Lots of little things to report in this post.

I Hate Cable

My local stations don’t carry Martha’s show (why? I cry). For a while, I was watching it on Fine Living, but those episodes sometimes didn’t correspond to the schedule on the site. Sometimes they would play old reruns, other times they would play the current show. Too confusing. Then I found the little doo-hickey on Martha’s site that lets you type in your zip code and it will tell you where to find the show. I discovered it is carried by a Canadian station we get (I’m in Buffalo – no snow jokes please- which is on the border) at 1 p.m. Terrific! So I started DVRing it there. Wednesday of this week I was all excited because it was cooking school day. I went to play it at about 1:30 and no Martha! I checked the schedule and it had been pre-empted by something called “The Crown Speech” which was a news special in Canada (I could totally make some crack about this but I am totally not going to since I love my Canadian neighbors). Well, you can’t keep me away from Martha, so I quickly checked the Fine Living listings, but she wasn’t there either! Eek! Disaster!

Back to the online doo-hickey. Turns out Fine Living no longer carries it, but suddenly there is a local channel carrying it at 11 a.m. Which means I missed it for that day! This was a total and complete tragedy! I needed to see this cooking school since it was about Thanksgiving. She had an audience of people who have never cooked Thanksgiving dinner before! I needed to see this!!!  Now I’ll have to just use the recipes in the magazine and check the book for extra tidbits. Martha, you need to have your shows available to download online. There’s no reason not to. If my teen can watch Gossip Girl online, I should be able to watch you.

So now I’ve got the DVR set to tape both the Canadian broadcast and the local one in case this kind of pre-empting happens again (this is known as the belt and suspenders method of viewing).

Mac and Cheese

I was sitting at my son’s hockey practice earlier this week and my daughter asked what was for dinner. I told her (beef potpie) and she asked if we could have homemade mac and cheese with it.  My first reaction was no way – I didn’t have enough cheese or enough time! But when I got home, instead of dumping out a box of it, I first looked at Martha’s recipe in Cooking School. It looked almost as easy as making it from a box so I went for it. I’ve made my own in the past, but have never been happy with it. I especially detest the homemade kind that has egg in it (sorry, Paula Deen!). Martha’s recipe was really easy. You start with some butter and onions and add flour then milk. This really cooked up to a nice thickness and then I added cheese. It was ready within minutes. I skipped the step of putting it in a casserole dish and putting breadcrumbs on top. It tasted great and was simple. A good thing.

Crepes

On Nov 10, Martha had on Chef Brian Sikora, who made herb crepes. I was going to attempt this recipe, but as I’ve reported in some other posts, I was sick as a dog. I cheated and bought some crepes. It was about $4 for a package of 10. I have attempted crepes in the past and wasn’t happy with how they turned out, so this was a good compromise. I spread some Dijon mustard on them and filled them with ham, asparagus and cheese. I made a cheese sauce to go on top and baked them till the sauce bubbled. They were yummy.

Roasted Cauliflower

I also made the roasted cauliflower from the special holiday issue of Living. No photos here either guys – you cannot believe how sick I’ve been. I can barely make food and type a blog. That’s about all I’ve got energy for. Anyway, Martha said to roast your cauli in the oven with oil, vinegar, capers and seasonings. I skipped the capers and used balsamic vinegar. Usually I like my cauli with butter and cheese, so I was a little leery. This was good though! The cauli turned slightly brown and got a a little crunchy at the ends. The oil and vinegar was tasty. I would definitely make this again.

Jealous

Yesterday Martha showed us her new Turbo Chef oven which cooked a 12 lb turkey in 42 minutes. OMG. Um, Santa? What a cool thing this is. Although I have to say I do love how the Thanksgiving turkey cooks all day and you smell it and it just builds the anticipation! Anyone know how much these babies cost?

Elsewhere on the Web

Martha Moments has a great blog about Martha’s circular logo, which I’m emulating on this site. He also has a really cool post about making bows from Martha’s magazines.

Mad About Martha is my go-to place to find out how Every Day Food recipes work out. So glad that I don’t have to make the banana oat smoothie myself to know it was not so great.

Living Oprah is finding herself dreaming about Oprah. So far I have not dreamt about Martha, although I do find myself thinking about her through much of the day. How would Martha do this? What would Martha cook for dinner?

Good Things also tried fresh pasta from Martha – not the pici that was such a disaster for me, but from the cooking school book. That’s where I will have to turn next if I want to try this fresh pasta thing again.

THANK YOU!!!!

And finally – thank you to everyone who is reading and following my journey. I had over 600 hits yesterday. I love hearing from you and knowing you’re checking in on me!

Lots of little things to report in this post. I Hate Cable My local stations don’t carry Martha’s show (why? I cry). For a while, I was watching it on Fine Living, but those episodes sometimes didn’t correspond to the schedule on the site. Sometimes they would play old reruns, other times they would play … Read more →

I’ve got a few Martha odds and ends to wrap up, so here goes.

Pumpkin Muffins

First of all, after I made the Pumpkin Swirl brownies (as reported in October), I had pumpkin left over. I decided I wanted to make some pumpkin muffins for weekend breakfasts. I did a recipe search on Martha’s site and only found one (called, surprisingly and creatively enough, “pumpkin muffins”). The recipe called for whole wheat flour and yogurt, so I was happy that it was somewhat healthy. It tasted healthy too – and not in a good way. They muffins were heavy and doughy. They had a heavy floury taste. I won’t be making those again.

You’ll see in the photo above that I use an ice cream scoop to scoop the

batter into the muffin tins – a trick I learned from Paula Deen. It has to be one of those sccops with the little windshield wiper that pushes it out of the scoop. It makes just the right size for a muffin. Martha  – that’s a good thing!

Butternut Pear Soup

In Cooking School segment #2, Martha and Sarah talked about making cream soups. I must say I found this confusing – cream soups that have no cream in them! I guess I always just thought of these as pureed soups. I often make a pureed carrot soup as well as a roasted butternut squash puree soup. Martha has a recipe for Butternut Pear Soup in the Cooking School book, so I decided to give it a go.

The process is pretty simple. You cook onion and pear, add your roasted squash (she says roasting is optional, but I always roast mine first) and then add chicken stock. You puree it with your boat motor (this is what Emeril calls those hand held immersion blenders and I find it an apt description!). Seriously, this recipe

has nothing else in it. No salt or pepper or herbs or spices of any kind. It tasted like baby food squash (which, I have to say, both of my kids adored the most out of all the jarred baby food veggies!). So I went to work doctoring this. First in went salt and pepper. Then some cumin. Then some ginger. I even added a dash of garlic salt. At the end, I poured in some leftover cream. By the time I did all this, it at least had some flavor. I served it with some homemade croutons and it was yummy.

Blogging Martha

Here are some great posts about Martha from around the web. Got a

great one to add? Put it in a comment!

Martha Moments has great video up from BN.com where Martha talks about her first disastrous Thanksgiving. She also talks about her many cookbooks.

Mad about Martha is doing great interviews with MSLO employees. I also love the study

carrel craft.

Good Things has photos of new Martha craft items up

I’ve got a few Martha odds and ends to wrap up, so here goes. Pumpkin Muffins First of all, after I made the Pumpkin Swirl brownies (as reported in October), I had pumpkin left over. I decided I wanted to make some pumpkin muffins for weekend breakfasts. I did a recipe search on Martha’s site … Read more →