Chicken Piccata, by Steph

So I'm really late in posting this, because I actually prepared this meal on Nov. 22nd. But better late than never, right? By this point I was getting a little sick of capers - this was the third meal I had used them in during the month of November, and they weren't all that delicious to begin with. But it was Andrew's first time eating them, and he loved it. Once again, the method of preparation - pounding the chicken breasts to an even thickness, coating with flour, and pan frying - was a keeper. The sauce of capers and lemon juice, not so much.


As you can see, we had a very well-rounded meal that night. Chicken ONLY. No vegetables, no salad, no carbs - only chicken. What a great chef I am. I blame it on my rushing out the door to go to Young Women's. Who has time for a side salad when mutual is waiting?

Fish en Papillote by Steph

I love fish. But I never love it as much when I'm the one who cooks it. I don't know what it is about home-cooked fish, but it's NEVER as good. This time, unfortuantely, was no exception. I used some frozen Pacific cod I had and it turned out...a little blah. But the method of cooking is brilliant and I'll definitely use that again. Just not for fish. :) It was really nice to wrap up an entire meal in parchment, throw it in the oven, and be done with it. Vegetables, meat, sauce, and all. My kind of meal. Since this was the first Martha meal I've cooked since Andrew came home, I abused the privilege of being in the pictures. Sorry. Next time it will be strictly photographs of food. Well, maybe...

Pork Braised in Cider--Linds

I think I'm going to be a loner on this meal for this week, and that's ok :). Kim is somewhat MIA on this blog, and Steph has a newly returned husband to attend to; I alone will represent our Martha meal for the week :). Wooh it was a doozy! talking to steph about it earlier this week she said "it looks like a ton of work" and I had quickly scanned through it and didn't realize how bad it would be. but she was right, it was a lot of work. And i didn't even make the little sachet thing because I didn't want to buy cheese cloth, twine, and fresh stuff. Believe me, it wasn't necessary.


I was a little worried after I bought my pork (only 2 pounds because that was the largest cut they had, as oppose to the 3 pounds martha called for) since it looked different than the pictures in the book. mine was like big and flat. The books' pork was like a mound, but it was fine anyway. I also bought a bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Apple Cider to braise the pork in. That is the non-alcoholic version of this meal. I was bummed that the recipe ended up using the whole darn bottle and I didn't even get any left to drink.



Let the record show that this was my first time seeing, buying, cooking with, or eating parsnips AND leeks. So that was cool. I am really not a huge fan of either, but I didn't dislike them either. Just more mediocre-tasting vegetables to add to the list. OH and the recipe called for celery root, and I didn't want to buy any. For $4.98 a pound for some freaky looking things, I didn't think it was worth it. I used regular celery. I hope no one is laughing at me for doing that because I have no idea how it compares. Maybe celery and celery roots are in fact nothing alike at all, and I now look retarded for thinking one could replace the other. Hopefully that's not the case, but knowing my luck, it is. :)



I didn't cook the meat or the veggies for as long as it said to because we were so impatient to eat and it was taking so darn long. So I think the meat could have been a little more tender, and the vegetables too, but all in all it was good. Kenny really liked it, which to me makes the whole meal worth it. I don't care how long it takes when Kenny keeps going "mmm... mmm..." with every bite haha.



For all the steps in this I sure didn't do a good job photographing it all. But I did get a shot of the final product, minus the sauce which was off to the side in a very unattractive, glass measuring cup.


Would I ever do this again? Probably not. But it was certainly a good learning experience, and isn't that what this is all about?! Here's to learning.
By the way, does anybody know what the purpose of boiling the sauce from one cups down to 2 cups would be? Why can't we just pour out the extra cup of sauce instead of boil it into oblivion? Does it make a more concentrated taste? I have just never done that before and thought it was interesting...

Pan-Roasted Chicken, by Linds

I'm a little frustrated because I just typed up this whole thing and posted it and my internet cord had come loose and anyway it lost the whole thing. So I'm going to summarize and re-do it.

I really loved this method of cooking chicken, it's just like what you do to grill it. Sear it on both sides to lock in the moisture and then cook it through. I don't think my pan was quite hot enough when I put the chicken on initially. So I will do that better next time, but it was still really good. I will definitely cook chicken like this again. But I'll use different vegetables next time. I don't care for grape tomatoes or olives, really. So after one of each i gave the rest of mine to Kenny :). We didn't have capers either.

I told Kenny when I put the chicken in the oven, still in the skillet, that in 15 min. I would need some serious supervision so we didn't have a repeat of last time. But thankfully there were no burns for this meal, and it turned out great. Martha meal for this week was a definite keeper.

Pan-Roasted Chicken by Steph

Finally - a Martha success in my own kitchen! In fact, I just may cook chicken this way from now on - it was perfect and juicy and tender.
I was excited to try this recipe because I don't normally like olives and I've never had capers. I knew it had the potential of being gross, but I was glad to be branching out a little. I had my friend Marelize over (an olive connoiseur) for dinner to give me extra incentive.
The recipe calls for boneless, skin-on chicken breasts; turns out there's no such thing. I figured Martha wouldn't make it easy, but I wasn't about to buy a whole chicken and debone it myself just to get the extra fat from the skin. So I ventured to use boneless, skinless, and it was still perfect.
The recipe was really easy: capers, kalamata olives, and plum tomatoes tossed in olive oil; chicken salted and peppered, then browned on the stovetop; put it all together, throw it in the oven on REALLY high heat for 15 minutes, and it's done.
Linds, make sure not to grab the handle this time. I hit my elbow on the end of the handle a few minutes after taking it out of the oven; it felt like someone stabbed me, and it burned me pretty good just in that one millisecond. These ovenproof skillets are not messing around.
I think this is a meal Andrew would LOVE. I will definitely be making this again.

Shrimp Stir-Fry made easy

I went off course with everyone else at MSU this week and used the Better Homes & Gardens recipe. It turned out pretty good, considering I didn't have any rice vinegar, or any vinegar at all for that matter. My first picture is the garlic, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli. As you can see I don't know how to slice the carrots "bias-style" or however they said. I just sliced them like normal. I think they're supposed to be more like Lindsay's.

Caleb usually is cooking right along side me when I do these meals. It's much more fun that way.

This is the final product. The sauce wasn't bad, although it didn't bring out the shrimp taste at all. I used a little lemon juice since I didn't have rice vinegar, so I'm not sure how much that affected it. The texture of the shrimp was perfect, but they didn't taste much like shrimp. They kind of tasted like nothing. There definitely could've been more sauce for the amount of veggies and rice.

We even busted out a bottle of sparkling cider from our wedding. 6 month anniversary on Nov. 1st!!

Overall I really liked the recipe. I love seeing all those bright colored veggies in the pan. Makes me feel healthy. I liked using shrimp because I've never cooked shrimp before. It's pretty quick one you get all the veggies cut, and you can change it up (the sauce, veggies, or meat) really easily.

If Martha forgives us, we're back to our syllabus next week!

Shrimp Stir-Fry--Linds

I feel somewhat guilty putting this recipe on our Martha blog, when we totally threw that one out the window and busted our "Better Homes and Gardens" books. But, it was Martha-inspired so I guess it's alright. Problem #1 with this recipe--I don't like shrimp. I try, I really try. But I don't. Kenny, on the other hand, was very excited about this. He took Tyler to town on Saturday to spend some time with him and get him out of the house while I worked on my lesson, so he did the grocery shopping for this meal. He bought a pound of shrimp, and I ate 2 pieces of it, he ate the rest :).

While we were eating the meal he said, and I quote, "I feel like I'm eating at a fancy restaurant." So that tells you it was a success. We didn't have mushrooms, and I really wasn't a huge fan of the sauce, but that's ok. Oh and it was my turn to cheat this week and not do the "perfect white rice", Martha style. I totally used my rice cooker.

I love making stir-fry and I loved how easy this meal was to throw together. I would definitely do this again, just maybe not with the shrimp (unless Kenny asks really nice :). ) AND one more confession. I haven't done the eggs yet. But just for the record that's how I always make my hard-boiled eggs. I learned that in a cooking class at BYU-Idaho. But I will make them sometime this week.

the end.

Stir-Fry Shrimp without Black Bean Sauce, by Steph

(Sorry in advance about the crappy spacing on all my posts. I use Picasa, and it has issues. Not as many issues as Blogger, but still. How annoying.)
We made a unanimous decision this week to veto Martha's recipe for Shrimp Stir-Fry with Black Bean Sauce. Sounds simple enough, right? I thought so when I originally chose it for this week's recipe. But don't let the unadorned title fool you. The recipe was filled with ridiculous indredients like fermented edamame beans and hao shing sauce. I wasn't about to go to an Asian specialty market to get some weird stuff that would probably cost too much and taste gross.

So I found a different (ahem, better) shrimp stir-fry recipe in our Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. But in order to not completely take Martha out of the picture (after all, it is Martha Stewart University), I was willing to try her "Perfect Rice." (Although in my experience, anything Martha says is perfect is my perfect opportunity to ruin a recipe.)
















I chopped up all my vegetables, which is honestly the hardest part of a stur-fry. I had to peel my shrimp, but it wasn't too bad. I have learned from experience that it's better to buy uncooked shrimp. I'm no longer scared of them. Raw shrimp are my friends! Apparently I was really boring while working on this meal, because you can see my daugther asleep in the background. On the counter. That was a first.












I used my wok, which worked great. Stir-frys (stir-fries?) move so fast and take so little time that I knew I had to have all my ingredients ready beforehand to avoid any mid-fry stress. I did quite well this time, for once. (Andrew, aren't you proud of me?)
















And here is the finished product. The rice was, indeed, perfect, and I think I'll do it that way every time. The secret is to use less water. Normally the ratio is 2 cups of water to one cup of rice, but Martha uses 1 1/2 c. water for 1 c. rice, and it was nice and fluffy. Good flavor, too, with the 1/2 tsp. salt in there. For once, she was right about something being perfect.

The stir-fry...not so perfect. The vegetables were great. The broccoli was perfect, and the mushrooms tasted yummy. But the shrimp tasted like fishy rubber. I tried to eat it, as shrimp is one of my all-time favorite foods, but after 3 pieces, I just couldn't do it. And I dumped the leftovers down the drain in the end. (Seems to be a theme with me, doesn't it?) I still ate enough to get full, and Leighton went to town on it all (except the shrimp), so I guess it wasn't a total failure. But I'm still on the hunt for the perfect stir-fry sauce. Martha doesn't have the answer for this one.

Cheater Tortilla Soup by Steph

I don't know if I should really be posting this on this blog, since is was so far from Martha's version it probably doesn't count. The last week and a half have been the worst of my life. We are counting the days until Andrew comes home from deployment, but it seems to drag the worst at the end (like a pregnancy). On top of that, my kids are both sick, leaving us all stuck inside with bad moods and no energy. So my lame attempt at tortilla soup was only to check it off my list.
I say cheater tortilla soup because as I was making it, I realized that if I were getting a grade for this, I should get an F. After all, it is Martha Stewart University, and although there are no professors, I still look at this as a school of sorts. So somebody give me an F. I felt like I was using Cliff Notes the whole time instead of doing the real thing.

First, I cooked the chicken WHOLE in the crock pot. I didn't cut it up and boil it, and I didn't make homemade stock. It was way easier, and I didn't have to deal with my salmonella phobia.

Instead of frying my own tortilla strips (even though I bought corn tortillas for that purpose), I used my favorite pre-fried kind.








I couldn't find a dried pasilla chile, so I used what I had at home - green taco sauce. Mmmm. Cheater's delight.
















Like I said, making my own chicken stock was out of the question, so I used my favorite kind from Costco. The soup was pretty good. Definitely not something I will make again, as I already had a good tortilla soup recipe that gives me much more pleasure and far less guilt about skipping steps.
















And while I'm taking pictures of food, let me include one of my favorite snack. Delicious, and only 35 calories. I always eat 2 wedges because of that. It's practically as low fat as eating air, but yummy and more filling. I dip the afore-mentioned Santitas in the cheese, and my mouth is watering just thinking about it. After my unsatisfying tortilla soup experience, all I needed was a Laughing Cow wedge to cheer me up.

Tortilla Soup--Linds

I started making my tortilla soup yesterday. I read it before hand and knew it was going to be a lot of work, and I hate complicated meals on Sunday so I did it all yesterday. I had never heard of some of the ingredients (what else is new) like pasilla chiles and cojita cheese. I could only find fresh pasilla chiles, not dried ones like it called for. So I don't know what it was supposed to taste like, but we liked ours. I just used one fresh one. Oh by the way. THE CHICKEN. I was trying to wuss out and buy one that was already cut up into pieces for me, but the store was out of them. I am secretly grateful that they didn't have any because it forced me to cut it all up by myself again. I put the kids down for a nap and went to work. It was so much easier this time because I used a sharp knife, the insides were in a nice little baggy, and I knew what I was doing. So it went much faster, with much less mess and I am no longer scared of whole chickens. I can handle them--no prob.

I had also never had or made those tortilla strip things. I just sliced up some corn tortillas with a pizza cutter/roller and deep fried them. Then I sprinkled kosher salt all over them while they were still hot and they were so yummy in the soup.

I was pretty sick of the whole soup by the time I got it all done and in the fridge. But it was SO nice to pull it all out today and heat it up and serve it with some yummy sides. I didn't have limes, and I forgot to pull the cilantro out of the fridge. But we did have avocado, red onion, and tortilla strips, and regular cheddar cheese (couldn't find the fancy stuff), and sour cream. It was very yummy.

We had some friends over for dinner tonight to share in it with us and they claimed to like it too. Of course, they could have just been being polite, but I'm pretty sure Heather meant it because she complimented it multiple times. :)

And just in case you were wondering, we had a delicious pumpkin roll for dessert.

It was the first time I've made one by myself and it was SOO good. MMmmm....I want to go get the rest out of the fridge and eat it right now at 10:00 p.m. I better go to bed instead.

Basic Drop Cookies by Steph

Today's recipe, thankfully, was pretty much failproof. After another bad Martha experience on Monday with the Perfect Beans (which were pretty far from perfect), I needed a boost in my confidence in following Martha's recipes. (The strange thing is, I rarely have bad recipes. For some reason I just don't do well with Martha.) But cookies are something I have made many times. The recipe was basic and turned out delicious. For my add-ins I used 1 cup of white chocolate chips and one cup of semisweet. It was also my first time using my new silicone baking mat (a wannabe Silpat) and I LOVED it. The cookies baked perfectly and evenly - probably my most perfectly baked cookies ever. I attribute that entirely to the baking mat, which cost $10 at Fred Meyer. Great investment.
















Leighton loved the cookies too. This is him nodding when I asked him if it was a good cookie.























As I'm limiting my calories this week and the next few until my husband comes home, I froze a bunch in little baggies to pull out when I'm in desperate need of a treat. Of course, I saved a dozen for the kids to enjoy this week. And they were so good, I might sneak one in myself. After all, what's a diet if you can't cheat once in a while?

Basic Drop Cookies--Linds

I am sorry that I did not do the borlotti beans or whatever they're called. I can't find them. So as soon as I do, I will make them. Until then, I am still caught up because I made the drop cookies.

I thought it was neat to read the page before the recipe where it talks about why you're supposed to cream butter and sugars together, stuff about eggs at room temp. etc. It's nice to understand the why behind all of our cooking. I used dark brown sugar, which i've never used before, and it's yummy. I think it's a pretty good, basic recipe. We added choc. chips because I had just used all my pecans, almonds, and walnuts making a yummy granola. I also didn't use two pans on two different racks and rotate them halfway through. I think martha comes up with the funniest things sometimes, just because. I also didn't have parchment paper, and they turned out just fine. Kenny thought they were really yummy, and he likes them fluffy. Tyler didn't like them too much, but he did love the dough (as always). Overall, I'd say it was a success!

Red potatoes with parsley

It looks like activity has been low on the blog this week. I know Steph's traveling and Lindsay is injured, plus I'm pretty sure they both did the potatoes last week. This was the easiest recipe yet. The potatoes were quick and easy and turned out great. The green beans came out of a can so that took no time. The fish was a little tricky. We actually caught this fish at Strawberry Lake several weeks ago and it's been in the freezer since. This was my first time fishing with a pole, and definitely my first time seeing the whole process from the fish swimming in the water to putting it into my mouth. So the trickiest part was probably filleting the fish, but Caleb did that (here he is trying to get instructions from his brother over the phone) . He did a great job. We experimented and left one fish whole (gutted of course :) ) and fileted the other. The filet portions burned (I should've put the broil on low because high cooked them way too fast) so it was a little crispy but still good. I like the butter/parsley/lemon juice idea (I got the recipe for the fish out of the Lionhouse cookbook -- yummy and simply!) but both the potatoes and the fish could've had a much stronger taste. Maybe I'll try some garlic next time? I will definitely do the potatoes again and will just experiment with different seasonings. Way to go Martha, another successful week.

Roasted Chicken and Boiled Potatoes--Linds

I will make this short cuz I have to type with just my left hand. This meal produced quite a disaster. Not cuz the meal was bad but I am so stupid.
Stuffed chicken with lemons, dried rosemary and fresh thyme. trussed with wire, need to get twine. cooked almost to perfection.

I grabbed the handle of the skillet after it had been in the 450 oven for an hour and burned my RIGHT hand really badly. cooking ended there obviously so no pan sauce. Luckily I had finished potatoes already. i used dried parsley but they lacked flavor. chicken was delicious. went to ER after we ate and it was a long night. going to be a really rough week with one hand and two kids. sometimes i use teeth to change their clothes and diapers. i am such an idiot. i told kenny he is my right hand man haha.

my hand all wrapped up from doc. it still burns. 2nd degree. hurt real bad. tyler sang to me the song, "If you chance to meet a frown..." that made me laugh. at least the chicken was yummy. will do again for sure.

Roast Chicken and Boiled Parseleyed Potatoes, by Steph

I was really excited for this week. Since I'm going out of town and won't be available to cook next week's recipe, I combined them into one dinner and one post. I had a bag of potatoes from a while ago...apparently too long of a while ago: when I opened the bag, most of them had gone all mushy and gross. So I grabbed my gardening gloves and ran to my backyard to harvest some of my own potatoes. I have been scared to try my own, because I knew I had to dig in the dirt for them. They don't just sprout up like normal plants. But desperation propelled me into digging. And I found a true rainbow of potatotes. Since I failed to label the potato plants when we bought them (I'm a terrible gardener), I had no idea what kinds of potatoes we had. All I remembered was French fingerling. Not sure what those look like. But we had some red ones with a red middle, some purple ones with a purple middle, and then some plain yellow ones. And a few normal reds left from the grocery store. They looked really pretty in the pot and I was so happy with them.
















Unfortunately, they didn't turn out so great. Some of them held up well to the boiling and some didn't, so we had a bit of mush going on with the finished product. And the ones from the store were okay (flavorless, but okay), but the ones I picked tasted like dirt. Dang it.
















The chicken...that's a whole other story. I stuffed it with kosher salt, fresh-ground pepper, rosemary (from my garden), lemon slices, and garlic cloves. I trussed the legs with twine from my scrapbook stash. It smelled divine while it roasted.This was my 4th attempt at cooking a whole chicken, and I felt confident I would do it right this time, after having bought a meat thermometer. After almost an hour had passed, I stuck the thermometer in - 165 degrees on the dot. Perfect. I let the chicken rest (although I wish I could have rested while the chicken finished up dinner) while I made the pan sauce. It was a bit of an extravagant feast for one mother and two babies, but that's how it is around here.










As I carved the chicken (the non-Martha way - dug might be a more appropriate word), the delectable smell of lemons and rosemary wafted out. My excitement grew. And then my heart sank - I reached a spot that was still bloody and pink.
















Leighton knew just how I felt.

Same problem as the last 3 times - the chicken was undercooked. Of course, it wasn't the recipe's fault this time. The taste of the chicken that did fully cook was amazing. I will definitely be cooking this roast chicken again - it may even become a Sunday dinner staple. The kids both loved it and Eva had about 4 helpings. The pan sauce was a little too buttery, but utterly delicious. As soon as I get rid of the feeling that salmonella is overtaking my kitchen, I'll try this again. But I would say this was the first Martha recipe triumph.