We have a lot of leftovers from our turkey. The day after Thanksgiving, we usually have turkey sandwiches for lunch. For dinner, I reheat the entire Thanksgiving meal. To reheat the turkey, I put some gravy in a pan and heat that, then add in some slices of turkey for just a few minutes until it is hot. That way the turkey doesn’t overcook and stays moist.

By the Saturday after Thanksgiving I am starting to tire of turkey. So I really appreciated the section in the November Living with all the great leftover idea. My first try was turkey croquettes (page 70).

Croquette mixture

The recipe seemed pretty easy. You cook onion in a pan with oil then add thyme and sage. Next you add some chopped turkey and a little cream and cook until the cream is gone. You transfer it to a bowl and let it cool. Then add mashed potatoes, flour and egg. Mix it up and make little croquettes. Here’s where it got tricky. These croquettes were very, very mushy. Martha says to dip them in breadcrumbs, put them on a tray and freeze them for 15 min (a lot of Martha’s recipes

Ready to freeze

require a freezing step, I am finding). It was very hard to cover the mushy blobs in breadcrumbs and hard to transfer them to a tray. I muttered a bit at Martha under my breath. I think it might make sense to freeze the mixture for a few minutes first, then shape them into croquettes. They were really hard to work with.

After I froze the breaded croquettes, them it was time to fry. The key here is make sure your oil is very hot. The first batch I did broke apart a little and didn’t cook

Fry it up in a pan

very evenly, but the second batch was perfect.

You serve them with cranberry sauce. They were tasty with a nice flavor. What was weird was you couldn’t really tell you were eating potato at all. They definitely need the cranberry sauce, so don’t leave that out. I would definitely make these

Fried to perfection

again next year. They’re a nice alternative to other turkey leftover dishes I think. A good thing.

We have a lot of leftovers from our turkey. The day after Thanksgiving, we usually have turkey sandwiches for lunch. For dinner, I reheat the entire Thanksgiving meal. To reheat the turkey, I put some gravy in a pan and heat that, then add in some slices of turkey for just a few minutes until … Read more →

We always have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving – it’s a tradition. My recipe uses the crust recipe I got from my mother and the filling that I am embarrassed to admit came from an ad for Libby’s canned pumpkin! Martha has a recipe for Traditional Pumpkin Pie on page 82 of November Living. It was time for a pie-off.

First I made my own crust. This is a simple, no hassle crust. I dump 1 1/3 c of  flour, 1 stick of butter, 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp sugar in the Cuisinart and process till it looks like meal. Then I gradually add 1/4 c ice water until it forms into a ball. I roll it out (and it rolls out smoothly and easily) and pour in the filling and bake. Easy and reliable.

Next I did Martha’s crust. Martha calls for 2 1/2 c flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and 2 sticks of butter. Then you add 3-4 tbsp cold water. Quite different than mine – twice as much butter and almost twice as much flour and much

Messy

less water. Martha directs you to chill it for 1 hour before rolling it out. I did that. I rolled it out and it was a giant mess. It ripped and shredded all over the place. I ended up having to patch it in places once it was in the pan.

Then Martha says to freeze the pie shell for 15 minutes. When you take it out, you prick it with a fork, put parchment paper inside it and fill it with pie weights. Then

Patched

you bake for 15 min at 375. Take it out and remove the pie weights and parchment paper and bake for another 15-20 min until it is brown.

By the time I did all this, my pie was completely done. I was feeling a bit annoyed at how complicated Martha’s process was. Thank goodness I have two

Martha

ovens though or I would have been in trouble! That turkey needed to go in while all this was happening!

Next, let’s take a look at the 2 fillings. My fabulous Libby’s pie is made up of 3/4 c white sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp cloves, 2 eggs, 15 oz pumpkin and 12 oz evaporated milk.

Martha’s filling is 3/4 c brown sugar, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 1/2 tsp salt, 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 3/4 tsp ginger, 3/4 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp vanilla, 3 eggs, 12 oz evaporated milk and 15 oz canned pumpkin. Again, different than mine. She uses an extra egg, brown sugar instead of white, and nutmeg instead of cloves. The cornstarch is extra also.

My pie

My pie bakes at 425 for 15 min then you reduce the temp to 350 and bake for another 40-50 min. It was done exactly on time.

Martha’s pie bakes at 325. The recipe says 50-55 minutes. WRONG! That pie was not done for a good hour and a half, and that was only after I got annoyed and cranked the temp to 350!

Martha

Both pies looked good. Martha’s was a little taller than mine.

I made the family do a taste test. The results were split. I loved Martha’s crust. Yes, it was a giant pain to make it, but it tasted terrific. I would make it again. I liked my filling better. It had a stronger flavor and tasted more like pumpkin to me. So in the future I would make her crust with my filling.

Mine- left, Martha- right

The rest of the family was split also. Mini-Martha liked my pie. Teen daughter liked Martha. Mr. MarthaAndMe liked both.

We always have pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving – it’s a tradition. My recipe uses the crust recipe I got from my mother and the filling that I am embarrassed to admit came from an ad for Libby’s canned pumpkin! Martha has a recipe for Traditional Pumpkin Pie on page 82 of November Living. It was … Read more →

As I posted earlier, this year I made Martha’s dry brined turkey. In the past I’ve done a wet brine and been very happy with it. I took the plunge though and put my turkey in Martha’s hands.

Ready for the oven

The dry brine meant I coated the turkey with a mix of salt and bay leaves and left it in the fridge for 48 hours. Thanksgiving Day, Mr. Turkey came out and we first rinsed it well inside and out. I was a little paranoid about so much salt, so I really wanted to give it a good rinse. Martha says to pat the turkey dry and then rub it with half a stick of butter. I’ve never rubbed a turkey with butter, but if Martha says so I will obey. I also sprinkled some poultry seasoning and salt and pepper on it.

I stuffed the big cavity with regular stuffing. I admit I did not do a Martha stuffing since my kids would mutiny. Here’s how I make stuffing. All year long I keep a bag in the freezer and throw stale bread and the ends of loaves into. Come Thanksgiving, I have a nice variety of different breads and plenty to make stuffing with. I cook up onions and celery and add that with poultry seasoning, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, sage, salt and pepper to the stuffing. Then I get it wet with broth and water. Pretty easy.

The small cavity was stuffed with a new family tradition – cornbread stuffing. We tried this last year and it was a hit and everyone wanted it again. I make cornbread and treat it like I do the regular bread stuffing.

Once the turkey was stuffed, Martha says to tuck the wings underneath it. It took a while to figure out how to do this. What she really means it to take the tips of the wings – that third, skinny part – and bend it backwards and then stick it under the front of the turkey (the neck end). Next, I tied the legs together as directed by Martha. Into the oven it went. Martha says to baste it every half hour with a butter and white wine mixture. I just used butter (we’re not big on wine).

Martha says to start the oven at 425 then turn it down to 350 after half an hour. I did as directed.

Here’s where things got a little kooky. My turkey was 19 lbs and every chart I consulted said it should take 4 1/2 to 5 hours stuffed to cook. Ha! This bird was done in 3 1/2 hours! I was not prepared at all! I turned the oven down to warm and raced around peeling potatoes and cooking veggies.

Right out of the oven

I let it rest outside the oven for about half an hour before Mr. MarthaAndMe carved. What a beautiful bird this recipe produced! It was a gorgeous bronze color, just like the one of the cover of the November issue of Living. I’ve never seen a turkey so brown and perfect.

This was hands down the most delicious turkey I have ever made. It tasted simply incredible. Moist, flavorful, silky – to die for. I did use a different kind of turkey this year – organic, free range when in the past I’ve only used organic, so that may be part of it. But I believe the dry brine definitely made this turkey moist and tasty. Slathering it with

Ready to carve

butter probably helped too.

What else did we have? Mashed potatoes, gravy (pan drippings mixed with turkey broth that I mix Wondra into), and roasted root vegetables (carrot, parsnip and rutabaga with olive oil and balsamic vinegar). Pumpkin pie for dessert (that’ll be tomorrow’s post, so tune in to find out how Martha’s pie went).

We had a great Thanksgiving. We watched the parade and the dog show. After dinner we played some games and then watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving show. It was a terrific, relaxing day. We have lots of leftovers – Oh! I can’t wait to have that turkey sandwich at lunch! I’m also planning to try out some of Martha’s leftover ideas from November Living.

I will definitely make this dry brined turkey again next year. It is much easier to make than the wet brine and the results were simply incredible!

As I posted earlier, this year I made Martha’s dry brined turkey. In the past I’ve done a wet brine and been very happy with it. I took the plunge though and put my turkey in Martha’s hands. The dry brine meant I coated the turkey with a mix of salt and bay leaves and … Read more →

For the past few years, I have done a wet brine for my Thanksgiving turkey. My brine usually includes salt (obv, as my teen would say), cider, sugar, lemon juice, lemon slices, orange slices, and some Williams Sonoma Turkey Brine mix Mr. MarthaAndMe bought me for Christmas one year.  I’ve experimented with adding brown sugar or molasses. I’ve had great success with brining. It creates a moist and flavorful turkey. It’s well worth the effort. Martha said on her show Tuesday that this is the year of the brined turkey. She said in past years people were all excited about deep frying their turkeys, but this year everyone is brining. Look at me, riding the trend!

In the past, I bought a Plainville Farms organic turkey from a butcher shop. This year, however, I bought an organic, free range turkey from my grocery store. It was $64 for a 19 pound turkey! Yowza!

In the November issue of Living, Martha has a recipe for a Dry-Brined Turkey, which she and Sarah Carey demo’ed on the 5th Cooking School lesson on her show (which I missed, but was able to catch most of online). I had never heard of a dry brine before this, so this is a new one for me. The scientific explanation for it that somehow the salt draws all the juices of the turkey to the surface which makes it juicier. I’m not chemist, but I’ll give it a shot. Martha says you must dry brine your turkey on Tuesday if you want it on Thursday (it needs to sit for 48 hours), so that was the plan.

Mr. MarthaAndMe and the cavity

First step is to remove the giblets. Eww, gross. I hate those! Mr. MarthaAndMe was glad to step in and hold the turkey’s intimate parts for me. I love how Martha wears gloves to work with turkeys. I definitely could use those. One small glitch – this turkey had an actual feather still attached. Eeek! That did not make me happy! Mr. MarthaAndMe bravely plucked it out.

Next, you rinse the turkey off, inside and out. I understand the importance of this, but boy do I hate doing it. All I can do is imagine nasty turkey salmonella germs all

Patting Mr. Turkey Dry

over my sink. Blech. (I know I do seem to have many issues when it comes to turkeys, don’t I?) There was some serious cleaning when this project was done I can tell you.

The next step is to pat the turkey dry. Ok, got that Martha.

Then you rub the turkey, inside and out, with a mix of salt and bay leaves. I really expected there to be more in the mixture than that, but I’m doing what Martha says. This was harder than it sounds. Since I patted Mr. Turkey dry, the salt and bay leaf stuff didn’t want to stick to him at all. I kept rubbing it on and it kept just rolling off.

Then you put the turkey-lurkey in a bag and get the air out and refrigerate until

Dry Brine

Thanksgiving day. Martha says to use an oven bag. I cheated and used a giant size Ziploc. I got all the air out and tucked the zippy part underneath.

I’m a little nervous about this! I’m used to my wet brining approach, so I’m worried this won’t be as good. All I can do is trust in Martha. As always, I do enjoy trying something new, so I’m definitely game. I’ll report back after turkey day as to the results! I’m sure there are others of you out there trying this method too, so I’m interested to hear your results also.

Turkey massage

Turkey in a bag

For the past few years, I have done a wet brine for my Thanksgiving turkey. My brine usually includes salt (obv, as my teen would say), cider, sugar, lemon juice, lemon slices, orange slices, and some Williams Sonoma Turkey Brine mix Mr. MarthaAndMe bought me for Christmas one year.  I’ve experimented with adding brown sugar … Read more →

On Martha’s show yesterday, Sarah Carey and Lucinda Scala Quinn both cooked their “Sensational Sides” from the November issue of Living. These are recipes their families make every year. Sarah made peach stuffing, which I find too weird to attempt (although the fact that Sarah was raised on a commune in Woodstock is fascinating). Lucinda made baked artichoke hearts. I have to say when I saw this in the magazine, it didn’t interest me, but when I saw her make it, it looked so good (and Martha was raving about it)!

Getting to the heart

So, out I ran to the grocery store to buy some artichoke hearts (you have no idea how many grocery store trips Martha is causing me!). The recipe calls for 3 nine oz packages. I only bought one since the daughter wasn’t home for dinner and Mini-Martha would likely have only a taste. I cut the rest of the recipe by 1/3 as well.

This was super easy to throw together. Put your hearts in the pan (sounds

Ready for the oven

like a song, doesn’t it?). Mix breadcrumbs (Martha will be proud – I made my own for this!), grated cheese, herbs and seasonings together and spread over it. Then whisk lemon juice, garlic and oil together and spread over it.

You cook it for about half an hour at 325 covered, then crank it to

Crunchy!

375 uncovered. How did it taste? This was pretty good. The hearts were soft and the topping was crunchy. Here’s how I would improve it. First of all, use melted butter instead of olive oil. It just needs some extra flavor. Cut back on the lemon juice. It was a bit a tart I thought. I think I would make this again with those changes. I can also see adding some bacon crumbles or more cheese to this to make it really decadent.

Pomegranate Peeling

My kids like pomegranates, but they are such a huge mess. So I was simply stunned when I saw Martha easily remove the seeds from one on her show. I had to try it.

Scoring

Martha says to cut through the skin as if you are quartering it, but only cut the skin, not the insides. Use that incision to get your fingers in and pull it apart into 4 quarters.

The pieces

Once you have the 4 quarters, whack them on the back with the back of a wooden spoon and all the seeds will magically pop out (so says Martha). The POM pomegranate lady Martha had on didn’t even know this!

I had to try it. First I sliced the skin. This was easy. Then I pulled it into quarters. Again, not too hard, although it did not come apart very evenly.

Then I got to take out my aggressions on it with the wooden spoon. It did

Seeds remaining

get most of the seeds out, but you do have to pull some of the pulp out to get to some and get some seeds out by hand. Overall, fairly effective. It was messy though. Seeds were flying every which way and you can see juice was spattering too, if you look at the edges of the bowl. This was pretty effective though and much easier than trying to peel it and pick out seeds by hand. I will definitely use this method again. Now if Martha just had a plan for how to eat the seeds without having to have a spitoon at the ready, I would be really excited!

The results

On Martha’s show yesterday, Sarah Carey and Lucinda Scala Quinn both cooked their “Sensational Sides” from the November issue of Living. These are recipes their families make every year. Sarah made peach stuffing, which I find too weird to attempt (although the fact that Sarah was raised on a commune in Woodstock is fascinating). Lucinda … Read more →

Lots of little things to report in this post.

I Hate Cable

My local stations don’t carry Martha’s show (why? I cry). For a while, I was watching it on Fine Living, but those episodes sometimes didn’t correspond to the schedule on the site. Sometimes they would play old reruns, other times they would play the current show. Too confusing. Then I found the little doo-hickey on Martha’s site that lets you type in your zip code and it will tell you where to find the show. I discovered it is carried by a Canadian station we get (I’m in Buffalo – no snow jokes please- which is on the border) at 1 p.m. Terrific! So I started DVRing it there. Wednesday of this week I was all excited because it was cooking school day. I went to play it at about 1:30 and no Martha! I checked the schedule and it had been pre-empted by something called “The Crown Speech” which was a news special in Canada (I could totally make some crack about this but I am totally not going to since I love my Canadian neighbors). Well, you can’t keep me away from Martha, so I quickly checked the Fine Living listings, but she wasn’t there either! Eek! Disaster!

Back to the online doo-hickey. Turns out Fine Living no longer carries it, but suddenly there is a local channel carrying it at 11 a.m. Which means I missed it for that day! This was a total and complete tragedy! I needed to see this cooking school since it was about Thanksgiving. She had an audience of people who have never cooked Thanksgiving dinner before! I needed to see this!!!  Now I’ll have to just use the recipes in the magazine and check the book for extra tidbits. Martha, you need to have your shows available to download online. There’s no reason not to. If my teen can watch Gossip Girl online, I should be able to watch you.

So now I’ve got the DVR set to tape both the Canadian broadcast and the local one in case this kind of pre-empting happens again (this is known as the belt and suspenders method of viewing).

Mac and Cheese

I was sitting at my son’s hockey practice earlier this week and my daughter asked what was for dinner. I told her (beef potpie) and she asked if we could have homemade mac and cheese with it.  My first reaction was no way – I didn’t have enough cheese or enough time! But when I got home, instead of dumping out a box of it, I first looked at Martha’s recipe in Cooking School. It looked almost as easy as making it from a box so I went for it. I’ve made my own in the past, but have never been happy with it. I especially detest the homemade kind that has egg in it (sorry, Paula Deen!). Martha’s recipe was really easy. You start with some butter and onions and add flour then milk. This really cooked up to a nice thickness and then I added cheese. It was ready within minutes. I skipped the step of putting it in a casserole dish and putting breadcrumbs on top. It tasted great and was simple. A good thing.

Crepes

On Nov 10, Martha had on Chef Brian Sikora, who made herb crepes. I was going to attempt this recipe, but as I’ve reported in some other posts, I was sick as a dog. I cheated and bought some crepes. It was about $4 for a package of 10. I have attempted crepes in the past and wasn’t happy with how they turned out, so this was a good compromise. I spread some Dijon mustard on them and filled them with ham, asparagus and cheese. I made a cheese sauce to go on top and baked them till the sauce bubbled. They were yummy.

Roasted Cauliflower

I also made the roasted cauliflower from the special holiday issue of Living. No photos here either guys – you cannot believe how sick I’ve been. I can barely make food and type a blog. That’s about all I’ve got energy for. Anyway, Martha said to roast your cauli in the oven with oil, vinegar, capers and seasonings. I skipped the capers and used balsamic vinegar. Usually I like my cauli with butter and cheese, so I was a little leery. This was good though! The cauli turned slightly brown and got a a little crunchy at the ends. The oil and vinegar was tasty. I would definitely make this again.

Jealous

Yesterday Martha showed us her new Turbo Chef oven which cooked a 12 lb turkey in 42 minutes. OMG. Um, Santa? What a cool thing this is. Although I have to say I do love how the Thanksgiving turkey cooks all day and you smell it and it just builds the anticipation! Anyone know how much these babies cost?

Elsewhere on the Web

Martha Moments has a great blog about Martha’s circular logo, which I’m emulating on this site. He also has a really cool post about making bows from Martha’s magazines.

Mad About Martha is my go-to place to find out how Every Day Food recipes work out. So glad that I don’t have to make the banana oat smoothie myself to know it was not so great.

Living Oprah is finding herself dreaming about Oprah. So far I have not dreamt about Martha, although I do find myself thinking about her through much of the day. How would Martha do this? What would Martha cook for dinner?

Good Things also tried fresh pasta from Martha – not the pici that was such a disaster for me, but from the cooking school book. That’s where I will have to turn next if I want to try this fresh pasta thing again.

THANK YOU!!!!

And finally – thank you to everyone who is reading and following my journey. I had over 600 hits yesterday. I love hearing from you and knowing you’re checking in on me!

Lots of little things to report in this post. I Hate Cable My local stations don’t carry Martha’s show (why? I cry). For a while, I was watching it on Fine Living, but those episodes sometimes didn’t correspond to the schedule on the site. Sometimes they would play old reruns, other times they would play … Read more →

On Nov 7, Martha had a pasta show. I was totally excited since I love pasta, but I’ve never actually made the actual pasta itself. I had to make one of the recipes to give it a try and decided to go with Iacopo Falai’s pici (pronounced “pee-cee”. It looked pretty simple – I always thought pasta meant you had to have a pasta machine (which I do not), so I was excited that I didn’t need anything special to do this. This is a basic pasta that is hand rolled. No problemo I thought.

Ok, the first problem was the recipe called for “00” flour. On the show, Iacopo and Martha talked about it like it was a common thing. I’d never heard of it, but I’d never made pasta so I figured it was a no-brainer. My grocery store had nothing like this. They did have something called “pasta flour” which was a mix of semolina and durum. I bought that, figuring it was as close as I was going to get. I will admit up front that this may not have been the right thing for this recipe, but if not, gosh why didn’t they explain this was some specialty item you have to order online or whatever?

Ready to mix

Ok, so I started mixing this up in a bowl with my hand mixer. You see, my Kitchen Aid stand mixer and I are estranged. Our relationship is in danger and I’ve even considered a divorce – selling it on Craigslist. It is so darn heavy that I almost always would just rather get out my little mixer. I also hate how it is impossible to get anything to go in the bowl when you have the beater down. I just find the whole thing inconvenient. So, I started with the hand mixer. I did as it said and added the water gradually. It did not come together at all. Not even a little bit. So I gave in and hauled out the Kitchen Aid monster.

Let me give you some background on my state of mind here before I go any further. I have been sick all week with a sinus infection – no voice, constant nose blowing, not sleeping at night – you get the picture. The day before, mini-Martha spilled an entire glass of lemonade on a laptop. Huge, expensive disaster. Mr. MarthaAndMe has been away almost every night this week at meetings and events. Like everyone else in America, we are worried about bills and money. It has simply been a miserable week from start to finish.

With that as background, please close your eyes and picture me setting up

Aftermath of the tornado

the @#$*# Kitchen Aid, dumping my pasta mixture in and turning it on, only to discover that the bowl was not locked in properly and the mixer was not completely locked in the down position. I had a tornado of pasta mix swirling around me uncontrollably. I fully expected to land in some weird Italian Oz. I shut it off and cleaned it up with some colorful language. The dogs of course thought it was fantastic and began licking the floor in earnest (and if you read the Crabby Cake post, you know that meant they were also licking my feet which makes me NUTS).

Ok, so once I finally scraped the pasta off the walls and got it mixing and it wasn’t coming together at all. It was way too dry. So I added a little more water and a little more and so on until I doubled the amount of water in the recipe. Then it was together, sort of, but I was afraid to add any more. I mixed in the parsley  (the Kitchen Aid protested this and I think it could have burned out the motor had I not intervened – but would that have been a great loss?)  and then let it rest for 30 min as directed.

Can you feel the love?

I came back all excited to roll this out as I saw them do on tv. Silly me to think it would be easy. You’re supposed to roll this on the counter or a board in the same way you used to make Play-Doh snakes as a kid. You want to get an 8 inch piece that is 1 inch in diameter. Martha and her guest chef made this look so easy and fun. Not for me. The dough simply shredded and crumbled when I rolled it. Total mess. I was able to get a few long pieces with much smushing it together, and then because I was

Not so pretty

sweating like a hog and was ready to cry from frustration and exhaustion, I gave in and just shaped the rest into about 4 inch long pieces without really rolling it. It took forever. I think I was standing there about 45 min.

For the sauce, I shunned the sausage ragout (I hate sausage) in the recipe and made a fun little sauce with olive oil, stewed tomato, garlic, broccoli, scallions, spinach, mushrooms and herbs.

Finally, Mr. MarthaAndMe called to say he was on his way home from work, so I got the water boiling and dumped my sad looking pici in. The recipe says to cook it for about 4 minutes. I don’t know what galaxy that 4 minutes would be in, but in this galaxy it took 40 minutes for this to cook. Again, there I was, standing over a Martha dish, practically in tears, ready to drop dead from exhaustion.

Cooked

I didn’t think it looked very attractive at all when done. Mini-Martha thought it looked like worms, which is always what I want to hear as I’m sitting down to eat. I put the sauce on and we also sprinkled some bacon and parmesan cheese (also called nectar of the gods) on top.

The pasta tasted ok, but it was really heavy and doughy tasting. There was tons and tons left (this was supposed to feed 4 – we had 3 diners tonight and maybe ate 1/8 of it). I froze the rest. When I defrost it, I think I am going to cut it up into little gnocchi type pieces to make it more appetizing and manageable. My sauce was quite yummy.

So, I’m pretty disappointed with this recipe, especially after Martha raved

Ready to eat

about she always ordered the pici at Iacopo’s restaurant and she just loves it. Maybe my flour was at fault – I don’t know. But the whole thing just did not go smoothly and I’m bummed.

On Nov 7, Martha had a pasta show. I was totally excited since I love pasta, but I’ve never actually made the actual pasta itself. I had to make one of the recipes to give it a try and decided to go with Iacopo Falai’s pici (pronounced “pee-cee”. It looked pretty simple – I always … Read more →

I’ve only completed half of this cooking school lesson so far. Martha and Sarah Carey made chicken piccata (to demonstrate sauteing) and then an Indian spice yogurt marinaded chicken that was pan-fried. I’ll get to the second one at a future date (or not since I’m not a big fan of spicy Indian food).

Cutlets

The first step in this

Cutlets pounded

was to make chicken cutlets. I must confess, I never knew what that was really! I just thought it was a chicken breast that was pounded thin. I had no idea you were supposed to cut it in half, to reduce the thickness. Color me ignorant on that. I was a little apprehensive about cutting the breasts in half, but it was super easy. They came out evenly and there was no anxiety necessary!

Next you are supposed to pound the cutlets to make them thin. Martha uses a metal mallet. My mom always used the side of a wooden tenderizer mallet and that’s what I use too (don’t worry – I cover the breasts in plastic so the wood does not get contaminated – no salmonella for this family). This was no problem to do either.

Cooking.....

I coated the breasts in the seasoned flour and cooked them in the oil and butter. No problem there either. They cooked really quickly. Once done, I removed them and added the wine, lemon juice, capers and parsley.

This was super simple,

Feelin

super quick, and super tasty! I have never had chicken piccata before – I guess I thought it sounded boring. I’ve also never eaten capers before. I thought they were like olives (which I

A gorgeous dish

don’t like) so I’ve always avoided them. I have to say, they gave a nice flavor as long as you didn’t eat too many at a time.  I love how the chicken was nicely browned and kind of crunchy. This one’s a good thing! Thanks Martha!

A Side Note

As a side note, I want to mention that I made Martha’s matzoh ball soup (from the Cooking School book) earlier this week. I was sick as a dog and didn’t manage to take any photos. Basically I made chicken soup like I always do (this time I threw in some of the leftover celery root and parsnips from Cooking School lesson 3 – the braised pork shoulder). Her matzoh balls are different than the recipe on the side of the matzoh can. I must confess the first time I ever even tried this kind of soup was last year, so I’m a newbie at this. Martha has you whip the egg whites separately. This did make the dough lighter. I liked their flavor, but found it was hard to get them to come out very round. Mine were all lop-sided and disturbed looking. They tasted great though. So that one gets a thumbs up too.

My December issue of Living recently came in the mail, so I’ll be moving forward to projects from there soon. That issue is a little intimidating – everything is so over the top. I also have Martha’s holiday special issues for both food and crafts and will be using those as well. Christmas is really creeping up on us. I’m looking forward to having a Martha Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I feel as though Martha is helping me pay attention to details more than I normally would, which I am appreciating.

I’ve only completed half of this cooking school lesson so far. Martha and Sarah Carey made chicken piccata (to demonstrate sauteing) and then an Indian spice yogurt marinaded chicken that was pan-fried. I’ll get to the second one at a future date (or not since I’m not a big fan of spicy Indian food). The … Read more →

I signed up for Martha’s Thanksgiving Workshop email program. The idea is she will send me an email once a week to help me get ready for Thanksgiving. Ok, that’s clever, although I am not really feeling overwhelmed about Thanksgiving. Unlike Christmas, it’s just a dinner.

Week 1

The first email arrived the first week in November. She suggested that I:

– Choose a menu. This was easy since we tend to be traditional. I’m going with her classic menu.

– Create a guest list. Easy – it’s just the 4 of us. No guests.

– Order the turkey. I’m going to call the butcher today. I always get a fresh turkey.

– Create some decorations. Martha has big ideas about buying a cornucopia and then wrapping it in burlap and raffia. Sounds nuts to me. I have two that I filled with artificial fruits and vegetables and I think they are great. The one in my living room is crystal and has some gilded things in it. The family one is more casual. She also wants me to fill an urn with fresh produce for my porch. Instead, I have an arrangement of artificial flowers and pumpkins on my porch which will last longer than Martha’s. Do you see our “purkey”? Or “tumpkin”? We have these metal turkey pieces you insert into a pumpkin and it makes this cute turkey.

These are the kinds of things where Martha has great ideas, but I don’t know how anyone can have the time and money to do them all. Instead, I’m taking my inspiration from her and doing things in a less expensive and less over the top manner.

Family room cornucopia

Living room cornucopia

Front porch

Week 2

Update on week 1 responsibilities:

– I tried to order my turkey, I really did. My grocery store had a page in their ad showing that they have organic free range turkeys. Perfect, I thought! I went to the counter to order it and they told me they don’t take orders! They told me when they get deliveries and suggested I come in on those days! I could also call them and ask them to pull one out and hold it for me. Gee, how convenient.

– I took the quiz What Thanksgiving Side Dish Are You? Martha says I am mashed potatoes and gravy, which is totally accurate! I love mashies so, so, so much. It is a childhood deprivation issue (I’m throwing my mom under the bus again!). My mom usually had Thanksgiving when I was a kid and she doesn’t like mashed potatoes (which is why I can’t get enough of them). In fact, she doesn’t like much about a traditional Thanksgiving. We never had pumpkin pie either (although I believe there was pumpkin soup) and there were various frightening stuffing experiments that still give me the chills! I’ve never once seen a green bean casserole and she always made her own cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries and oranges.

– I have a table-setting ready to go (I’ll be posting photos soon)

– I am supposed to practice my side dishes. Well I made Big Martha’s mashed potatoes and the acorn squash with rosemary from the Nov. issue of Living this week, so that counts

– I am also supposed to bone up on my basic cooking techniques. I think I’m good with that, Martha. I’ve cooked many a Thanksgiving meal and I’m also following along with cooking school, so I think all is well.

Here’s a side note. I’m two weeks into the Thanksgiving workshop and I just got an email from Martha about the Christmas workshop. OMG. I haven’t even finished the table-settings for Thanksgiving. I just about died when I followed the link in the email. There is a TEN PAGE shopping list. 10 pages!!! I have never seen anything like this in my life! Now, I am sort of excited about it because Christmas does bring out my inner crafter, however this is way over the top. I’m SO scared. I’m going to have to attempt at least some of these crafts. Michaels just sent me a 50% any item coupon, so I guess I’ll put that to good use!

I signed up for Martha’s Thanksgiving Workshop email program. The idea is she will send me an email once a week to help me get ready for Thanksgiving. Ok, that’s clever, although I am not really feeling overwhelmed about Thanksgiving. Unlike Christmas, it’s just a dinner. Week 1 The first email arrived the first week … Read more →

So I bought all the major ingredients for Martha’s What’s for Dinner? (p. 208) from the Nov issue of Living (plus one additional side). My total came to about $25 for 4.

The menu was for pan-seared strip steak with mushrooms, white-cheddar grits, and collard greens with lemon. I did not make the dessert since we don’t eat dessert on week nights (ok, except for that 9 pm dish of ice cream which neither of us seems to be able to avoid, but I don’t even consider that dessert and that’s all I have to say about that!). I also made roasted acorn squash with rosemary (p. 221).

I had this one all planned out and was in the kitchen getting things organized when my son said to me, “What time are we leaving?” “Leaving for what?” I asked. “Hockey!” Holy flipping cows – I totally forgot it was hockey day since the kids were off from school. I was completely off schedule. Good thing he said something! This meant I had to get the meal partly cooked, rush out to hockey, sit there for an hour, then rush home and attempt to get it all on the table at a reasonable hour. Whew!

First, I got the squash ready for the oven. Not hard. Then I got the grits going by dumping them in the boiling water. Next I trimmed and cut up the collard greens and got those going. Then I had to shut it all off (but left the squash in the oven on a timer) to go to hockey.

Steak and mushrooms

When I got home, the squash was just about done. The grits needed some serious cooking and stirring. The greens were just about done. So I got going on the steak. I bought strip steaks, but very thin ones (trying to save a little money). I seared them in the pan pretty quickly then covered them on a platter. I had the mushrooms ready to

Grits

go in next. I sauteed those. By then the grits were ready (I added double the amount of cheese, plus some butter which the recipe did not call for). I then added chicken stock and Dijon mustard to the mushrooms to make a little sauce.

Miraculously, it was all ready. We sat down to eat. Mr. MarthaandMe

Yummy squash

and I took some of everything. The son (mini-Martha) took piles of steak and a tiny bit of grits. The daughter took tiny pieces of everything but the squash.

The verdict? Not so great. The steak was ok, but really we prefer our steak grilled (we have a Jenn-Air grill so grilling is possible year round).

Collard greens

The sauce was ok, but nothing to knock your socks off with. I like mushrooms, so those were good. No one liked the collard greens. They were a little bitter and peppery. I think that if I creamed them like I do with spinach they might be ok, but plain they were not exciting. The grits were not great. We are not a grits family and even with extra

The plate

cheese and butter, they were just plain and nothing really worth eating.

The real winner in this meal was the squash.  Somehow the butter, brown sugar and rosemary were just the right mix. I’ve never tried rosemary on a sweet squash like this and I have to say it was delicious. That recipe is a keeper. Not so much for the rest. So, Martha, I have to tell you that what’s for dinner wasn’t so great this month!

I have to say that at this point in this experiment I am more convinced than ever that there are some foods that are just not for me. Which is distressing since I consider myself adventurous and always eager to try new things.  I don’t know if Martha and I just have different palates or what, but her recipes are just not hitting it out of the park for me or my family. It’s interesting, because I’ve really long considered her a doyenne of good taste. I do have some Martha recipes that are fantastic, but in the past month of my intensive Martha lifestyle, I’m finding the things in the magazine are not doing it for me. Which is disappointing for me. I envisioned myself serving all these fabulous meals, and what I’m discovering is that the meals I was serving before were pretty darn fabulous!

So I bought all the major ingredients for Martha’s What’s for Dinner? (p. 208) from the Nov issue of Living (plus one additional side). My total came to about $25 for 4. The menu was for pan-seared strip steak with mushrooms, white-cheddar grits, and collard greens with lemon. I did not make the dessert since … Read more →