Lorraine at Sweet Lorraine Bakeshop has chosen Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding for Monday October 12. We tasted sticky toffee pudding on our UK trip, so I’m excited to try to make it myself.

Lorraine at Sweet Lorraine Bakeshop has chosen Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding for Monday October 12. We tasted sticky toffee pudding on our UK trip, so I’m excited to try to make it myself.

It’s Martha Monday again and this week’s choice was Warm Vanilla Cider, from October Martha Stewart Living, chosen by Teresa at HomemadeIowaLife.

I have to admit, this is something I never would have made were it not chosen for today’s project. This is really a dessert drink more than anything else.

I cheated a little with this recipe, so please forgive me. You heat cider (6 c) with brown sugar (1/2 c) and 2 whole nutmegs (I used ground nutmeg) and the scraped seeds from a vanilla bean (I used vanilla extract). You simmer for 15 min. You serve it with whipped cream (I made my own – points for me) and honeyed walnuts. I made honeyed pecans instead (very simple – toss them with honey and roast for 15 min – I actually stuck mine in the microwave, which was faster as long as you keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn).

Honestly, I didn’t think I was going to like this, but it turns out I did! It was sweet and creamy and the nuts are to die for. This is something you could make on a cold winter afternoon to enjoy in front of the fire, or for after skiing (I didn’t say “apres ski” since I always find that to sound so pretentious!).

Here’s the funny thing though. Mr. MarthaAndMe, who LOVES vanilla and also really likes cider, did not like this. He didn’t even finish it. He’s weird about hot drinks and says he could not drink it because in his mind cider is not supposed to be hot (this is the same man who cannot fathom cold soups, so I suppose it is not surprising). Teen Martha liked this though. This was something fun and different and I enjoyed it!

It’s Martha Monday again and this week’s choice was Warm Vanilla Cider, from October Martha Stewart Living, chosen by Teresa at HomemadeIowaLife. I have to admit, this is something I never would have made were it not chosen for today’s project. This is really a dessert drink more than anything else. I cheated a little … Read more →

I meant to make Martha’s Beef Stew with Noodles – a “dinner tonight” suggestion from Everyday Food via one of their daily emails. I really did.  I printed it out and took it to the kitchen. But once I started really reading the recipe, I just could not do it. I could not make a beef stew that I knew would be inadequate.

I’ve been craving beef stew. It’s one of those fall comfort foods that make you feel warm and cozy. Last weekend, I was really craving it, but it was late, I was tired, the kids weren’t home (not many people to enjoy it) and I didn’t have the time or energy to make it. So Mr. MarthaAndMe and I went out. I ordered it at a restaurant and it was bad. It was more like a soup and it only had 3 chunks of beef in it. That did not satisfy the craving. When Martha’s recipe popped up in my mailbox, I decided to make it, but this recipe just did not appeal to me. First of all, it uses chicken stock. Chicken stock? In beef stew? Huh? How about BEEF stock? The only vegetable in this is carrots (and onions). And there is no seasoning. Blech. The recipe also does  not cook the stew long at all – and that means the meat would be tough. I couldn’t do it. Maybe the fact that I am nearing the end of my year of Martha is wearing on me, but I simply could not willingly make a bad stew.

Instead, this is what I did:

Cook 2 pieces of bacon that have been chopped up in a Dutch oven. Remove the bacon when cooked, but keep the grease. Add one chopped onion and cook till translucent. Add 2 lbs beef stew meat, cut into bite size pieces. Brown the beef. Add half to 3/4  of a bag of baby carrots that have been cut into bite size pieces. Add 1 stalk of celery, roughly chopped. Add 1 box of mushrooms, sliced. If you have other hard veggies lying around, you can toss them in – turnips, rutabaga, parsnip. I only add potato if I am serving this on its own – if I’m serving with noodles, I don’t like to add potatoes. Cook this for a couple of minutes, to start softening the veggies.

Add the bacon back in. Next add 1/4 cup flour and stir to coat. Add 1 bay leaf, 1 tsp thyme, lots of salt and pepper and 1 tbsp of tomato paste. Add 1 cup white wine then add 1 carton of beef broth (or enough to just cover the stew ingredients). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer covered for an hour and a half. Remove the lid and simmer for 30 more min. Check the consistency  – I like mine very thick, so I usually end up adding some Wondra at the end.

I served this over homemade spaetzle. 2 cups flour, 1 cup water, 2 eggs, 4 tsp vegetable oil. Mix it up and drop by heaping tablespoon into boiling water. Wait about 30 seconds then use a spoon to gently loosen them from the bottom of the pan. When they are floating on the top, they’re done (this happens very quickly). It takes several batches. Toss the spaetzle with butter and serve covered with beef stew.

Way better than Martha’s recipe!

I meant to make Martha’s Beef Stew with Noodles – a “dinner tonight” suggestion from Everyday Food via one of their daily emails. I really did.  I printed it out and took it to the kitchen. But once I started really reading the recipe, I just could not do it. I could not make a … Read more →

I’m trying to love Martha’s Dinner at Home cookbook. I’m making an effort here people. So far I’m not wildly excited about it. My latest venture into the book is Roast Salmon and Potatoes with Mustard-Herb Butter (the butter ‘counts’ as a recipe since each of these menus has 4 recipes – I think that’s cheating!).

You slice up some potatoes and roast them, then add in your piece of salmon and roast that. This takes about an hour total. I ended up taking my salmon out and putting the potatoes back in to get them crispier.

When it’s all done, you brush both with your mustard herb butter (one stick of butter with 1/4 cup of herbs you choose and 1 tbsp Dijon mustard). I used oregano, chives and parsley for mine.

The herb butter was nice on the salmon, but I didn’t care for it on the potatoes. They already have some olive oil on them from the roasting and I thought this butter just made them greasy. The butter also does not have a very strong flavor. I gave up and got out some sour cream to dip these potatoes in. Put some garlic in this and maybe it would interest me!

The salmon was nice  – roasting it like this at a high temp keeps it moist. I use only wild salmon. This was crying out for lemon, so I squeezed some on it and it helped.

Another criticism I have of dinner this applies to a lot of Martha’s  menus, both in the book and in the “what’s for dinner” section of Living. If I am eating salmon with mustard-herb butter, I do not also want to eat potatoes with mustard-herb butter. I want different flavors on my plate. Recently I made cheese flautas and black-eyed pea salad from this book (it’s also in Oct Living). Both contained cilantro. I just don’t want to eat the same flavor from two things on my plate. I understand that this in some way pulls the dishes together, but honestly I don’t like it.

The menu for this also includes haricots verts with tapenade. I really hate tapenade. I did make haricots verts but steamed with butter, salt and pepper. The fourth component is lemon mousse which I didn’t have any interest in making on a weeknight (particularly since it has to chill for 45 min – I don’t have time for that).

I’m trying to love Martha’s Dinner at Home cookbook. I’m making an effort here people. So far I’m not wildly excited about it. My latest venture into the book is Roast Salmon and Potatoes with Mustard-Herb Butter (the butter ‘counts’ as a recipe since each of these menus has 4 recipes – I think that’s … Read more →

I’m trying to love Martha’s Dinner at Home cookbook. I’m making an effort here people. So far I’m not wildly excited about it. My latest venture into the book is Roast Salmon and Potatoes with Mustard-Herb Butter (the butter ‘counts’ as a recipe since each of these menus has 4 recipes – I think that’s cheating!).

You slice up some potatoes and roast them, then add in your piece of salmon and roast that. This takes about an hour total. I ended up taking my salmon out and putting the potatoes back in to get them crispier.

When it’s all done, you brush both with your mustard herb butter (one stick of butter with 1/4 cup of herbs you choose and 1 tbsp Dijon mustard). I used oregano, chives and parsley for mine.

The herb butter was nice on the salmon, but I didn’t care for it on the potatoes. They already have some olive oil on them from the roasting and I thought this butter just made them greasy. The butter also does not have a very strong flavor. I gave up and got out some sour cream to dip these potatoes in. Put some garlic in this and maybe it would interest me!

The salmon was nice  – roasting it like this at a high temp keeps it moist. I use only wild salmon. This was crying out for lemon, so I squeezed some on it and it helped.

Another criticism I have of dinner this applies to a lot of Martha’s  menus, both in the book and in the “what’s for dinner” section of Living. If I am eating salmon with mustard-herb butter, I do not also want to eat potatoes with mustard-herb butter. I want different flavors on my plate. Recently I made cheese flautas and black-eyed pea salad from this book (it’s also in Oct Living). Both contained cilantro. I just don’t want to eat the same flavor from two things on my plate. I understand that this in some way pulls the dishes together, but honestly I don’t like it.

The menu for this also includes haricots verts with tapenade. I really hate tapenade. I did make haricots verts but steamed with butter, salt and pepper. The fourth component is lemon mousse which I didn’t have any interest in making on a weeknight (particularly since it has to chill for 45 min – I don’t have time for that).

I’m trying to love Martha’s Dinner at Home cookbook. I’m making an effort here people. So far I’m not wildly excited about it. My latest venture into the book is Roast Salmon and Potatoes with Mustard-Herb Butter (the butter ‘counts’ as a recipe since each of these menus has 4 recipes – I think that’s … Read more →

We are big on chocolate chip cookies in this family, so the recipe in October Martha Stewart Everyday Food for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies was like a gauntlet being thrown.

The recipe isn’t very different from your typical chocolate chip cookie recipe, except for the fact that it includes semisweet and milk chocolate. Nuts are optional according to the recipe. Dude Martha helped me whip these up on a weekend afternoon recently. I substituted whole wheat flour for one cup of the flour. Martha says to make these cookies big – 1/4 cup of dough for each. We made ours a little bit smaller. We made some with nuts and some without.

I was very happy with the cookie itself, but I don’t like the milk chocolate chips. I’ll stick with semisweet in the future. These cookies are very crispy, which wins points with me. If you like your cookies soft, this recipe isn’t for you. Overall it was very good.

We are big on chocolate chip cookies in this family, so the recipe in October Martha Stewart Everyday Food for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies was like a gauntlet being thrown. The recipe isn’t very different from your typical chocolate chip cookie recipe, except for the fact that it includes semisweet and milk chocolate. Nuts are … Read more →

I make Martha’s What’s for Dinner section in Living every month, but I don’t always make it all on the same night. For October, I decided to put it all together. I made Roasted Pumpkin Soup, Cheese Flautas with Cilantro Pesto and Black-Eyed Peas with Baby Greens for dinner. This recipe is also in the new Martha Stewart Dinner at Home book, coming out this month (my thoughts on the book are at the end of the post).

This dinner was not something you can quickly

pumpkin soup

whip up. It took some time. First, I started with the pumpkin. For the life of me, I could not get my pumpkin cut up so I could roast it. Mr. MarthaAndMe stepped in and did the grunt work. This pumpkin was nearly impossible to hack up! He was really sweating. Finally I got in the oven and roasted it with onion, garlic and mushrooms. Once it was roasted and peeled, it’s simple to get it to be soup. You puree it with some vegetable stock and heat it and that’s it. It was horribly bland though, so I added some cumin and also added a little bit of cream. Even so, I didn’t find it particularly flavorful. I have made butternut squash soup in the past and that is much tastier. I’ll stick with that in the future.

black eyed pea salad

The black-eyed pea salad with baby greens was a breeze to put together – peas, chopped tomato, cilantro, garlic, greens and dressing. I liked this and ate the rest of it for lunch the next day.

Now for the flautas. This was something completely new to me, so I was excited to give it a try. You start by cooking pumpkin seeds (green ones you buy at the store – NOT seeds from the pumpkin you roasted – I found mine in the bulk section) with garlic. You pulverize it into a pesto with fresh cilantro, lime and oil. I found this to be new and exciting. I love

spreading the pesto

the taste of cilantro and lime and the pumpkin seeds were a new ingredient for me. You spread the pesto on your tortillas, then add some Monterey Jack cheese and roll them. Then you fry them in some oil.

There wasn’t much to these when we ate them. Mostly, they tasted greasy from the oil. I am not big on deep-fried foods, so this didn’t appeal to my palate. I could barely taste the pesto, even though I slathered it on pretty thickly and

frying

it had a nice flavor when I sampled it before making up the flautas. There wasn’t a lot of cheese in proportion to tortilla. They were just not worth the effort. Now, I can see making this pesto and using it with chicken and adding some tomato or avocado and not frying the tortillas – that would appeal to me then, but this just did not. It would be a fun twist on tacos.

Out of three dishes, one was quite good, one was ok and one was just not

taking a bite

worth it. Pretty disappointing!

Now, as for Martha’s new book, I have an advance copy and it is definitely a gorgeous book. It’s divided into seasons and then within each season are complete meals. Each meal is set up like the “What’s for Dinner” section in Living – 4 items that go together. The book is meant for easy entertaining or at home meals and the ingredients are meant to be accessible. There are certainly a lot of interesting things in this book – things you won’t find elsewhere, so I like it for that. However, although the ingredients are meant to be accessible, these are not meals you can make on nights where you pull out the cookbook and 5 pm and see what you can pull together. For me at least, I would not have most ingredients lying around and would need to plan in advance to make these dishes.  There are many things in here I would never make just for us at home for dinner. Who makes truffles as a weeknight family dessert? Not me.  I also felt as though many of the meals were not complete enough for me – they needed more vegetables, so more work would be involved in making them into a complete meal. That being said, it is a fun, inspiring book.

I make Martha’s What’s for Dinner section in Living every month, but I don’t always make it all on the same night. For October, I decided to put it all together. I made Roasted Pumpkin Soup, Cheese Flautas with Cilantro Pesto and Black-Eyed Peas with Baby Greens for dinner. This recipe is also in the … Read more →

I make Martha’s What’s for Dinner section in Living every month, but I don’t always make it all on the same night. For October, I decided to put it all together. I made Roasted Pumpkin Soup, Cheese Flautas with Cilantro Pesto and Black-Eyed Peas with Baby Greens for dinner. This recipe is also in the new Martha Stewart Dinner at Home book, coming out this month (my thoughts on the book are at the end of the post).

This dinner was not something you can quickly

pumpkin soup

whip up. It took some time. First, I started with the pumpkin. For the life of me, I could not get my pumpkin cut up so I could roast it. Mr. MarthaAndMe stepped in and did the grunt work. This pumpkin was nearly impossible to hack up! He was really sweating. Finally I got in the oven and roasted it with onion, garlic and mushrooms. Once it was roasted and peeled, it’s simple to get it to be soup. You puree it with some vegetable stock and heat it and that’s it. It was horribly bland though, so I added some cumin and also added a little bit of cream. Even so, I didn’t find it particularly flavorful. I have made butternut squash soup in the past and that is much tastier. I’ll stick with that in the future.

black eyed pea salad

The black-eyed pea salad with baby greens was a breeze to put together – peas, chopped tomato, cilantro, garlic, greens and dressing. I liked this and ate the rest of it for lunch the next day.

Now for the flautas. This was something completely new to me, so I was excited to give it a try. You start by cooking pumpkin seeds (green ones you buy at the store – NOT seeds from the pumpkin you roasted – I found mine in the bulk section) with garlic. You pulverize it into a pesto with fresh cilantro, lime and oil. I found this to be new and exciting. I love

spreading the pesto

the taste of cilantro and lime and the pumpkin seeds were a new ingredient for me. You spread the pesto on your tortillas, then add some Monterey Jack cheese and roll them. Then you fry them in some oil.

There wasn’t much to these when we ate them. Mostly, they tasted greasy from the oil. I am not big on deep-fried foods, so this didn’t appeal to my palate. I could barely taste the pesto, even though I slathered it on pretty thickly and

frying

it had a nice flavor when I sampled it before making up the flautas. There wasn’t a lot of cheese in proportion to tortilla. They were just not worth the effort. Now, I can see making this pesto and using it with chicken and adding some tomato or avocado and not frying the tortillas – that would appeal to me then, but this just did not. It would be a fun twist on tacos.

Out of three dishes, one was quite good, one was ok and one was just not

taking a bite

worth it. Pretty disappointing!

Now, as for Martha’s new book, I have an advance copy and it is definitely a gorgeous book. It’s divided into seasons and then within each season are complete meals. Each meal is set up like the “What’s for Dinner” section in Living – 4 items that go together. The book is meant for easy entertaining or at home meals and the ingredients are meant to be accessible. There are certainly a lot of interesting things in this book – things you won’t find elsewhere, so I like it for that. However, although the ingredients are meant to be accessible, these are not meals you can make on nights where you pull out the cookbook and 5 pm and see what you can pull together. For me at least, I would not have most ingredients lying around and would need to plan in advance to make these dishes.  There are many things in here I would never make just for us at home for dinner. Who makes truffles as a weeknight family dessert? Not me.  I also felt as though many of the meals were not complete enough for me – they needed more vegetables, so more work would be involved in making them into a complete meal. That being said, it is a fun, inspiring book.

I make Martha’s What’s for Dinner section in Living every month, but I don’t always make it all on the same night. For October, I decided to put it all together. I made Roasted Pumpkin Soup, Cheese Flautas with Cilantro Pesto and Black-Eyed Peas with Baby Greens for dinner. This recipe is also in the … Read more →

I signed up to participate in a bonus round of the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club. Members are required to bake one recipe a month, on the 15th. A bonus round for the Banana Pecan Cupcakes was set for Sept 30 on a voluntary basis. I couldn’t pass it by. It just so happens that the kids had been asking me to make banana bread AND I had some practically rotten bananas at the ready.

Mr. MarthaAndMe grew up eating banana bread a lot. I didn’t. His mother always baked banana bread inside a clean tin can, so that it came out round. As a kid, that was a big deal to him. Although I don’t bake my banana bread in a tin can, I do make it once in a while. Mr. MarthaAndMe likes to put cream cheese on his (blech!) but the kids like theirs plain. I always use my grandmother’s recipe which is foolproof. I was ready to give Martha’s recipe a try though.

Martha’s recipe is pretty similar to mine, but she uses cake flour. Normally I use half white flour and half wheat flour in mine, but I followed the instructions here. The rest of the recipe was pretty unremarkable. I whipped it up and filled cupcake papers with it. Then it hit me – the recipe has no cinnamon in it! That is a travesty, so I mixed some cinnamon and coarse sugar together and sprinkled it on the tops of the cupcakes. Also, I left about 6 cupcakes without nuts for Dude Martha, who prefers no nuts in his.

These cupcakes took a lot longer to bake than Martha said – about 10 minutes more. They turned out nicely and everyone liked them. I did not frost them because these are really a muffin, not a cupcake and I also did top them with cinnamon and sugar.

I think I would stick to my grandmother’s recipe in the future, but I might make them as muffins, because they are convenient for freezing and for people to grab for breakfast.

I signed up to participate in a bonus round of the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club. Members are required to bake one recipe a month, on the 15th. A bonus round for the Banana Pecan Cupcakes was set for Sept 30 on a voluntary basis. I couldn’t pass it by. It just so happens that the … Read more →

I like apples and I like turkey but I never thought to put them together until I saw Apple Braised Turkey Thighs in October Martha Stewart Everyday Food.

This recipe takes about 2 hours to cook, so it’s a nice thing to make on a fall Sunday. I used a turkey breast instead of turkey thighs with this. It was very easy to make. You start by quickly searing the turkey breast to brown the skin side. Remove it and cook some shallots and then add in some peeled, cored and quartered apples. Put the turkey back in, add apple cider and chicken stock and bring to a boil, then stick in the oven for an hour covered and a half hour uncovered.

When mine was done, I took out the turkey and apples and cooked down the remaining liquid (with the added teaspoon of apple cider vinegar), then I added some Wondra to make it thick like a gravy. This was delicious! It wasn’t as sweet as you might think and the apples and turkey went together perfectly. We had some turkey leftover and I used it in my lunchtime salads for the rest of the week and it was incredibly tender and flavorful. Even the kids liked this one.

I like apples and I like turkey but I never thought to put them together until I saw Apple Braised Turkey Thighs in October Martha Stewart Everyday Food. This recipe takes about 2 hours to cook, so it’s a nice thing to make on a fall Sunday. I used a turkey breast instead of turkey … Read more →