was able to get 12.
the next day. They did get a tiny bit mushy I think, so eat them the same day if you can.
I folded the whipped cream with the curd and voila! Lemon mousse. I filled the cream puffs with the mousse and was getting ready to put the blueberry sauce on them. My son asked me not to put sauce on his. My father overheard this and asked for me to do the same thing for his.
The first step is to cook onions, garlic and spinach. I bought frozen spinach so I didn’t have to wilt my spinach. The recipe calls for a white onion, but I had some red onion hanging around so I used that up.
You lay out a sheet, brush it with butter, then put another sheet on top. It’s not hard to work with if you are careful when moving the sheets of phyllo since they can rip.
Once you’ve got it sealed shut, you cut some diagonal slices on it to make it look pretty.
Once everything was cooked, I assembled the sandwich and the salad and we were ready to eat.
have taken it once we cut it into sections. I am not usually a fan of onion and pickle on sandwiches, but I went with it. This sandwich was good. However, I think the chicken needs to marinate in the mustard mix longer than half an hour. I didn’t really taste mustard at all. I liked the onion and pickles on the sandwich. Martha has you spread creme fraiche on the bread instead of mayo. There was not much noticeable difference, I didn’t think. And in fact no one noticed it was not mayo. I do have to say, I don’t care for sandwiches on big hard pieces of bread like this. It’s just too hard to bite into. I would enjoy this much more on a roll.
And finally, the tomato salad. This was good. Nothing wild or exciting, but good. I often make simple tomato salads like this in the summer. I expected the garlic pieces to be more flavorful, so that was a little disappointing.
First I boiled the potatoes, then I started creating the hash. First step was to saute the chicken, then the potatoes. Take those out and cook scallion, jalapeno, and then corn kernels. I liked cooking the corn – watching the kernels get brown and listening to some of them pop. Next you add cherry tomatoes, then stock, seasoning and chicken. Add the potatoes back in at the end. It seems like a quick dish but in reality it took quite a while to cook all the separate parts. My corn took much longer to cook than the recipe said.
It was also good reheated the next day. I wasn’t thrilled with how it looked – like a pile of food on your plate, but it had nice flavors.
I made Martha’s strawberry shortcake cookies. This involved cutting up lots of strawberries into tiny little pieces which wasn’t too enjoyable but I dealt with it all right. Some of Martha’s descriptions of what the dough should look like at certain stages was a little misleading and she had me a little nervous when she told me I was supposed to have coarse crumbs and I really didn’t. I kept going though and everything turned out fine. They took a really long time to bake – almost half an 
hour – but I didn’t really mind that. They tasted more like a biscuit than a cookie. Maybe a little more sugar could have solved that problem? Overall they weren’t terrible and I would probably make them again.
said they needed whipped cream. They were really an interesting cookie that did not taste at all like a cookie.
she had not. So I took one cookie out and left it the car and photographed it when I got home!
