1. Celery tastes better peeled. Really.

2.  How to seed a pomegranate. Martha says to score the skin into quarters, then pull it apart. You then whack the back of each quarter with a spoon, and the seeds come out. Who knew?

3.  Beds are nicer when they are made. Making them still isn’t fun though.

4. Refrigerating cookies on the sheet before baking means they will spread less and retain a nice shape.

5. Packaging a gift beautifully makes it seem more special.

6. An organized home feels luxurious.

7. Stuffed cabbage is actually really good.

8. Salad dressing is easy to make and there’s no reason to buy it.

9. You can lose weight and still eat delicious, wonderful food.

10. Aluminum foil should never touch food. Use a layer of parchment paper in between.

1. Celery tastes better peeled. Really. 2.  How to seed a pomegranate. Martha says to score the skin into quarters, then pull it apart. You then whack the back of each quarter with a spoon, and the seeds come out. Who knew? 3.  Beds are nicer when they are made. Making them still isn’t fun … Read more →

For this week’s assignment, I chose pork and chive potstickers (Oct Everyday Food) and Luminarias (October Living) so folks could choose one they wanted to do.

Potstickers

My family loves potstickers. I’ve bought them frozen and I’ve also made my own once or twice before, but I used wonton wrappers and ended up with little beggar’s purses. I was ready to make real potstickers. Lucinda Scala Quinn recently made this recipe on Martha’s show. The recipe is pretty easy, as far as prep goes.  I used ground turkey instead of pork which I mixed with the chives, soy sauce, sherry, ginger, sesame oil and cornstarch. On tv, I noticed Lucinda added a little water, which is not in the recipe.

I sealed the mixture in the wrappers, which took a while, since I tripled this recipe. I tried to make pretty pleated edges, but mostly it bunched up. The recipe says to boil them for 4 minutes, then sear them in a pan. I was taught to make potstickers by heating a pan with oil, searing the potstickers then adding a little water and putting a lid on and steaming them and that’s how I always have made them in the past. I followed Lucinda’s instructions on this though. It required an extra pot and I had some trouble with the potstickers sticking together when I set them on a plate in between the two steps. It did allow me to sear them on both sides, when in the past I usually seared just the bottom.

The dipping sauce was nice – soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. I made about 1/3 of the potstickers (since I tripled the recipe) and froze the rest (which I admit will be very handy to have around, so thanks for suggesting it Lucinda). The family ate every single one and wanted more. I thought they were good, but next time I would add a little more flavor. Maybe it was because I used ground turkey, but I found them a little bland. I think they needed garlic. Other than that, they were quite good.

Luninarias

tracing the template

I was hesitant about this project. I’m always a little leery when something that looks so complicated is spelled out in three tiny little steps. The first problem was the materials. The instructions specifically say to buy a piece of 24×36 black paper.  No one sells this. I went to Michael’s, Joann’s and a local art supply store. The art supply store had paper that was 22 x 30 so I ended up buying that and then it turned out it was more than big enough and regular poster size would have worked (grrrr). They did have vellum but I had no idea what weight I wanted. I had to buy one big piece of vellum and cut it down (would have been nice if the instructions said to buy four 8×11 pieces which is what I ended up needing). Sometimes I think that the MSLO folks who create these projects forget that the rest of us don’t live in NYC where you can buy absolutely anything.

Once I got through the craziness of trying to find the materials, this wasn’t

cutting out the vellum (see the price tag!)

that hard to do. Mr. MarthaAndMe helped out because I’m not so good with a craft knife. We printed out the template for the lantern and traced it on the black paper, then cut it out with the craft knife.  Then we printed the witch template onto the pieces of vellum we had cut down to size. (Mr. MarthaAndMe was very upset about a price tag that would not come off and which had to go through the printer – we don’t understand who would sell a piece of paper meant for projects that has a price tag that won’t come off!).

Then we used tape to attach the vellum to the lantern windows. We folded the lantern up (I don’t have a bone folder and we were fine without it). The tricky part was attaching wire and the hanging battery powered little light inside. Mr. MarthaAndMe had to handle that part.

This project took about an hour, not counting the shopping time.  I was really quite pleased with the results. We hung it from our dining room chandelier, so that it will be over the table for the Halloween party.

For this week’s assignment, I chose pork and chive potstickers (Oct Everyday Food) and Luminarias (October Living) so folks could choose one they wanted to do. Potstickers My family loves potstickers. I’ve bought them frozen and I’ve also made my own once or twice before, but I used wonton wrappers and ended up with little … Read more →

We’re planning a Halloween party as the one year wrap up to my Martha project. I’ve hit a few bumps along the way and thought I would share them.

First of all, why don’t people RSVP? It makes it so hard to plan things!

My biggest gripe though has to be the things I simply cannot find that I need! Martha demonstrated how to use her Halloween stencils to decorate cupcakes on her show. I can’t find them anywhere. And at this late date, I’m worried about ordering them online in case they don’t arrive in time.

I had to order black tissue paper online for my Martha tablescape. I simply could not find it anywhere. So I ended up paying $5 for shipping for a 99 cent item.

I’m looking for cheap doll parts. I’m planning to make buried alive cupcakes – chocolate cupacakes with an arm sticking up out of them. I actually found this idea in Rachel Ray’s magazine. But I can’t find doll parts anywhere for a reasonable price. I was even hoping to find a bag of cheap little dolls at the dollar store, but they only come singly for $1 each and I need at least 20 arms, so that $10 which seems like a lot. I haven’t found any online for a good price, because the cost of shipping always makes it ridiculous.

We have some fun games planned:

– donut on a string (see who can eat it first with their hands behind their backs)

– eyeball pong (ping pong ball with an eyeball on it – you try to bounce it into cups to win a prize)

– monster assembly (we are collecting bags of stuff we would normally throw out and will give each team a box to make a monster out of)

– name the body part (we’re going to put food items inside boxes and have them guess what body part it is supposed to be)

– candy corn relay

– pitch a penny into a jack o lantern

– pumpkin bowling (we’re making ghost pins out of white cups and using a small pumpkin as a bowling ball)

I’m going to start making some food and freezing it this weekend to get a jump on things. I’m making Martha’s one bowl cupcakes for the buried alive cupcakes and the stencil cupcakes if I ever find the stencil, the marshmallow ghosts in the Halloween issue, the chocolate pumpkin tart from it also, the black bean guacamole from the Halloween issue  (which I’m going to serve in a carved gourd), punch with a frozen hand floating in it along with ice cubes with gummy worms, the puff pastry cheese pumpkins from the Halloween issue, rice krispy treat coffins, a veggie tray that I need to spook up somehow, and little bowls of pink yogurt with mouths on them made of apple slices and yogurt raisins.

For decorations, we will have the luminaria (see tomorrow’s Martha Mondays), a gourd totem (from the Halloween issue) and possibly one of the toadstools from the cover of October Living. I also bought some spider web junk and caution tape, as well as all of our regular Halloween decorations.

As for costumes, Dude Martha has a store bought costume and Teen Martha will be wearing a toga I am making for her. I’m going to be Martha. Mr. MarthaAndMe is undecided. We’ve batted around a lot of ideas, including Tim Gunn, Ryan Seacrest, and Simon Cowell. His old fallback costume is a vampire (he won a prize at a church party as a child and never deviated after that). The other option is for him to be Martha also (Drag Martha).  You’ll just have to tune in after Halloween to see what he ends up as!

We’re planning a Halloween party as the one year wrap up to my Martha project. I’ve hit a few bumps along the way and thought I would share them. First of all, why don’t people RSVP? It makes it so hard to plan things! My biggest gripe though has to be the things I simply … Read more →

This week’s Martha Mondays recipe is Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding, chosen by SweetLorraineBakeshop. Sticky toffee pudding is a very English dessert, and one we enjoyed on our recent UK trip.  I’m not sure how hard it is make regular sticky toffee pudding, but this was very easy.

The cake batter was pretty basic, except you have to soak some chopped dates in hot water before adding them. Dates are not a very common ingredient in US desserts, except possibly for fruitcake.

the cake

I got the cake in the oven and I should have checked it sooner because it too brown on the bottom. I set the timer for 55 minutes (the recipe says 55-65 minutes) but I would have pulled it out sooner if I had checked it.

While that was in the oven, I started the toffee sauce. This stuff is evil. Brown, sweet and delicious. Oh dear. It reminded me of those hard toffee candies – Werner’s I think is the brand. Just evil.

When the cake comes out, Martha says to cool for 5 minutes, then flip it and put it back in the pan. I totally do not get that step at all.  I used a silicone baking pan so it wasn’t sticking. Maybe it would in a regular pan? I don’t know.

Then Martha says to poke holes in it with a toothpick. This felt very Paula Deen to me – kind of like her poke cakes. I made lots and lots of holes and then

sauce on the cake

poured one cup of the sauce on top. It just sat there. It did not soak in. I let it sit a good hour before we ate it and nothing happened. Maybe some did absorb but I couldn’t see it.

Now for the taste test. We served the cake with additional sauce on it. I thought the cake itself had a nice taste but the sauce was the real winner on this. I could just eat the sauce plain or I could put it on ice cream…. I do have one complaint about the cake. The dates. I just didn’t like them in the cake. You’re eating a nice soft piece of cake and you get a chewy piece of date. I’m not a fan of raisins in baked goods either, so it’s the same objection, I guess. The flavor of the dates was fine, but just not the consistency. We didn’t eat the edges of the cake because it was simply overdone, but the insides were fine.

This week’s Martha Mondays recipe is Easy Sticky Toffee Pudding, chosen by SweetLorraineBakeshop. Sticky toffee pudding is a very English dessert, and one we enjoyed on our recent UK trip.  I’m not sure how hard it is make regular sticky toffee pudding, but this was very easy. The cake batter was pretty basic, except you … Read more →

I took my handy Dinner at Home cookbook (Martha’s newest release) to the kitchen and was all set to make Turkey and Pancetta Meatballs. I had defrosted some ground turkey and was ready to roll. But then I had another Martha-resistance moment. This also happened not too long ago when I bailed on Martha’s beef stew recipe. Apparently I haven’t fully recuperated, because I just could not bring myself to make this meatball recipe. What’s the problem, you’re wondering? The recipe was fairly harmless – onion, garlic, bread crumbs, sage, egg, lemon zest and salt and pepper. Not exactly how I would make them, but not awful. Except for one additional ingredient. Pancetta. Now when I selected this recipe, it sounded like a good flavor combo. The pancetta would liven up the meatballs. But then I read the recipe and I couldn’t do it. You stir in your uncooked pancetta into the turkey. Gag.  All I could imagine was pieces of flabby, fatty, mushy pancetta inside the meatballs. Here’s the thing – I like my bacon and pancetta cooked – really cooked. I cannot eat shrimp or scallops that are wrapped in bacon because while the bacon may not be raw, it is fatty and mushy and just unthinkable to me.

I considered cooking the pancetta first, but the idea of crunchy pieces of pancetta in my meatballs was not appealing either. So I bailed on the pancetta. I whipped up the meatballs the way I usually do – onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, Worchestershire sauce, egg,  Italian herb mix, salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese. Then I got to thinking that maybe I could do something Martha with this recipe. I’ve regretted not trying Chicken and Ricotta Meatballs from Sept Everyday Food, so I dumped in some ricotta.

I always bake my meatballs in the oven. I served this with spaghetti sauce (jarred – sorry Martha) and Dreamfield’s spaghetti. The meatballs were good, but I didn’t notice anything different I could attribute to the ricotta. I have to say I am just not loving ricotta. I used to hate, hate, hate it. Now I’ve learned it is not toxic, but I just find it has no flavor and does nothing for me.

I took my handy Dinner at Home cookbook (Martha’s newest release) to the kitchen and was all set to make Turkey and Pancetta Meatballs. I had defrosted some ground turkey and was ready to roll. But then I had another Martha-resistance moment. This also happened not too long ago when I bailed on Martha’s beef … Read more →

At the end of October, it will be the one year anniversary of my blog and Martha project. So it seemed fitting to have a party, in Martha’s honor (and mine of course). Halloween seemed like the logical choice. I bought Martha’s special Halloween issue of Living and got some ideas from there, but from the start my biggest challenge has been finding a way to take Martha’s ideas and make them work for a party that my kids’ friends will enjoy. Dude Martha is 11 and in middle school. Teen Martha is a high school senior. So, from the beginning, I’ve had to try to find ways to adjust Martha’s approach to make it work for a younger crowd.

First off, I wanted to make Martha invitations. She made one on her show that Dude Martha vetoed. No way would he give his friends an invitation that had a removable black eye mask. I turned to Martha’s site. He was intrigued by an invitation that involves making plaster casts of your finger and putting them in boxes with the invitation written on them. I vetoed that one – too much work and too gory. Finally I thought I found the perfect solution. Martha has a link to Pingg.com where you can create “free” online invitations that are printable.

Unfortunately, after we spent some time designing it, we realized you can’t actually print it out unless you want to pay them to mail it as a postcard. Sigh. Back to the drawing board. Mr. MarthaAndMe came to the rescue and whipped up an invitation himself using some Microsoft do-hickey. To be honest, it bothered me that the border on this goes around the whole paper, not just the ‘page’ you see, but I was done with this. Dude Martha handed them out. Teen Martha will issue Facebook invites to her peeps.

Once we formally invited people, I had to get to work on the party itself. I went out on a shopping expedition. I had only a few “must-haves” and of course I can’t find them anywhere! I want to make the gauze tablecloth with black tissue paper border that Martha has in the special issue. It sounds very simple. I found gauze material Joann’s, but I can’t find black tissue paper. Very disappointing. I’m going to see if I can order it online, but I’m sure the shipping will cost more than the tissue paper itself. I’m also looking for cheap doll body parts – we’re going to make “buried alive” cupcakes where a hand stick out the top of the cupcake.

From the Halloween Living special issue, I’m planning to make the white cake with marshmallow ghosts, guacamole with blue tortilla chips, pumpkin spiderweb cake, puff pastry and cheese pumpkins, and spinach and ricotta skulls. I’ve got some other food ideas I gathered from other sources as well. The food is definitely under control.

We’ve got some games/activities planned, but need more, so if you have suggestions, please share! We’re going to do the thing where you have boxes with different “body parts” in them (like peeled grapes for eyes) and kids will have to guess what they think it is. We’re going to do a mummy wrap contest – see who can wrap their friend in toilet paper first. We’ll also do Martha’s donut on a string contest (see who can eat it first with no hands). If the weather is decent, I want to hide little plastic pumpkins of candy outside. We also plan eyeball pong – a ping pong ball with an eye drawn on which kids will try to bounce into plastic cups to win prizes. I need more though, so please share any thoughts! Martha has a suggestion for a playlist, but it turns out Napster has several, so we’ll use those.

As for decorations, I plan to make Martha’s gourd totems, lit with Xmas lights. We will carve some pumpkins of course. I bought some spiderweb material to hang, and some crime scene tape. We have a friend who may be able to loan us some of his decorations to use.

I’m thinking of dressing up as Martha. I have blue eyes and blond hair about the same length (although mine is curly so Teen Martha would have to work some magic on that). What do you think would work for the outfit? Twin set and pearls? Or try to look like Martha on her show, in a cotton shirt and khakis and heels? If I could find a stuffed French bulldog I would carry that. I don’t know how anyone will know I am Martha.

So, as you can see, plans are under way here for a big party. I’ll share more as we get closer to the big day.

At the end of October, it will be the one year anniversary of my blog and Martha project. So it seemed fitting to have a party, in Martha’s honor (and mine of course). Halloween seemed like the logical choice. I bought Martha’s special Halloween issue of Living and got some ideas from there, but from … 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 →

This week’s Martha Mondays is Apple Brown Betty, chosen by April at AbbySweets. I make apple crisp every fall, but have never tried Brown Betty – and didn’t even know what the difference is until I made this recipe. The difference has to do with the starch component. When I make apple crisp, I make a topping of flour, sugar, butter and cinnamon. Apple Brown Betty relies on bread crumbs.

I made fresh breadcrumbs as Martha directs. You mix your apples with cinnamon, sugar,  and nutmeg and lemon juice and then some of the breadcrumbs (which have been tossed with butter).  Dump it into your pan and cover with the remaining breadcrumbs. This gets baked covered in foil for 40 minutes, then you uncover it until the apples are soft.

It looked and smelled good. There’s nothing like the smell of apples and cinnamon to make it feel like fall. We liked it, but we like apple crisp better.  The texture of the breadcrumbs is hard to get used to when you’re used to the softness of apple crisp. This also isn’t quite as sweet as my apple crisp recipe.  Somehow apple crisp is mushier – you can’t see slices of apple, but in this they stayed fairly intact. It was good, and would definitely be better with some vanilla ice cream, but I won’t make it again.

Here’s my recipe for apple crisp which I would make instead of this:

Peel, core and slice 6 apples. Toss them with 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 cup of water. Put in a square baking dish (sprayed with Pam). Mix and crumble together 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 4 tbsp butter. Spread over the top of the apples. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for an hour.

This week’s Martha Mondays is Apple Brown Betty, chosen by April at AbbySweets. I make apple crisp every fall, but have never tried Brown Betty – and didn’t even know what the difference is until I made this recipe. The difference has to do with the starch component. When I make apple crisp, I make … Read more →

Before

Martha had a section in September Living about whitewashing wood. I actually love the look of it and was inspired to try some myself. Now, I’ll admit up front I didn’t do much research into the hows of this.

I took a cabinet at the family lake house that is hideously orange. When we ordered it, it was described as “natural” color, but it definitely is orange. It needed help. We put it out in the sun and found some off-white pain. At first I thought I would just dry brush it on, but that didn’t work. So I ended up using a wet rag. It worked well in some places, but not others. I think the sun caused it to dry too quickly, so I couldn’t really wipe much off in some places.

After

The bottom door is the worst – the drawers actually turned out quite well.  The paint on the door dried too quickly for me to wipe much off. I’m going to have to do more work on this the next time we’re out there. Now I’m wondering if I maybe I should just paint the whole thing white and be done with it.

Martha had a section in September Living about whitewashing wood. I actually love the look of it and was inspired to try some myself. Now, I’ll admit up front I didn’t do much research into the hows of this. I took a cabinet at the family lake house that is hideously orange. When we ordered … Read more →

This week’s Martha Monday’s assignment is something a little different. The person who was up to choose this week asked me to choose instead. I thought for a change of pace, maybe we would try a simple organizing project. This one is really simple, but I think it’s one that could be very useful. Creating a Donation Bag was an Organizing Tip of the Day from Martha not long ago. I think this is a great idea. The tip says to do it for clothing and housewares, but I want to create one in my pantry as well for the food bank.

I’ll post my result  next week and you can post a link to your blog or just add a comment to say how it went. And as always, anyone is invited to join in. If you would like to be added to the Martha Mondays blogroll, just let me know.

This week’s Martha Monday’s assignment is something a little different. The person who was up to choose this week asked me to choose instead. I thought for a change of pace, maybe we would try a simple organizing project. This one is really simple, but I think it’s one that could be very useful. Creating … Read more →