Since several people have emailed me privately about this, I thought I would post about it. Today on the Martha Stewart Show, Martha did an entire show about blogging. She filled the audience with bloggers and had guests who are bloggers. Of course she included her daughter, Alexis, and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt from the Whatever show, but she also invited Andrew Ritchie of Martha Moments and Jeff Blumenkrantz from Jeff and Martha to be guests on the show. I hope you caught the show – if not check out Andrew’s and Jeff’s two blogs, which are simply wonderful.

Now let me answer the questions folks are emailing me about. No, I was not invited and no, I’m not upset nor surprised! I tend to be quite frank about how my Martha projects go and I suspect the MSLO folks who snooped around my blog felt I was not positive enough about Martha in general. Sorry Martha! As I’ve said many times, I have incredible respect for Martha. She is a truly amazing businesswoman and creative person. She has more talent in her little finger than I’ll ever have. That said, my project is about trying out Martha projects and trying to fit them into my life. I’m a regular gal (mom, wife, daughter, friend, writer) who is searching for inspiration and a little oomph. I’m all about honesty here. Some Martha things work, some don’t.  So, I’m not surprised I wasn’t asked and really it’s ok! I think it was great Martha did a show on blogging (although isn’t it funny that she really doesn’t actually blog – she just writes it and has an IT guy who has to post it and manage the blog – in Martha’s life there is always someone to do mundane tasks for you) and I am thrilled to see Andrew and Jeff get publicity for their blogs.

Since several people have emailed me privately about this, I thought I would post about it. Today on the Martha Stewart Show, Martha did an entire show about blogging. She filled the audience with bloggers and had guests who are bloggers. Of course she included her daughter, Alexis, and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt from the Whatever … Read more →

I recently tried a potato gratin from Everyday Food, but when another one turned up in January Living, I had to give it a go. I swore just about a week or two ago that I never wanted to eat another potato after eating them at every holiday meal and gathering we went to, but apparently I’ve recovered from that.

This gratin was pretty easy. I peeled and sliced about 2 and a half pounds of white potatoes. I rubbed the baking dish with a garlic clove (although I never really taste the garlic when I do this, so I wonder if it really has any impact), and boiled 1 and a half cups of cream, 1 cup milk, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and salt together.  I mixed this with the potatoes and put them in a baking dish, smoothing the potatoes out. On top, I added 3 oz Gruyere cheese. Martha says to bake for an hour and 15 minutes. By about 50 minutes, this was looking quite brown. The rest of my dinner wasn’t ready, so I turned the oven off and let it sit. Then about 10 minutes before we were ready to eat, I turned it back on. In the time that it rested, it set up quite nicely. When I turned the oven off it was still very liquid looking. When I took it out of the oven it had just the right amount of liquid to potatoes.

I really liked this and would make it again. It’s simple and somehow has more flavor than it should, given there are hardly any ingredients.

I recently tried a potato gratin from Everyday Food, but when another one turned up in January Living, I had to give it a go. I swore just about a week or two ago that I never wanted to eat another potato after eating them at every holiday meal and gathering we went to, but … Read more →

Parchment again? Yup. I got a lot of comments when I made salmon in parchment. I was so happy with it, that I was excited to try Chicken, Ginger and Mango in Parchment from Jan/Feb Everyday Food.

I think I am in love with parchment paper cooking. This was so easy. You cut up a mango, cut chicken breasts in half (so they are thinner) and use one cutlet per packet, make matchsticks from an inch of peeled ginger, toss in some cilantro, salt and pepper and a dash of olive oil and wrap it all in parchment (just fold it over and twist the ends) and stick it in the oven for 20 minutes at 375. Done! You serve 4 people. No baking dish to clean up, so saute pan. Truly magnificent.

And this was so flavorful! We squeezed lime on it when eating. It was tropical and bright and was a wonderful bright dish to have on a cold winter night. I am a huge fan of this dish and am going to make it again and again. I served it with some rice and another vegetable. Truly fabulous.

Parchment again? Yup. I got a lot of comments when I made salmon in parchment. I was so happy with it, that I was excited to try Chicken, Ginger and Mango in Parchment from Jan/Feb Everyday Food. I think I am in love with parchment paper cooking. This was so easy. You cut up a … Read more →

Although I had hoped that 2010 would be a drama-less year for us, we’ve already started out with a few medical issues hanging over our head. Hopefully everything will turn out to be minor, but I would appreciate your good thoughts until we get some answers from upcoming tests. I had a hard day after learning about the latest possible medical complication and after allowing myself time to stew and worry, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and decided keeping busy was the best plan. Fortunately, there was lots to keep me busy. First we put away all the Christmas decorations (and considering it usually takes an entire weekend to get them up, getting them down in a day was an accomplishment). Once that ginormous task was done, I piddled around the house doing laundry and other household tasks. Mr. MarthaAndMe turned on the tv and my favorite movie of all time (Same Time Next Year with Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda) was on.  We watched the last half of it and I had a good cry, which I always do with that movie,but which was especially cathartic that day.

Then it was time to make some dinner. I felt unmotivated, but knew I had some sliced top round in the freezer, which I bought to make Martha’s Beef Rolls with Spring Salad. So I got them out and got to work. I was leery of this recipe because I was afraid the beef was going to be tough. I also had to get a little creative. Mr. MarthaAndMe and I had the beef rolls as described in the recipe (sans salad – I made a pasta with broccoli in it instead), but Dude Martha doesn’t like cheese, so I left that out of his. Teen Martha doesn’t like peppers, so I made hers with just cheese.

These took forever to cook. Finally I ended up covering it to get it cook quicker, but it was still almost too pink inside for my tastes.

Yes, I just dumped these on a plate and did not make it look pretty – some days just getting food on the table is an accomplishment.

As for taste, it was ok. I thought the beef was a little tough, especially at the edges. I liked the peppers and onion and cheese. It was kind of like a cheesesteak in a way. It’s hard to make these without the cheese oozing out all over the place, unfortunately. It was fine, but I wasn’t wild about it. I probably wouldn’t make this again.

Although I had hoped that 2010 would be a drama-less year for us, we’ve already started out with a few medical issues hanging over our head. Hopefully everything will turn out to be minor, but I would appreciate your good thoughts until we get some answers from upcoming tests. I had a hard day after … Read more →

Today’s scheduled Martha Mondays selector has gone AWOL, so I’m making the pick this week.  Let’s make Lemon Souffles from the last page of January Martha Stewart Living. If you need the recipe, let me know.

Today’s scheduled Martha Mondays selector has gone AWOL, so I’m making the pick this week.  Let’s make Lemon Souffles from the last page of January Martha Stewart Living. If you need the recipe, let me know.

Today’s Martha Mondays project was chosen by Teresa at Homemade Iowa Life. The project is homemade mercury glass, from page of January Martha Stewart Living.

I love mercury glass, so this was exciting. Martha makes it sounds very simple (of course! It’s all simple to Martha). The first hurdle was buying what I needed. I bought a very inexpensive glass vase for $1.99. Finding the mirror paint was a problem. Martha references Krylon.com, however there wasn’t time to order this. I scoured local craft and home improvement stores. None of them had Krylon mirror paint (or looking glass paint, as it seems to say on the bottle in the photo in the magazine). I ended up buying chrome paint, which is close, but obviously not the same thing. Sigh. I paid $3.99 for a small size can of this.

Mr. MarthaAndMe assisted with this project as always. We wrapped paper around the vase and taped it. Then we sprayed the inside with water and next with the spray paint. We let it sit upside down on a drying rack overnight.

I removed the paper the next morning. It did do what it was supposed to, which is mostly cover the inside but not completely. However, I could definitely tell this was chrome, not mirror paint. If I had had mirror paint, I think the results would have been great. As it is, it’s just ok. So I’ll give this project a thumbs up, providing you can find the correct paint!

Today’s Martha Mondays project was chosen by Teresa at Homemade Iowa Life. The project is homemade mercury glass, from page of January Martha Stewart Living. I love mercury glass, so this was exciting. Martha makes it sounds very simple (of course! It’s all simple to Martha). The first hurdle was buying what I needed. I … Read more →

If you’ve been following along, you might remember The Great Garden Debacle of 2009. Martha convinced me I needed to garden. I started seeds inside and planted them and had them all wiped out by frost. Then I bought some plants and had an invasion of creatures and ended up not getting much out of my garden at all. It was a sad Martha attempt. We do not have green thumbs – or maybe we just don’t have the time and patience needed to grow a garden. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to have fresh produce at my fingertips. My dad plants a huge garden and I am always thrilled to bring home what it produces. I’ve also had success in the past with container gardening.

One of things I am determined to grow is my own herbs. Martha has sold me on the value, flavor and necessity of fresh herbs. I do have a small herb garden near our deck, but seem to successfully grow only chives and oregano in it. And that is only useful during about half the year here in Buffalo.

Mr. MarthaAndMe bought me one of those aquaponic growers for Christmas. You fill it with water and nutrients and it will grown a variety of herbs and vegetables under UV lights. To get started, he got me an herb assortment. We set the equipment up right after Christmas and now there are a few things sprouting (although I am getting worried – only some of the 8 things seem to be poking their heads up!). I’m hopeful I’ll get some fresh herbs at least and I’ll be very grateful to have them too, considering how expensive they are to buy in tiny little packets in the produce section. Will our black thumbs extend to basement gardening too? I hope not, but please tune in to find out!

If you’ve been following along, you might remember The Great Garden Debacle of 2009. Martha convinced me I needed to garden. I started seeds inside and planted them and had them all wiped out by frost. Then I bought some plants and had an invasion of creatures and ended up not getting much out of … Read more →

Last night, I found myself with a fridge full of leftovers. Paging through Everyday Food, I hit upon the Black Bean and Brown Rice Cakes. Ah-ha, I thought! A solution for some of the brown rice that’s been staring me down from the second shelf in the fridge. This recipe appealed to me because over the weekend I caught a few minutes of Aaron McCargo on Food Network making black bean burgers that looked soooo good.

Now that I had an idea for the leftover rice, I felt inspired to tackle some of the other leftovers. I pulled out the few veggie spring rolls we had left from New Year’s Eve and decided to heat those up. Then I happened upon a container of roasted root vegetables from a holiday dinner over the weekend and decided to heat those up. But what to do with the container of broccoli and cauliflower? I had already heated it up once to eat just plain (this was leftover from New Year’s Eve fondue and it was very al dente, which lent itself to being reheated several times without getting mushy). I didn’t want to waste it, but I knew no one was going to be happy seeing it come back to the table again.  I sought out my inner Martha and decided to play with it a little. First I heated it up (I had about 1 1/2 cups mixed broccoli and cauliflower)  so it was soft, then I dumped it in the Cuisinart and pulverized it. I added a tablespoon of butter, 3 tbsp cream, salt and pepper, 1/4 cup grated Gruyere (also leftover from New Year’s Eve) and whizzed that. Then I added one egg and dumped it in a small baking pan and baked it at 400 for about 20 minutes. It was similar to a broccoli souffle I make, but not nearly as time intensive and fussy. I liked this a lot – kind of a crust-less very light quiche. I cut it into small squares for serving.

Now for the burgers. Martha says her recipe feeds 4, but I cut this in half and got 4 good-sized burgers so I don’t what race of giants she is feeding. I used one can of black beans, rinsed and drained, 1/2 cup leftover brown rice, 1 large scallion (leftover from the turkey lettuce wraps the night before), 1 tbsp canned chili (also from the night before), salt, pepper, and 1/8 tsp cumin. I mixed this up and made 4 patties. I baked them at 400 for about 12 minutes. Martha says to top this with a mix of yogurt, cilantro and lime juice.

The burgers were good, especially with the yogurt sauce. The lime and cilantro really woke it up. No one else cared for this though. The kids picked at it and Mr. MarthaAndMe ate it because he was hungry, but it’s not his type of food at all. It was a little dry and had that crunchy-granola-hemp feel about it. I enjoyed it because it was something different and I get tired of always running through chicken, turkey and fish menu options.

Last night, I found myself with a fridge full of leftovers. Paging through Everyday Food, I hit upon the Black Bean and Brown Rice Cakes. Ah-ha, I thought! A solution for some of the brown rice that’s been staring me down from the second shelf in the fridge. This recipe appealed to me because over … Read more →

the turkey

I am fooded out after the holidays. I think I could exist solely on salads and fruit for a couple of weeks, however that won’t feed the family. Jan/Feb Everyday Food has lots of light meal ideas, and I am SO appreciating them right now.

Last night I made Stir-Fried Turkey in Lettuce Wraps. This reminded me of the lettuce wraps dish you can get at PF Changs. It was pretty simple to throw together. Chop up garlic, shallot and grate some ginger. I used some canned chilis (the recipe says to use a fresh one). Cook it all quickly

the wrap

then add ground turkey. Once it’s almost cooked, add in a mix of soy sauce, fish sauce (which smells so bad I almost hate to use it, but it does work) and sugar. Serve with lettuce leaves (I used Boston) and some sliced scallions and carrots and some lime to squeeze.

Hold on to your hats here, but everyone in the family ate this. I almost fell off my chair. I knew Teen Martha would at least try it, but she really liked it. Dude Martha ate huge quantities of the turkey plain and said he liked it. I thought it was delicious. I loved wrapping it in lettuce (I felt so noble using lettuce instead of tortillas!). It drips a little when you eat it but not too bad. Mr. MarthaAndMe needs some lessons in how to roll up the lettuce, but other than that, he enjoyed it too.

This will be something I make again and again I think – very quick and very healthy and no one will whine.

I am fooded out after the holidays. I think I could exist solely on salads and fruit for a couple of weeks, however that won’t feed the family. Jan/Feb Everyday Food has lots of light meal ideas, and I am SO appreciating them right now. Last night I made Stir-Fried Turkey in Lettuce Wraps. This … Read more →

One of the only Martha goals I had for this holiday season was to make the croquembouche in December Living. To me, the croquembouche is somehow quintessential Martha. I think I must have seen her make it years ago on her tv show and it stuck in my brain as the most Martha thing, ever. It is pretty over the top.

I had planned to make it for Christmas Eve, but was waylayed by a terrible abdominal muscle pull that made it impossible to do anything. Any movement was torture. I’m actually still working through the tail end of it, but am pushing through it to do the things I want to get done.

We had two remaining holiday parties this past weekend and I decided the croquembouche was definitely going to go to one of them. I decided to make it for my in-laws, since she asked me to bring dessert.

I read and re-read the instructions several times, gearing up for what felt like my Martha Olympic event. There were three components – the round cream puffs, the caramel cream to fill them with, and the caramel sugar to glue them together with and to use as spun sugar (not part of the recipe, but I’ve seen Martha do it before). I made the caramel cream the day before and kept it refrigerated. That went quite smoothly.

The cream puffs were pretty basic to make – the same as other cream puffs I’ve made in the past. I didn’t find Martha’s instructions too helpful. She said to make them the size of quarters, but didn’t indicate how tall. It took some experimenting to get that right. Whenever I’ve made cream puffs before, I’ve just used a spoon, but this required a pastry bag. Eek. I hate pastry bags. Not only do I have a mental block about where to put the plastic cuff and the tip, but they always squirt out the back or explode out the side. Mr. MarthaAndMe has no pastry bag fear though, so he stepped in and manned this one quite well.

Once those were made and baked, I finished the caramel cream by folding in the whipped cream. Mr. MarthaAndMe filled the puffs using the pastry bag. He got the job done, but it was a huge mess. Cream was spurting out the end of the bag and all over the place. It was dripping off his hands and he ended up standing over the sink to fill the cream puffs since it was like a creature from the black lagoon.

Next, I made the caramel used to stick them together. Mr. MarthaAndMe almost immediately burned himself dipping the puffs in the caramel. From that point on we used tongs. The caramel was a little hard to work with. I had to keep heating it back up. There might have been a little cursing throughout this process.

Putting the actual tree together was a challenge. Again, I found Martha’s instructions lacking. I didn’t know how many puffs to use to form the base and was worried about running out or having too many leftover. Some more detail about this part would have been helpful. At one point it looked like a bush (croquem-bush as I called it) but Mr. MarthaAndMe kept adding more and showing me where to put more and we got it to come out resembling a tree, albeit a kind of lopsided tree.

I didn’t make the sugar cookies to attach, and instead spun some sugar around it (I just used the caramel and used a fork to sort of whip it around the tree). I have to say that spinning sugar like this made me feel like a total Martha.

I think it turned out pretty nicely. We put it directly on a plate, even though Martha says to put it on parchment. We cut this recipe in half and it sounded like it should be enough – it says the full recipe feeds 30 people.

I held this on my lap for a treacherous half hour drive through snow to my in-laws’ house. It made it safely. Whew. I did keep this refrigerated at home and once we arrived, even though Martha says to keep at room temp. The caramel cream was a bit thin and I was worried about it running.

Everyone enjoyed this – it tasted great. The cream puffs were light and the caramel cream was deep and rich. The caramel used to stick it together and which I spun the sugar out of was a deep brown and really good.  It was a bit challenging to remove cream puffs to eat. They stuck together and broke when you tried to remove them. I’m not sure what Martha thinks you’re supposed to do. I think the cream puffs should have been a bit larger – they were kind of small and didn’t hold a lot of cream. We served this with a tray of cookies and some ice cream, but by itself it would not have been enough for the 6 people we had for dinner.

Now that I know how to make this, I wouldn’t be afraid to try it again.  The most challenging part was controlling the pastry bag and using the caramel sauce without serious injury. I wish I had the skills to make the tree form correctly, but I’m just not talented when it comes to spatial things! My little lopsided tree doesn’t really compare to what Martha produces. Yes, she has food designers, but I’ve seen her construct this with her own hands on tv and she can make it turn out perfectly shaped. Sigh. I know I’ll never be Martha, but sometimes it is frustrating! I am, however, proud that I accomplished this, something I’ve always wanted to try!

One of the only Martha goals I had for this holiday season was to make the croquembouche in December Living. To me, the croquembouche is somehow quintessential Martha. I think I must have seen her make it years ago on her tv show and it stuck in my brain as the most Martha thing, ever. … Read more →