I’ve tackled another one of Martha’s Superbowl party foods, Spicy-Sweet Chicken Wings (page 38 of January Martha Stewart Living). First let me say this. I’m from Buffalo. Home of the chicken wing. When we order wings here we get them from some of the very best places in the entire world. Tough to beat.

I do occasionally make my own wings. So I was eager to give Martha’s version a try.

First you make the sauce – a mix of hoisin, orange zest, hot sauce, honey and sesame oil. I felt right away it could not possibly be enough. You marinate the wings in part of it, then bake them. Halfway through you put the rest of the sauce on them. The wings did not get as crispy as I like them and they were on the edge of burning. They had a slightly mushy texture. I like them crunchy.

The sauce had a nice taste, but there just was not enough of it. Having the dipping sauce definitely helped, but usually a dip has a different flavor, not a repeat of the same tastes.

Everyone agreed these wings were ok, but not terrific. I would recommend cooking them longer at a lower temp so that the sugars in the sauce do not burn, yet the wings have time to crisp.

I’ve tackled another one of Martha’s Superbowl party foods, Spicy-Sweet Chicken Wings (page 38 of January Martha Stewart Living). First let me say this. I’m from Buffalo. Home of the chicken wing. When we order wings here we get them from some of the very best places in the entire world. Tough to beat. I … Read more →

Can I just say, sliders do not strike me as Martha food. Can you see Martha eating them? I just can’t. Although I do understand it’s in the January issue of Martha Stewart Living as part of the Superbowl food section (does Martha have a Superbowl party? I doubt it).

My son loves sliders and orders them in restaurants every time they are on the menu, so I decided to make this for dinner. Really there’s nothing to this – all you do is make small hamburgers and serve them on dinner rolls. I didn’t make the shallot butter in the recipe because my family is very specific about what can and cannot go on a hamburger or slider. My son will not eat cheese. My husband likes mustard and ketchup. My daughter likes just ketchup. I require ketchup and relish. So I skipped the shallot butter and left several without cheese. I, of course, used organic, grass fed hamburger, which is something I am rigid about.

I did cook these under the broiler as Martha directs, even though I normally would have made them on the Jenn-Air grill. This was easy to make. I just wish I could have found whole wheat or multigrain dinner rolls, but I had to use white. I cannot tell you how long it has been since I’ve tasted regular white bread.  A real indulgence in this house.

The sliders were good. There’s something fun about cute little hamburgers like this. They’re easy to pick up and eat. This would be a nice thing to serve at a casual party, so it’s definitely something that would work for SuperBowl.

I’m going to be making more of the SuperBowl items from this issue in the coming weeks.

Can I just say, sliders do not strike me as Martha food. Can you see Martha eating them? I just can’t. Although I do understand it’s in the January issue of Martha Stewart Living as part of the Superbowl food section (does Martha have a Superbowl party? I doubt it). My son loves sliders and … Read more →

The recipe for Minneola Tangelo Buttermilk Scones on page 132 of Martha Stewart Living (January) caught my eye. Oh, do I love a good scone.  Especially with a cup of tea. Oh my. Add some jam and clotted cream and I’m in rapture. Seriously.

So, I was ready to give this one a try. Now, pardon me for a moment as I vent. I do like to read about new products and foods, but this whole section of citrus recipes annoyed me. My store has Valencia oranges and Clementine tangerines. Throw in a few grapefruit and some lemons and limes and that is the citrus section. Maybe people in NYC can trot out and find Minneola tangelos, but I sure can’t. And really, I’m not about to order them from the list of resources Martha has just to chop them up and put them in scones.  So, I started this one off planning to use Clementines. I have no idea if they are an adequate substitute, but it was the only game in town!

I started by cutting the butter into the dry ingredients. I have a little wire tool for this just like Martha uses on the show. Next I added the chopped clementines (which I whizzed up in the Cuisinart), zest and buttermilk.

My intention was to take photos so you could see the dough, but my goodness, it was a mess and it was all over my hands and I couldn’t even touch the camera! This was a pile of mushy slop. Martha says to knead it then cut it into triangles. There was no chance of that. I just scooped some out and made round blobs on the baking sheet. I can’t entirely blame Martha, since I was not using the prescribed fruit and that may have made a difference.

They came out of the oven looking like this.  Not exactly your traditional scone! They did, however, taste good. One caveat – this really needs a little spice of some kind. Maybe ginger? I don’t know, but it definitely needs something. Blueberry scones are still my favorite and I probably wouldn’t make this recipe again.

The recipe for Minneola Tangelo Buttermilk Scones on page 132 of Martha Stewart Living (January) caught my eye. Oh, do I love a good scone.  Especially with a cup of tea. Oh my. Add some jam and clotted cream and I’m in rapture. Seriously. So, I was ready to give this one a try. Now, … Read more →

I like how this month’s Martha Stewart Living has some recipes in it that are more relaxed – casseroles and sandwiches. I was excited to try the shrimp burgers (p. 118 in January Living). My eyes started to roll back into my head once I saw it was a three part recipe (it seems many of Martha’s recipes require several parts, or at least some sort of chilling or freezing component). I’m happy to report this was easy to make.

Slaw

The yogurt sauce was simple to mix up. The slaw required chopping up of avocado, mango and cabbage. Easy.  You mix some yogurt sauce into that and it’s done.

The shrimp burger was easy too. You food process some shrimp, add it to egg and coarsely chopped shrimp and mix it with the yogurt sauce and breadcrumbs. Plop it on a baking sheet and that’s it.

Shrimp patty

You serve the burgers with pitas and the slaw. I liked this a lot, although I thought it was a little bland. It needed something – more lemon maybe? Some dill? I don’t know, but it just needed some more flavor. It was really good though as it was and I enjoyed it. It was definitely something different to make for dinner and it did not take hours to

The pita

prepare.  The burgers stayed together pretty well and nothing dripped or oozed out of the pita. Thumbs up on this one.

I like how this month’s Martha Stewart Living has some recipes in it that are more relaxed – casseroles and sandwiches. I was excited to try the shrimp burgers (p. 118 in January Living). My eyes started to roll back into my head once I saw it was a three part recipe (it seems many … Read more →

I was intrigued at how many casseroles were in this month’s Martha Stewart Living (it doesn’t seem like a typical Martha thing really) and I’ve been enjoying trying them out. Last night I made the Rice and Spinach Casserole (page 47 of January Living). I love spinach and I love rice.

This was pretty easy to put together. You cook sliced zucchini, garlic and scallions in a pan until it’s soft. You take that out and cook spinach until it wilts. I didn’t have enough fresh spinach on hand and added some frozen spinach that I thawed and it was perfectly fine – you could definitely skip this step and just use some thawed frozen spinach. Next you add fresh basil to the spinach and cook that down a little. I didn’t have any fresh basil so I just used dried. I’m sure fresh would have tasted much better, but this was an adequate substitute (I know Martha would never agree!).

Next you mix up ricotta and eggs (I substituted Eggbeaters for some of the whole eggs). Another admission – I absolutely cannot stand ricotta in anything, ever, so I used cottage cheese. You mix this with the rice and veggies and add some parmesan cheese. You put it in a casserole dish and top with more rice and parmesan.

I really liked this.  It had lots of spinach and just enough rice. Usually I believe there can never be enough cheese in things, but this had just enough. It cooked in about 40 minutes and stayed hot when served. I’ll definitely make this again. I think if you wanted to, you could definitely add some chicken or ground turkey to this to make it a complete meal in one dish.

I was intrigued at how many casseroles were in this month’s Martha Stewart Living (it doesn’t seem like a typical Martha thing really) and I’ve been enjoying trying them out. Last night I made the Rice and Spinach Casserole (page 47 of January Living). I love spinach and I love rice. This was pretty easy … Read more →

This week on Martha’s cooking school segment, she and Sarah Carey steamed fish.  Since I don’t have bamboo steamers (which she used to make the steamed salmon), I decided to make the whole steamed fish. Well, except for the small fact that you can’t buy a whole fresh fish around here. And except for the fact that there seems to be some sort of fish shortage or crisis – all the stores have empty fish counters this week. I don’t know if there was some shipping problem or what, but something’s up. So I ended up buying some frozen mahi mahi pieces. A whole fish would have been too much for the two of us anyhow (kids won’t eat it!).

I was able to find lemon grass at my store (color me shocked) and I’ve never used it before. What an amazing scent it has! I cut that up, cut up some ginger and garlic and scallion and got some cilantro together. I put some under the fish and some on top. I sprinkled the fish sauce over it.

Ready to cook

I made my fish in an oval bowl and put it in a large saute pan with boiling water in it. I covered it with foil. It took longer to cook than I expected – probably about 20-25 min and my pieces of fish were not more than an inch and a half thick. There was a large amount of broth in the bottom of the bowl.

Ready to eat

I loved the way this tasted! Very flavorful. The fish was cooked perfectly (when it was finally cooked!). I served it with rice. We didn’t even squeeze the lime juice onto it, it had such a nice full flavor. I did feel the steaming process to be kind of a pain. It took a long time and it would have been a lot easier to pan fry the fish or grill it, but I did like how it became infused with all the flavors, so it is worthwhile to do it for that. It is an interesting cooking method – you don’t need any special equipment and it’s nice how it creates the flavorful broth.

I cannot imagine doing this with a whole fish. I was shaking my head through the segment as Martha was talking about how she loooooves to serve it whole with the head attached and doesn’t understand why people don’t like to see that. Same reason I prefer not to serve my roast chicken with a beak on the platter, Martha. I also don’t like bones and in my experience any time you bring a fish to the table with bones, some of those bones end up in your mouth.

This week on Martha’s cooking school segment, she and Sarah Carey steamed fish.  Since I don’t have bamboo steamers (which she used to make the steamed salmon), I decided to make the whole steamed fish. Well, except for the small fact that you can’t buy a whole fresh fish around here. And except for the … Read more →

Mr. MarthaAndMe is a major fan of tuna noodle casserole, so I decided to give this a whirl from page 130 of January Living.

This is totally different from the way I make this dish. You food process onion, anchovies, capers, and artichoke hearts. Then you add in parmesan cheese, tuna water, oil and pepper. You mix this with your tuna (I had some tuna filets leftover that I used instead of canned tuna) and elbows. Put it in a dish and sprinkle breadcrumbs and a little oil on top and bake for about 40 min.

This was pretty simple to whip up. As for the taste, I did not like it at all, but I do not like anchovies.  It tasted very, very fishy in the way anchovies do and did not taste much like tuna at all. I also did not taste the artichokes. It smelled very fishy too. Mr. MarthaAndMe liked it (good thing, since he’ll be eating it for lunch all week now!). The kids would not touch it. I don’t think I’ll make this again.

Mr. MarthaAndMe is a major fan of tuna noodle casserole, so I decided to give this a whirl from page 130 of January Living. This is totally different from the way I make this dish. You food process onion, anchovies, capers, and artichoke hearts. Then you add in parmesan cheese, tuna water, oil and pepper. … Read more →

Like the rest of the world, I’m working on being healthier in the new year, so when Martha made the Soba Soup with Spinach (also in Jan Every Day Food) on Monday, I was excited to try it. I’ve had soba noodles before and they’re good. This soup looked easy.

It was just as easy to make as it appeared on tv. I chopped ginger, scallions, garlic and mushrooms and cooked them with oil and salt. Once the mushrooms were soft, I added broth and water. Then I added noodles and cooked till done and then the spinach, soy sauce and lime at the end. Very, very simple and very, very tasty. I really liked this soup a lot. It takes very hearty even though there is no meat in it. It was very filling.I will definitely make this again. I served it for dinner with some strawberries, some seared tuna and a few slices of bread. It was more filling than expected though, so the bread was unnecessary.

I had some for lunch today. The broth had turned a darker color overnight, but it was just as good if not better today. This one’s a winner.

I have to put a comment in here about the other part of Monday’s show. It was great that Martha demo’ed that new exercise machine, but who can afford that? Then she had the facial expert on and kept touting how she was going to share three of her own facial recipes. Well, in my book, telling me to drink acai juice and chlorophyll do not count as facial recipes! Only the second recipe was for an actual facial and I have NO idea where you are supposed to buy dried clay to put in it! The whole segment was a huge disappointment to me.

Like the rest of the world, I’m working on being healthier in the new year, so when Martha made the Soba Soup with Spinach (also in Jan Every Day Food) on Monday, I was excited to try it. I’ve had soba noodles before and they’re good. This soup looked easy. It was just as easy … Read more →

I decided to try the Chicken, Leek and Mushroom casserole from page 45 of Jan Living. It sounded simple and nice for a cold night. In general, I am not a big casserole fan, but this one sounded ok.

Veggies

You start by cooking chicken breasts. Then you cook chopped leek, celery and mushrooms. Once that is browned, you add flour, milk, stock, sherry, a bay leaf and salt and pepper.  You thicken that a little.

In the casserole pan, you put bread on the bottom and spoon half the veggie mix on, then put sliced chicken on it, the rest of the veggie mix and some parmesan cheese.

Ready for the oven

It looked good when it went into the oven and smelled good as it cooked.

When I took it out, it looked very nice. It was hot all the way through and the liquid absorbed into the bread.

Ready to serve

When I tasted it however, I didn’t have a very favorable reaction. There was nothing offensive, but it had no flavor. It was completely bland. First I dumped more salt, pepper and parmesan on, but it didn’t help. Finally I got up and found an herb mix I have called Bouquet Garnee and dumped that on and that helped immensely. If you make this, I recommend adding some rosemary and thyme or maybe some basil or oregano to the veggie mix as it is cooking. It really desperately needs some flavor – otherwise it just tastes like a mouthful of wet bread.

I decided to try the Chicken, Leek and Mushroom casserole from page 45 of Jan Living. It sounded simple and nice for a cold night. In general, I am not a big casserole fan, but this one sounded ok. You start by cooking chicken breasts. Then you cook chopped leek, celery and mushrooms. Once that … Read more →

Yesterday we spent the day taking down the decorations, which is an all day job. I needed something easy for dinner, but I’m so very tired of eating bad food that I wanted something tasty and definitely did not want takeout. I decided to go with Martha’s Chicken with Israeli Couscous from page 118 of January Living.

First confession – I didn’t have Israeli couscous, so I used regular. It’s next to impossible to find Israeli couscous in this neck of the woods, although I do like it. Second confession, I used leftover chicken. I brought some chicken home from a holiday dinner the other night. I simply deconstructed it (it was wrapped in filo with cream cheese, spinach and a little crab) and added it to this recipe at the end to get it warm.

Since I cheated and used regular couscous and pre-cooked chicken, this dish came together in a flash. All I did was simmer some tomatoes with garlic, onion, lemon juice, chicken stock, and white wine until it was coming together. Third confession – I don’t have any saffron, so I had to skip adding that. Then I dumped in the couscous and waited for that to set up. At the end, I added the chicken breasts and peas. Very simple.

I thought it tasted great. I’m a big fan of couscous and I loved the tomatoey sauce this made with it. I would definitely make this dish again.

Yesterday we spent the day taking down the decorations, which is an all day job. I needed something easy for dinner, but I’m so very tired of eating bad food that I wanted something tasty and definitely did not want takeout. I decided to go with Martha’s Chicken with Israeli Couscous from page 118 of … Read more →