When I made this recipe from March Everyday Food, Teen Martha gushed, “I love dips!”

I made this for dinner and we really enjoyed it. It was rather simple to throw together and was a nice different thing to have with dinner. You start by cooking onion (1/2 medium onion) and garlic (3 cloves) in oil. You add in the canned drained artichoke hearts (3 cans) and white wine (1/2 cup)and cook until the wine evaporates. Stir in light cream cheese (4 oz) and fontina (2 1/4 cups), add some parsley and bake for 30 minutes at 400. While that bakes you brush some pita triangles with oil and bake them until they are crisp about 15 minutes. This was warm and yummy. And I felt totally justified eating it since artichokes ARE a vegetable!

When I made this recipe from March Everyday Food, Teen Martha gushed, “I love dips!” I made this for dinner and we really enjoyed it. It was rather simple to throw together and was a nice different thing to have with dinner. You start by cooking onion (1/2 medium onion) and garlic (3 cloves) in … Read more →

I find myself poaching a lot of chicken these days. Teen Martha likes to take it in her lunch, so once a week I poach a whole bunch. I stumbled upon the recipe in Feb Everyday Food for Chicken Salad with Scallions and Yogurt, which uses poached chicken and decided to make it for lunch one day. This is extremely simple. You mix celery, scallions, yogurt, basil, salt, pepper, and poached chicken and serve over lettuce.  I enjoyed it, but it was too bland by itself. I ended up adding some salad dressing to give some flavor to the entire dish. I like the idea of using yogurt instead of mayo in chicken salad and that’s something I will definitely do again.

I find myself poaching a lot of chicken these days. Teen Martha likes to take it in her lunch, so once a week I poach a whole bunch. I stumbled upon the recipe in Feb Everyday Food for Chicken Salad with Scallions and Yogurt, which uses poached chicken and decided to make it for lunch … 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 →

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

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 →

The May issue of Everyday Food has a cute little salad, Romaine Salad with Crispy Prosciutto and White Beans. Although the salad is supposed to feed one, I made it a little bigger to feed two.

The recipe says to rip up a roll and toss with olive oil. Put it on a baking sheet and lay out your prosciutto next to it. It does not say to spray the pan. I thought this was nuts, but thought maybe the prosciutto has enough fat in it that it won’t stick when you bake it. Wrong! Some of the prosciutto did curl up as the recipe said it would, but the rest stuck to the pan and had to be scraped, resulting in crumbs. That was disappointing.

The rest of the salad is easy to make – romaine, cannelini beans, and a basic salad dressing. I violated Martha’s principles in two ways. First I did not make the salad dressing in the bottom of the bowl as Martha directs. I dislike doing that because you can’t control the amount of dressing then. I also spiced up her salad dressing – she calls just for oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Frankly, that’s pretty nasty. I added a little sugar and some dried Italian herbs to give it some flavor.

This salad was tasty and different. I enjoyed the beans and prosciutto in it a lot. In fact, I’m starting to think baked prosciutto is better than bacon in some instances. This was a nice, quick salad and I think it would make a great lunch by itself. We had it as a side dish with dinner and it was great that way also.

The May issue of Everyday Food has a cute little salad, Romaine Salad with Crispy Prosciutto and White Beans. Although the salad is supposed to feed one, I made it a little bigger to feed two. The recipe says to rip up a roll and toss with olive oil. Put it on a baking sheet … Read more →

In the May issue of Everyday Food there is a recipe from Emeril for Grilled Lemon-Herb Shrimp.  I love shrimp because it’s so quick to cook. And I know my son will always eat breaded and pan-fried shrimp, so I can always make some of that for him separately.

This was super easy, but you do need to make it half an hour ahead so it can marinate (and half an hour really is enough time for the marinade to work). The marinade is lemon juice, olive oil, thyme, rosemary, garlic and salt and pepper. No fuss.

I let it marinate, then we grilled it. It was really tasty. All the flavors of the marinade sunk into the shrimp. The recipe says to reserve some marinade to serve over the shrimp but it did not need it at all.

This is a terrific quick way to make very flavorful shrimp. This shrimp also is fabulous cold the next day in a salad or just by itself.  Next time, I’ll make more so we have leftovers.

In the May issue of Everyday Food there is a recipe from Emeril for Grilled Lemon-Herb Shrimp.  I love shrimp because it’s so quick to cook. And I know my son will always eat breaded and pan-fried shrimp, so I can always make some of that for him separately. This was super easy, but you … Read more →

In the May issue of Everyday Food there is a recipe from Emeril for Grilled Lemon-Herb Shrimp.  I love shrimp because it’s so quick to cook. And I know my son will always eat breaded and pan-fried shrimp, so I can always make some of that for him separately.

This was super easy, but you do need to make it half an hour ahead so it can marinate (and half an hour really is enough time for the marinade to work). The marinade is lemon juice, olive oil, thyme, rosemary, garlic and salt and pepper. No fuss.

I let it marinate, then we grilled it. It was really tasty. All the flavors of the marinade sunk into the shrimp. The recipe says to reserve some marinade to serve over the shrimp but it did not need it at all.

This is a terrific quick way to make very flavorful shrimp. This shrimp also is fabulous cold the next day in a salad or just by itself.  Next time, I’ll make more so we have leftovers.

In the May issue of Everyday Food there is a recipe from Emeril for Grilled Lemon-Herb Shrimp.  I love shrimp because it’s so quick to cook. And I know my son will always eat breaded and pan-fried shrimp, so I can always make some of that for him separately. This was super easy, but you … Read more →

In the April issue of Everyday Food, Martha has a recipe for what is called Chocolate ‘n’ Cream Sandwich Cookies.  AKA Oreos. A recipe that lets you make Oreos at home? Oh yes! I was in.

First you make the chocolate dough. Martha directs that you roll it out in two pieces to 1/4 of an inch thick. The recipe says to put the dough between two pieces of parchment paper to roll it out. The problem is, you then cannot roll it since it slides all over your counter. It actually takes two people – one to hold it in place and one to roll.  There was much grumbling during this step of the process, I must admit! The next step is to refrigerate (of course – is there a Martha cookie recipe that doesn’t require refrigeration?).  I don’t have a round cookie cutter so I used a tiny glass measuring cup. The pieces came out easily, but there was LOTS leftover (we’ll get to that in a second) and the recipe does not say to roll it all out again.

I popped the cookies in the oven and baked them until they were “firm and fragrant” as the recipe directed (which seemed sort of a weird description, but I went with it). While they cooled, I made the cream filling. You beat butter until it is fluffy then gradually add in the sugar. I did as directed and started to panic! All it looked like was a bowl of sand. It was not becoming creamy in any way. Eeek. I ditched the mixer and went at it with a spoon. Finally I found that if I smushed it against the sides, it would come together. Whew.

Mini-Martha (my 11 yr old son) and I filled the cookies and put them together. They looked pretty good, if not completely professional. How did they taste? You’re not going to believe this, but they really tasted like Oreos! The cookie is crunchy and sweet and the cream has the right flavor. It was pretty amazing. Total thumbs up. A true Good Thing.

Now for my complaints, if you will bear with me. First of all, the recipe says it makes 15 cookies. 15??? Who is going to do all this work for a mere 15 cookies? That’s pretty ridiculous. After cutting out the cookies, there was a

lot of dough leftover, and as I mentioned earlier, the recipe does not say you should roll it out again, which seems very wasteful to me. Mini-Martha in particular was distressed at the thought of letting this go to waste. So, in typical 11 yr old fashion, he suggested we make the world’s largest Oreo.  Together we rolled the dough out into two big pieces and baked it. He filled it with the remaining cream. The result was pretty huge and quite full – like a double

stuff Oreo. He was pleased with the result though.

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In the April issue of Everyday Food, Martha has a recipe for what is called Chocolate ‘n’ Cream Sandwich Cookies.  AKA Oreos. A recipe that lets you make Oreos at home? Oh yes! I was in. First you make the chocolate dough. Martha directs that you roll it out in two pieces to 1/4 of … Read more →