Thank you Martha, for getting me to try Swiss chard. I remember my parents growing it and eating it when I was a kid, but I don’t recall ever tasting it myself. As a kid, I wasn’t big on greens. But now I’m finding that I really do like many greens.

I made Martha’s Swiss Chard Frittata (June Martha Stewart Living). This was super easy. It’s essentially a quiche, but with no crust. I used cottage cheese instead of ricotta. I love that this is almost all egg whites with only one whole egg. It’s very light, but is also delicious and filling.

I love the color of Swiss chard – bright green and magenta. It’s just gorgeous.  I cooked some of the Swiss chard up on another night and basically just wilted it with a little olive oil and salt and pepper and I loved it. I am mad about spinach and this is very similar.  If you’re a bit iffy on greens, try this fritatta. You don’t really notice the chard in it very much.

I ate the leftover frittata for lunch the next day and confess I melted a little Swiss cheese on it, which made it taste even better I thought.

Thank you Martha, for getting me to try Swiss chard. I remember my parents growing it and eating it when I was a kid, but I don’t recall ever tasting it myself. As a kid, I wasn’t big on greens. But now I’m finding that I really do like many greens. I made Martha’s Swiss … Read more →

Another dinner, another severe allergic reaction. Is this Martha project bad for my health? Well, it certainly seems so. You may recall that I’ve experienced two severe allergic reactions to Martha meals in the past couple of months. The first was from pan-sauteed sole, the second from fish tacos. After that, I assumed it must be fish. Apparently, that was the wrong conclusion. I made Martha’s Chicken Fajitas (Martha Stewart June Living).

Things started out innocently enough. I decided to make the whole shebang for this recipe – mojo de ajo, guacamole and pico de gallo as well as the fajitas themselves.

cooking the garlic

I started with the mojo de ajo which is basically garlic cooked in oil with lime juice and red pepper. Easy. Next the guacamole – avocado, lime juice and salt. The pico de gallo was tomato, onion, jalapeno, and cilantro (I used dried).

Once I had all of that made, I chopped up the onion and peppers for the fajitas and cooked those, then added the chicken. It really was not a lot of

guacamole

work and this cooks up quickly.

I admit I did not heat the tortillas before serving. I served them with sour cream and cheddar cheese. They were really, really good. Better than I expected, I have to admit. The 3 additional sauces and topping really added to flavor and I really enjoyed it.

Until 3 hours later. When I turned bright

pico de gallo

red all over my body,  was burning hot, developed itchy hives, felt sick to my stomach and was dizzy. Benadryl worked its magic and I didn’t have to go to the hospital, but this reaction was even more severe than the previous two. I don’t know what to make of it, so I’ve made an appointment with an allergist.  I’ve never had anything like this happen before I began the Martha project, so it’s quite disturbing. There are some common ingredients between reaction #2 and reaction #3 – lime, garlic, cilantro and avocado, however these are all things I’ve eaten before with no problems. I guess I’ll let the allergist figure it out. Until then, I’m a little nervous about trying new Martha dishes, I must admit.

Chicken, peppers, and onions

making the fajita

rolled up and ready to eat

Another dinner, another severe allergic reaction. Is this Martha project bad for my health? Well, it certainly seems so. You may recall that I’ve experienced two severe allergic reactions to Martha meals in the past couple of months. The first was from pan-sauteed sole, the second from fish tacos. After that, I assumed it must … Read more →

First of all, let me say I KNOW Martha’s cupcake book comes out today, but I don’t have my copy yet. Sigh. It’s coming and I’m going to be doing a giveaway here for a copy as well, so keep your eyes peeled for that excitement.

melting the chocolate

In the meantime, let me tell you about Martha’s Brownie Cookies (Martha Stewart Everyday Food, June). These were easy to whip up and surprisingly, it feels like there is almost nothing that goes into it – only 1/4 cup of flour! Most of the batter is made up of melted chocolate (which really can only be a good thing). I always melt my chocolate in the microwave. It’s faster. The key to this is to only melt it partway, then take it out and stir it until it all melts. If you don’t, you’ll probably burn it.

I mixed it all up and it was absolutely necessary to taste the batter several

Ready for the oven

times. You can’t be too careful, really.

I got the cookies onto the baking sheets and that’s when it all went to hell in a hand basket. This batter is very soft. My baking sheets are no longer perfectly flat and I used silpats. Ergo, my cookies slid all over the place. It was a like a skating rink for cookies in that oven. Skid marks everywhere.

Despite the fact that they looked like they had been in a bad car crash, these cookies tasted very good! You’re familiar with muffin tops, right? Some bakeries only make the tops of the muffins since people say that is their favorite

Uh-oh!

part. Well, in that same vein, these are brownie tops. All that wonderful crunchy, crinkly stuff you get on the tops of the brownies consolidated into a cookie. Oh, they’re quite good. Decadent in fact. You must make them.

Yum

First of all, let me say I KNOW Martha’s cupcake book comes out today, but I don’t have my copy yet. Sigh. It’s coming and I’m going to be doing a giveaway here for a copy as well, so keep your eyes peeled for that excitement. In the meantime, let me tell you about Martha’s … Read more →

I’ll admit, I wasn’t really wild about the idea of Salmon Cakes (Martha Stewart Everyday Food, June – again, another recipe that isn’t on the web site). But I love, love, love salmon, so I thought it was worth a try. First I poached my salmon (wild, not farmed!) and then flaked it into pieces. I cooked the onion and mixed it with the salmon, breadcrumbs, egg, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt and pepper.

My mixture was pretty dry and I was worried about it holding together. I formed it into cakes and dunked them in the breadcrumbs. This really did not want to hold together! I got them on the griddle and some held together better than others.

It just seemed like it needed more “glue” to hold it together.

While they were cooking, I made the apple yogurt sauce – yogurt, apple, mint, cilantro and lemon juice. I was REALLY not sure I was going to like that. Apple on salmon? Weird.

Despite my trepidation, this was really quite good. The yogurt sauce was interesting. It didn’t taste like apple – more like onion somehow.  The cakes themselves were good – very salmon-y and not too much breading. If I made this again, I would first of all only do it to use up some already cooked salmon. I would not poach a piece of salmon to make it into a salmon cake, but this is a good idea for leftovers. Secondly, I think I would eat it on a roll with some lettuce and tomato and mayo and lemon juice, kind of like a grouper sandwich.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t really wild about the idea of Salmon Cakes (Martha Stewart Everyday Food, June – again, another recipe that isn’t on the web site). But I love, love, love salmon, so I thought it was worth a try. First I poached my salmon (wild, not farmed!) and then flaked it into pieces. … Read more →

Sunday morning pancakes are a veritable tradition around here. My favorite pancake recipe is adapted from my mom’s dirty, won,  old Betty Crocker cookbook. I make the basic buttermilk pancake recipe then add blueberries and cinnamon.

Dry ingredients

Today I decided to try out Martha’s Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes (Martha Stewart Living June, p. 24 – would someone PLEASE ask the folks at MSLO to get all the magazine recipes up on their site?? There’s no link for you on this one unfortunately, but if you need the recipe, email me).

The first crisis was that the daughter ate all the blueberries I had bought for this. So off the store went Mr. MarthaAndMe. The recipe calls for a pint. He came home with one of those little half pint containers. That was ok though, since the kids don’t like blueberries in their pancakes, so I made half with and half without.

The recipe is straightforward – cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, egg, milk, buttermilk and melted butter. This batter is very wet. The first batch I made was without blueberries. The pancakes I am used to making firm up very nicely and flip easily. Not so much for Martha. I put the first batch on (sans blueberries) and when I went to flip them they were wet and heavy. One ended up on the floor. I managed to pick up the big pieces and the dogs happily cleaned up the rest.

Clean up crew

The second batch had blueberries and they held together a bit better. These took a looongggg time to cook though, I think because there is so much liquid in the batter. We waited and waited and waited some more and finally they were done.

I forgot to mention that Martha says to serve these with Orange Maple Butter (butter, OJ, syrup, and orange zest) as well as syrup.  That was quick to whip up while the pancakes were cooking (and cooking and cooking).

Ok, now for the taste test. These were great! I have to admit I was totally unsure about the cornmeal in the recipe but it was a really interesting flavor to add to it. They reminded me a bit of Paula Deen’s Hoe Cakes (which I adore). I thought I was going to miss cinnamon, since I always add cinnamon to my blueberry pancakes, but I didn’t even think about it. The orange maple butter added an interesting layer of citrus flavor that I really liked.

Thumbs up on this recipe!

Sunday morning pancakes are a veritable tradition around here. My favorite pancake recipe is adapted from my mom’s dirty, won,  old Betty Crocker cookbook. I make the basic buttermilk pancake recipe then add blueberries and cinnamon. Today I decided to try out Martha’s Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes (Martha Stewart Living June, p. 24 – would someone … Read more →

We all know that Martha is very interested in wellness – she’s just created the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mt. Sinai – a center devoted to aging. I applaud her for that. I recently heard a Dr on a talk show that aging is one of the last frontiers in medicine. We now know how to prolong life, but we don’t have a handle on improving quality of life for the elderly. I think Martha’s center will truly do good things.

Martha now has a monthly feature in Living about health and wellness. I love that she includes this now. What good is it to eat wonderful food or live in beautiful surroundings if you are essentially unwell when it comes to health.

In the June issue is a topic I am familiar with – skin cancer. As a fair-skinned, blue-eyed person who had several bad sunburns as a child, I am at high risk for skin cancer. Add to that the fact that my father has had a melanoma and my risk goes through the ceiling. Because of this, I see my dermatologist yearly and this year I had a basal cell carcinoma removed. Not fun (and no, sorry, no photos!).

In our house, I am the sunscreen Nazi. No one goes out into the sun without it on. Ever. I hope that you read and take to heart the advice in this column. Checking your skin and seeing your Dr with any abnormalities is a small “Martha” thing you can do for yourself every day.

We all know that Martha is very interested in wellness – she’s just created the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mt. Sinai – a center devoted to aging. I applaud her for that. I recently heard a Dr on a talk show that aging is one of the last frontiers in medicine. We now … Read more →

I love to grill. I even grill in the winter on the Jenn-Air grill inside. Mr. MarthaAndMe does the requisite grumbling about being sent out to grill, but usually does a good job. I love that there is very little clean up and it doesn’t make the house hot in the summer.

The June issue of Martha Stewart Living is all about grilling, which is a fun summer topic. My last attempt at one of these recipes was a flop however, since the Honey Brine grilled chicken I made was totally inedible. I was ready to give Martha a second chance on grilling however, and went with the Soy-Garlic Marinade for steak. Soy and garlic are flavors I love with steak and this recipe can be made and kept overnight, which worked out perfectly since I was taking it to the lake over Memorial Day weekend.  I bought my organic steaks (we eat beef rarely now and when we do, I only buy organic) and whipped up  the marinade, which is super simple. I marinated in a plastic zipper bag.

The steaks grilled up nicely and the marinade gave it a nice flavor. I think I would probably add some herbs to this next time – maybe some thyme.  I would also use more garlic and more lemon juice. It just needs a little something extra. It was good, but not fabulous.

What I want to know is what is your favorite marinade? I plan to do a lot of grilling and would love some tips.

I love to grill. I even grill in the winter on the Jenn-Air grill inside. Mr. MarthaAndMe does the requisite grumbling about being sent out to grill, but usually does a good job. I love that there is very little clean up and it doesn’t make the house hot in the summer. The June issue … Read more →

We were heading out to my parents’ lake house for Memorial Day weekend and I needed a dessert to bring. I like to get my cooking done ahead so I can spend the time there enjoying the water. Martha’s Cream Puffs with Lemon Mousse and Blueberry Sauce (June Martha Stewart Living) sounded very summery and light, so I decided to make that.

So there I was on a Friday night, making cream puffs. I’ve never made cream puffs before. They were a little more complicated than I expected. First you cook sugar, water, butter and salt and then you add flour and cook it again. Once that’s done you beat in eggs. You know it’s ready when you can touch it and take your finger away and a string follows your finger. I was worried it wasn’t going to work, but it did. It was quite similar to Gougere, an hors d’oevres I’ve made often.

Next you bake your cream puffs.  Martha says to use a pastry bag to get them on the baking sheet. Piffle. I just used a spoon. And really, that worked out quite well. The recipe says it makes 10 but I was able to get 12.

They bake a surprisingly long time, but when they were done, they looked great. Now, let me say candidly that these are probably best the same day you bake them, but I had to put them in a plastic container and save them for the next day. They did get a tiny bit mushy I think, so eat them the same day if you can.

Next, I got to work on the lemon curd, which would become the lemon mousse. I’ve never made lemon curd before and it was quite easy. Eggs, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest get cooked, then butter gets mixed in. Pretty easy. I put that in a container to chill and bring along with us.

The next step was the blueberry sauce. Blueberries, water, sugar, salt and lemon zest get cooked down. At the end you add in more blueberries. No problem. I got that done and chilling.

The next morning I packed it all up, along with the heavy cream I needed to make the lemon mousse. It all went into a cooler and came along with us. That night, I served it.

First I cut the cream puffs in half. Next, I got to work on the lemon mousse and here is where things get out of control. I grabbed the heavy cream, dumped it into a bowl and started whipping. Nothing happened. It got foamy but not fluffy. Finally I looked at the carton and realized I had grabbed half and half, which comes in an identical carton (who’s the labeling genius in charge of that I’d like to know!). Down the drain that went and I started over, this time making sure I had the whipping cream I had brought with me. I got it whipped up and stuck my finger in it to check the texture and licked my finger off and immediately gagged. The cream was bad! And I had just bought it two days ago. The expiration date was not until the end of June. What the hell! Fortunately my mother had another carton of heavy cream, so I set to work whipping for the third time and this time it all worked out.

I folded the whipped cream with the curd and voila! Lemon mousse. I filled the cream puffs with the mousse and was getting ready to put the blueberry sauce on them. My son asked me not to put sauce on his. My father overheard this and asked for me to do the same thing for his.

We sat down to eat and my dad took a bite and said, “Oh! It’s lemon! I thought they were regular profiteroles.” My mother then says to him, “It’s not French honey, it’s Martha,” and takes his plate and goes and puts the blueberry sauce on it. He thought they were regular cream puffs and didn’t like the idea of blueberry sauce on them. Once he realized they weren’t, then he was willing to try it.

These were quite good, despite all the effort it took to produce them! The lemon mousse was light and fluffy and just lemony enough. The blueberry sauce was a nice contrast. It all worked well together and was a nice summer dessert. I enjoyed it a lot. I have to admit I would probably rather have regular cream puffs with chocolate sauce though!

We were heading out to my parents’ lake house for Memorial Day weekend and I needed a dessert to bring. I like to get my cooking done ahead so I can spend the time there enjoying the water. Martha’s Cream Puffs with Lemon Mousse and Blueberry Sauce (June Martha Stewart Living) sounded very summery and … Read more →

Spanokopita is one of my most favorite foods in the world. Probably because it has spinach and cheese in it – two things I could eat all day. I must confess that I have never made it though! So I was delighted to see the recipe for Spinach Phyllo Pie in June Martha Stewart Everyday Food. It looked so easy, that I could not believe I had never tried it before.

The first step is to cook onions, garlic and spinach. I bought frozen spinach so I didn’t have to wilt my spinach. The recipe calls for a white onion, but I had some red onion hanging around so I used that up.

An important step that I didn’t pay attention to is that you need to get your phyllo dough defrosted. On the package it says to let it sit in the fridge overnight. Eek! Didn’t do that, so I stuck it in the microwave on defrost and all was well.

You lay out a sheet, brush it with butter, then put another sheet on top. It’s not hard to work with if you are careful when moving the sheets of phyllo since they can rip.

Once you get all ten sheets ready, you place the spinach mixture down the center, then fold each side of the phyllo in, so that you have a flat log.  This was not hard to do at all.

Once you’ve got it sealed shut, you cut some diagonal slices on it to make it look pretty.

This takes longer to cook than it seems like it should – 45 to 50 minutes, although I cheated and put it on convection to get it done.

The result? It was very good. But you knew I was going to say that since it has spinach and cheese in it! I have to say I still prefer the traditional layered spanokopita, but this was a good alternative. It definitely looked gorgeous when it came out of the oven.

Spanokopita is one of my most favorite foods in the world. Probably because it has spinach and cheese in it – two things I could eat all day. I must confess that I have never made it though! So I was delighted to see the recipe for Spinach Phyllo Pie in June Martha Stewart Everyday … Read more →

I am already a wild fan of fish prints. A few years ago we vacationed on Cape Cod and happened upon this fab little shop called Blue Water Fish Rubbings. They sell clothes, bags, and prints that are made by pressing real fish and sea creatures that have been inked onto fabric or paper. We bought a shirt while we were there and I love it.

Fast forward to June Martha Stewart Living, where Martha has several pages devoted to making fish prints, shell prints and other beach imprints. Martha uses a rubber fish for hers, but this weekend we visited my parents at their lake house, so I was determined to use a real fish.

I went to a craft store and bought ink and rice paper. I had a little brush already. I took it with us. We caught a lot of fish, but since bass season has not started yet, we couldn’t keep those big fish. We did catch a lot of little sunfish though and we kept some to eat for lunch. One of the fish we set aside for the print.

First I dried the fish off and let it sit in the sun to get really dry. I painted the ink on it and pressed the rough side of the rice paper onto it (hoping that was the right side!). The first one wasn’t great and I quickly learned to use a very light coating of ink. The next few turned out really well. I am definitely going to frame one and hang it up at the lake.

I ended up with ink all over my hands, but it all washed off. And don’t worry, we did eat the fish after we washed it, so this project was not wasteful.

I want to try this again with a really big fish once they are in season and we can keep them, so I left all the supplies at the lake. I’m going to buy some other colors of ink so that I can do a multi-colored print as well.

This project was really very easy. If I can do it, you can do it! I would love to try it with some shells and maybe some seaweed.

I am already a wild fan of fish prints. A few years ago we vacationed on Cape Cod and happened upon this fab little shop called Blue Water Fish Rubbings. They sell clothes, bags, and prints that are made by pressing real fish and sea creatures that have been inked onto fabric or paper. We … Read more →