Martha has lots of great wrapping ideas in December Living. I love wrapping gifts. I only buy paper that coordinates with my tree, so that means it’s got to be pink, blue, green white, etc. This is a huge challenge for a holiday where everything is green and red.

I love to wrap creatively and always use lots of ribbons. I think it’s so boring when people wrap a gift and slap a bow on. I even know someone who doesn’t even bother with bows and I can’t imagine that.

I usually insist that my gift tags color coordinate with the wrapping paper. This year I’m cutting corners a bit and trying to use up my backlog of tags that may not exactly match (so please pardon any color faux pas you see).

Here is a gallery of some gifts I’ve wrapped – some with Martha-inspired ideas and others that are all mine.

Martha has lots of great wrapping ideas in December Living. I love wrapping gifts. I only buy paper that coordinates with my tree, so that means it’s got to be pink, blue, green white, etc. This is a huge challenge for a holiday where everything is green and red. I love to wrap creatively and … Read more →

As the candymaking cavalcade continues, I decided to make the Cocoa and Sugar Dusted Chocolate Almonds from page 109 of the Handmade Holidays special issue. This sounded very simple (always the curse of death).

Almonds after cooking

The first step is to cook the almonds with sugar, water and cinnamon in a pot on the stove. Then pour it onto baking sheets and stick it in the freezer. So far, so good. Getting it off the baking sheet was another story. I had it on waxed paper, which kept ripping as I tried to get the nuts off.

The next step is to melt semi-sweet chocolate and stir the nuts into it. Martha says to then put the almonds on a wire rack. Now, picture how small an almond is. Then picture the racks you own. Would an almond not fall through that? Definitely. Mr. MarthaAndMe came up with a solution – he

Mr MarthaAndMe's Solution

wrapped fishing line around and around a wire rack. He is oh-so-clever.

Once we had this in place, I mixed the almonds with the chocolate. Not so great. The chocolate sort of solidified and got all chunky. When I put the almonds on the rack, they looked like nasty pieces of something unpleasant

Unsightly mess

I will not name here. Not to mention, I did not need the stupid wire rack thing – setting them on waxed paper worked just as well since they were not drippy.

Because the chocolate was not nicely coating the almonds, I first stuck it in the microwave to try to soften it a bit, but that did not seem to help (and I was worried about the sugar coating dissolving). Then I put it over a pot of boiling water. This helped a little. I ended up rolling each almond by hand to smooth out the layer of chocolate on it. This was a major pain and I admit it made me complete cranky.

Next you cool the almonds and then roll half of them in cocoa powder and half in powdered sugar. This was easy.

The results

The taste test? Well, I think the almonds needed to cook longer in the sugar mixture because they were not as crunchy as I would have liked.  I’m not sure using raw almonds was the way to go here, Martha. I think regular almonds might have worked out better. I was thoroughly disgusted by this entire project by the end. What should have been simple took forever and did not turn out as I envisioned.

As the candymaking cavalcade continues, I decided to make the Cocoa and Sugar Dusted Chocolate Almonds from page 109 of the Handmade Holidays special issue. This sounded very simple (always the curse of death). The first step is to cook the almonds with sugar, water and cinnamon in a pot on the stove. Then pour … Read more →

Martha had Paula Abdul on (in all her non-coherent glory) and made Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies during cookie week (why isn’t every week cookie week in my life?) This recipe is also in December Living. I have to say, I passed right by the recipe in the magazine. It didn’t strike me as anything great. But then I saw it on-air and I knew it was something I had to make.

As complicated as Martha can sometimes make things, this cookie was actually pretty easy. First you make the cookie dough which is nothing difficult at all. It’s a basic dough with lots of cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s special dark). The dough did not firm up into a ball for me – it was a bowl of crumbs, pretty much. When I smushed it though, it stuck, so I was able to roll out the balls. You roll them in sugar then put them on the baking sheet.

Wooden spoon method

On the show, Martha suggested using the end of a wooden spoon to make the indentations in the cookies. As you can see, this didn’t work very well. The cookies ended up splitting down the sides. I used my thumb instead and it was much more successful.

Baking them should have been simple, except I chose to attempt this on a weekday afternoon. I got them halfway done, and a child needed a ride, so out they came. I got home and put them in again and another child needed a ride. Out came the cookies again. It went on and on this way. It is truly a miracle they turned out at all.

Once these are baked, you make the chocolate and vanilla ganache to fill them. This part of the recipe was unnecessarily complicated. Martha wants you to cook honey and cream and scrape a vanilla bean and cook it with the scrapings and the whole pod. I did not have a whole vanilla bean and my grocery store did not sell any. I just dumped in about a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead.

Have a cookie...

Martha then wants you to cool this and strain it and then pour it over the bittersweet chocolate in a food processor. My food processor which  has served me well for 20 years) just died – actually the bowl broke. So until the replacement bowl gets here, I’m without one. Instead I just dumped the chocolate into the pot and warmed it up until the chocolate melted. No straining or mess. Very easy. Once it cooled, I spooned it into the cookies and let them rest. I needed to refrigerate them to get the ganache to really set up so I could pack them away.

The verdict? This is absolutely delicious. A good thing.  The cookie tastes very much like a very dense brownie. The ganache is tasty too. One point of contention – the recipe says it makes 90. 90! No way. Given, the recipe says to make each cookie 2 teaspoons, but on the air Martha was using a small little ice cream scooper/melon baller thing, so I used that too. This recipe made maybe 25 cookies for me. They weren’t huge either  -they were just about the right size. If you want more, you’ll need to double the recipe.

Happy birthday to me today!

Martha had Paula Abdul on (in all her non-coherent glory) and made Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies during cookie week (why isn’t every week cookie week in my life?) This recipe is also in December Living. I have to say, I passed right by the recipe in the magazine. It didn’t strike me as anything great. But … Read more →

This year Martha is all about “handmade, homemade” gifts and decorations. Very smart, for this economic climate. In her Handmade for the Holidays special issue (page 59), Martha has instructions and a template for making a stuffed pig out of an old sweater (yes, really). You can probably tell already there’s no way this could go well for me.

The day of the pig began with a shopping trip. I had to buy batting ($3.50)  to stuff said pig and then I had to make a trip to Goodwill to find a sweater. Here is probably where my first problem was. Martha says to use a “felted wool sweater”. I have no idea what that means. I am sure Martha’s closets are filled with lined and sacheted shelves containing a heavenly multitude of sweaters in every color and design. The selection at Goodwill is a bit more, shall we say, limited. I have to say I was pretty impressed with Goodwill though. Everything on the racks was in quite good condition and they had some decent looking things.

I ended up buying a purple acrylic sweater with white snowflakes on it ($4.49). I believe the acrylic may have been the problem. I also think now that Martha intended a sweater that was more tightly knit than the one I chose.

Templates

Mr. MarthaAndMe kindly blew up Martha’s template by scanning it, working some magic and printing it. I cut out the template and pinned it to the sweater. I cut out the shapes.

Martha says to sew the underside of the pig to the sides. I did ok with this, but the feet on the underside ended up smaller than the feet on the sides, so I had to be a little creative in getting it to go all together.

Once I started sewing, I started to realize why a more closely knit sweater would have been better. The sweater was unraveling at the cut edges, making it very difficult to sew it together.

I sewed the sides together. Then I attempted to make the tail. My first attempt was a disaster. I had to start over and cut a piece bigger than the template instructed. Somehow my sweater was very thick and once I sewed the original piece together, I could not get it to turn inside out – it was too thick.

Martha says to cut out a round piece of wool for the nose. Mine kept unraveling – it was just too small a piece. I improvised and instead sewed a button on for the pig’s nose.

I had some trouble with the ears  – again, I had to go and cut them out bigger than the template in order to get them to turn inside out.

Some repairs were necessary

I stuffed the pig with batting and finished sewing him up. At this point I realized I had some serious issues. The pig was pulling apart at the seams in many places – because the edges were so unraveled. So, I had to do some repair work on the spots. I found this great thread I have in my sewing box that is like fishing line – invisible. I used that and you can’t tell I had to patch things.

The end result? Well, let’s just say I would not actually give this to someone as a gift. This is not where my talent lies! The ears are too tall and they look like rabbit ears. The nose is not centered. The whole thing is just weird. Maybe some people are good at this, but well, I’m just not. It was sort of fun to do – although it would have been a lot more fun if the material hadn’t kept unraveling on me.

This year Martha is all about “handmade, homemade” gifts and decorations. Very smart, for this economic climate. In her Handmade for the Holidays special issue (page 59), Martha has instructions and a template for making a stuffed pig out of an old sweater (yes, really). You can probably tell already there’s no way this could … Read more →

On Martha’s show this week she’s doing a cookie week. Love that – thanks Martha. Tuesday’s show had Rufus Wainwright and the McGarrigle family singers (clueless as to who they are – I’ve heard of him, but not them). Rufus’ mom showed how to make her Ski Biscuit Cookies (while Rufus made it clear he’s never been in a kitchen in his life). These looked so cool on the air. They are long cookies shaped like skis, with a curve at the end like a real ski. I had to give this a try.

What’s weird about the recipe is you make it in a pot! First you cook butter, brown sugar and molasses until it boils. Then you add the dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger and baking soda). This part was very easy and I appreciated being able to make it all in one pot. You chill the mix then roll it out into a rectangle and use a knife to cut out ski shapes.  This part, well, it was slightly more challenging for me. I used the edge of a cutting board to get some straight edges so that was no problem.

The hard part was sizing the skis. The first ones I did seemed a little skinny, so I cut the next ones wider but somehow they then puffed out of control in the oven and I was left with toboggans not skis.

Before you put this in the oven, you’re supposed to use candied ginger and candied dragees to make the design on the cookies for the thingie that holds on the boot. They ran out of time on the show and didn’t really show what this was supposed to look like. I am not a skier (please, do not make me dredge up very disturbing memories of a bunny slope and an instructor shouting at me to snowplow) so I didn’t really know what to do here.

The results

Once decorated, you then bake the cookies, taking your silicone lining and pulling it up so it curves up at the edge of the pan – this makes the skis curve. That worked well. The recipe didn’t make a whole heck of a lot.

They taste like gingerbread. Here’s a little confession though- I tasted the dough and it didn’t seem sweet enough to me, so I added some more brown sugar. They’re very thin and crisp (I am more of a moist gingerbread gal). Mr. MarthaAndMe is loving these though, so they will certainly be enjoyed.

I’m a little worried about the curved ends breaking off while in storage – they seem brittle to me. If I give any of these away, I think I am going to take two and cross them in an X and then tie some ribbon around the middle. I’m worried no one will know these are skis otherwise!

On Martha’s show this week she’s doing a cookie week. Love that – thanks Martha. Tuesday’s show had Rufus Wainwright and the McGarrigle family singers (clueless as to who they are – I’ve heard of him, but not them). Rufus’ mom showed how to make her Ski Biscuit Cookies (while Rufus made it clear he’s … Read more →

I’ve decided to give some candy as gifts this year. I’m using some of Martha’s recipes for this endeavor.

On page 226 of December Living is a recipe for Penuche Fudge. I had never heard of this fudge, but it sounded good.

This was a very easy recipe. I boiled evaporated milk, brown sugar, white sugar, butter and salt. It has to get to 236 degrees on a candy thermometer. Fortunately, I have one. I’ve even made candy before, so I wasn’t as terrified as I might have been if this was all new to me.

I always forget how long it takes for candy to reach the right temp. You can be cruising right along up to 200 degrees and then it will take what seem like an hour to crawl up to that soft ball stage.

Fudge mix

Once the candy reached the right temp, you mix in powdered sugar for about 4 minutes until it is smooth. Then you add vanilla and nuts (I used pecan instead of walnuts) and pour into a loaf pan.

Very simple, very nice. The candy tastes good. It’s got a caramel flavor and because it is fudge, it is not hard to chew. I would say it is good, but not great.

Cooling

If you want a fab candy, I’ve got an amazing one for you. The December issue of Paula Deen’s mag has a recipe for a Kit Kat bar that is awesome! It’s made with crackers and is really simple.

I want candy...

I’ve decided to give some candy as gifts this year. I’m using some of Martha’s recipes for this endeavor. On page 226 of December Living is a recipe for Penuche Fudge. I had never heard of this fudge, but it sounded good. This was a very easy recipe. I boiled evaporated milk, brown sugar, white … Read more →

Welcome to my holiday home. Since I’m trying to do everything as Martha would, I am especially proud of my decorations this year. Here are photos of my living room tree and mantel (complete with Martha Stewart tree skirt and stockings that came from KMart several years ago). I’m also popping in a photo of my office tree. Since I’m a writer, it’s a book tree. Enjoy!

Welcome to my holiday home. Since I’m trying to do everything as Martha would, I am especially proud of my decorations this year. Here are photos of my living room tree and mantel (complete with Martha Stewart tree skirt and stockings that came from KMart several years ago). I’m also popping in a photo of … Read more →

Martha has a two-page spread on napkin folding in the December Living (p. 12). She shows 4 different folds and I decided to try my hand at them with my Christmas napkins.

Starting at the top left, is the envelope fold. This one is tres cute I think! I would love to do this one and slip a scratch off lottery ticket in it or a small candy bar. This was really simple to make.

At the top right is the menu fold. This doesn’t look so great with a napkin with a pattern on one side. Maybe with a plain napkin and one that wasn’t so uneven at the edges it would look better. I’m not too enamored with this one.

Bottom left is the modern fold. I think this would work better with a really large napkin. The rolls at the center won’t stay together for me and I think if it was bigger, it would.

Last is the bottom right, the lotus fold. Well, I must admit I was scratching my head over the directions for this one. I still don’t think I got it right – it looks nothing like the picture.  Too complicated for me to attempt. I am spatially challenged and this one is beyond my abilities!

The result here is I would do the envelope fold for a table setting but probably not the others. I resolve to fold my napkins in this fold for Christmas morning breakfast!

Martha has a two-page spread on napkin folding in the December Living (p. 12). She shows 4 different folds and I decided to try my hand at them with my Christmas napkins. Starting at the top left, is the envelope fold. This one is tres cute I think! I would love to do this one … Read more →

In my quest to do things the Martha way, I am taking to heart the suggestions in the December issue of Living.

On page 4, Martha provides what she calls “gentle reminders”. I’ve read her tipping guide. I don’t have that many people to tip, although I do have to buy gifts for teachers, tutors, and a house cleaner. Usually I do gift cards for these people and I’m going to do that again this year. However, I may be cutting back on the amounts (isn’t everyone cutting back?) and giving some candy (Martha’s recipes) in addition to the gift card.

Next, Martha suggest we create handcrafted gift card holders. I am going to give this a try for some gift cards I am giving to relatives.

Martha suggests we organize all of our paperwork from the holidays – receipts and warranties. I’m ahead of the game on that. I have a manila folder in my desk I put every receipt in. What I really need to learn to do, however, is to write on each receipt what it is for and what item it is. In the spirit of Martha, I’m going to add that to my to-do list.

Protecting our pets is the next tip. I actually have a funny story about this one. I have a gumdrop tree. It’s a metal tree that you stick gumdrops on. My kids love it. It usually sits on an end table in the family room. Last year one of our dogs disappeared while we were eating dinner at some point in December. He returned licking his lips which is a bad sign. It turns out he completely denuded the gumdrop tree! This year, we put it out again and I forgot about that, so he promptly helped himself again. We’ve now moved it to the top shelf of a bookcase in the family room. He occasionally walks over there and lifts his nose in the air and sniffs to let us know he would really like some.

Because we have big dogs with big tails, I don’t do candles, except for one Yankee candy that sits on a high table. I don’t have anything else that is dangerous for our dogs, so I think they are safe for the holidays.

Page 134 has tips for simplifying the season.  Martha suggests keeping a master calendar. I already do that. Next she says to remember to unwind. I do need to remind myself of that. Yesterday I ordered a holiday mystery for myself from Amazon and I am going to make time to sit down and enjoy it.

Another tip is to update your address book. When we got out the Christmas decorations, I found the cards we received last year in the basket I keep them in. I went through them to see if I could make any into gift labels and came upon a note from friends with a new address. I’ve got to add that into my address book (which I now keep in pencil so it is easy to make changes!).

Last year I cut back my Christmas card list and stopped sending them to people we don’t really know. I’m continuing with that this year. I bought one box of cards and that’s going to be it. If I need more, I have lots of leftover ones from years past.

Martha recommends postponing some holiday festivities. This is good advice. My dad’s family does not celebrate together until Jan 2 this year and we usually see my in-laws a few days after Christmas. It eases the craziness and gives you something to look forward to after the big day.

Another suggestion is to reevaluate gift exchanges. Oh, wouldn’t I love to do this! We buy gifts for some people that we barely know and I would love to put an end to that. It’s easier said than done though and negotiating something like in my family is nearly impossible.

Our decorations are completely up (I’ll post some photos soon) and my shopping is just about done. Next I’ve got to get serious about wrapping and baking.

In my quest to do things the Martha way, I am taking to heart the suggestions in the December issue of Living. On page 4, Martha provides what she calls “gentle reminders”. I’ve read her tipping guide. I don’t have that many people to tip, although I do have to buy gifts for teachers, tutors, … Read more →

This month’s cookie from Living is a Chocolate Peppermint cookie. These looked gorgeous in the mag – covered in white chocolate and sprinkled with crumbled peppermint candy.

The Dough

I got started making these and realized I didn’t see I needed peppermint extract, so off to the store went Mr. MarthaAndMe (good thing I could bribe him with the white chocolate). The dough was simple to make – butter, sugar, egg, peppermint, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. The recipe said to make it into two disks and refrigerate. I did so and rolled it out. Then it said to

Cutting out circles

freeze it before cutting it out. Bah. I skipped that step since it was quite firm and went right to the cutting out.

Martha says to use a 2 inch circle cookie cutter. Well, I don’t have that but I had a little glass measuring cup – until I dropped it on the floor about halfway through and it shattered! Clean up aisle 4, Mr. MarthaAndMe. I then used a spice jar lid for the rest and that worked quite well.

OUt of the oven

After cutting them out, you bake them for about 12 min. Easy. They came out looking very nice. Once they cool, you dip them in white chocolate. I melted my chocolate in the microwave – Martha says to do it over hot water. Bah.

Dipping the cookies in was a little messy. It’s hard to drain the chocolate off them before setting them back down. Half the time I dropped them back in the chocolate by mistake. I had plenty of chocolate though. Mini-Martha sprinkled on the crushed peppermint (which he also had the job of crushing – the perfect task for a 10 yr old boy). I let them dry and they look terrific.

Now, as to who will eat them. We have conflicts! Mini-Martha and I don’t like

Dipping

white chocolate, so we ate some plain cookies. They were really good, very similar to Girl Scout Thin Mints (I might try this again and dip them in dark chocolate to make them just like those). Mr. MarthaAndMe loves white chocolate, but regular chocolate makes him break out. He did sample one and gave it a total thumbs up. That leaves only the teen daughter who with the perpetual diet will likely not eat many. Looks like another batch to give away.

The Finished Product

I recommend this cookie though – very pretty, not to complicated, tasty and also very Christmassy. A good thing.

This month’s cookie from Living is a Chocolate Peppermint cookie. These looked gorgeous in the mag – covered in white chocolate and sprinkled with crumbled peppermint candy. I got started making these and realized I didn’t see I needed peppermint extract, so off to the store went Mr. MarthaAndMe (good thing I could bribe him … Read more →