Martha Monday: Roasted Buffalo Shrimp

I'm not really a fan of shrimp.  I love it.  Don't get me wrong.  But every time I cook it at home it ends up in a watery mess.  It's probably because I'm cheap and I use the frozen stuff.  But, where I live, even the shrimp sold at the fish counter boldly claims to be "previously frozen."  There's just no way to get away from the frozen kind.

And then I read the book Cheap.  The author, Ellen Ruppel Shell, dedicates a whole chapter to the environmental devastation of shrimp farming in Thailand.  Which is where the majority of our frozen shrimp comes from.  Even with claims of sustainable farming stamped on the Whole Foods label, there is no way to know for sure whether anyone is really monitoring this kind of stuff.

Oh.  And my kids won't eat it.

So I am not really a fan of shrimp.

But the Martha Monday project this week was to make Roasted Buffalo Shrimp.  It looked really easy and I thought, "Why not?"  I could give shrimp another go.  After all, I do believe in making my kids try and retry foods they claim to hate.

It was pretty easy.  Shrimp is tossed in a fragrant sauce of spices, lemon zest, honey, and olive oil.  Then it is roasted at high heat on an already hot pan for five minutes.  Once out of the oven, it is served with a pucker-inducing dip of sour cream, lemon juice, and chopped celery leaves.

And?

They weren't bad.  I still had a bit of a watery mess left on my pan.  But most of the zesty sauce stuck to the shrimp and I really liked the dip.  The boys?  Well, Jonathan ate one.  Adam got one bite down, gagging all the way.  Ha ha!  I guess shrimp will have to stay in the refrigerated section at the store for a few more years.  Maybe by then they'll have figured out a cleaner and greener way to raise them!

Want the recipe?  Skip on over to the Martha and Me blog and you'll find it right here!

Valentine Oreos

Happy Valentine's Day!

My valentine currently resides in the steamy land of Bahrain.  So instead of looking forward to roses and chocolate and a night on the town, I had to settle for baking cookies.  Baking cookies and boxing them up for the long trip to my love.

And what better cookie to make than this homemade version of the classic Oreo cookie?!?  These really do taste like the real thing.  Only better.  Because they are freshly made.  Not sitting in the bag for months on end.  And they do have a bit of butter in them, rather than all that hydrogenated stuff.  I couldn't resist adding the pink and red hearts.  Just perfect for the occasion.

So, if you haven't purchased a gift or bought any flowers or chocolate, get yourself over to Smitten Kitchen and follow this recipe.  Your honey is sure to love it!

Martha Monday: Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Lemon, Arugula, and Pistachios

Pru from Perfecting Pru chose this interesting pasta dish for last week's Martha Monday project.  It sounded wholesome and refreshing so I was excited to give it a try.  And it is EASY. . . a rare thing for Martha Stewart recipes.

Whole wheat pasta is cooked and then tossed with a sauce and fresh arugula.  The sauce is a nut pesto made up of toasted pistachios, a shallot, salt, olive oil and a whole lemon.  Yes pith and all!  I thought I could get away with using a plain old lemon and I did get away with it.  But the recipe calls for a Meyer lemon, which is milder, sweeter, and less bitter.  If I were to make this again I would definitely seek out a Meyer lemon.  I think it would take the overly bitter edge off the sauce.

Another thing I found interesting about this recipe is that the directions told us to grind the nuts and shallot in a food processor.  Take it out.  Then grind the lemon.  Take it out.  Mix it all together with the olive oil.  BUT in the video Martha provides with the recipe, she just processes everything together - nuts, salt, oil, lemon, and shallot.  This makes so much more sense.  Why add steps when it's not necessary?  So, follow the video and not the recipe.

Of course, I served this meal to my family.  Here are the reactions:

Me: "Hmmm.  This is pretty good."
Jonathan: "It's decent."
Adam: "Ew!  I don't like this." (Without even tasting it.)
Me:  "I really think I like this.  Jonathan, I'm impressed you ate all your pasta!  You must have liked it."
Jonathan: "Well, it wasn't very good but I wanted to get dessert."
Adam: "I don't want dessert."

Check out Martha Stewart's recipe to get the recipe for Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Meyer Lemon, Arugula, and Pistachios.

Daring Bakers Challenge: Scones

Did you know that biscuits are really scones?  Well, thanks to January's Daring Bakers' host, Audax Artifex, we misguided Americans can start calling things by their proper names.  In his primer on scones, we learned that scones are really biscuit-like creations while those hard, dry triangle-shaped things sold in cafes around the country are really properly labeled "rock cakes."  Good to know.

So, Audax challenged us to make real scones.  Real biscuit-like scones.  Now I figured I'd be great at this since I make fabulous buttery flaky biscuits.  Not that I'm bragging or anything.

But I actually had to try these two times to get them right.  You see.  Biscuit dough is a bit more buttery and drier than scone dough.  It's a little easier to work with.  Whereas the wet scone dough sticks to your hands tempting you to add more and more flour until you've overworked the dough and made it tough.  Resist the urge.  It's the difference between this.

And this.

My second batch turned out fluffier, more tender, and tastier all around.  But I have to say, in the end, I still like my biscuits better.  That's my recipe and I'm sticking to it!

Biscuits


Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter cut into chunks
2/3 cup milk (skim is fine)


Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2.  In a large bowl stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two knives until the mixture resembles course crumbs.  Add milk all at once and stir until dough just comes together.  You may have some dry bits left.  Don't worry.
3.  Dump mixture on a lightly floured surface, making sure the dry bits remain on top of the dough.  Knead these bits into the dough gently.  Only knead about 10 or 12 times.  (Kneading should be done by patting dough flat a bit and then folding it in half.  Turn a quarter of a turn and repeat.)
4.  Roll or pat dough into a square about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut using a sharp knife into about 12 squares.  Transfer biscuits to a baking sheet.  Bake in oven at 450 degrees until golden, about 10-12 minutes.  Serves 4.

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P.S.  If you want to check out the scone recipe and see some beautiful scone creations click on this link!

Martha Monday: Coconut Cream Sandwiches

Yours truly got to pick this week's Martha Monday project.  I had originally planned to go with this.  But I figured everyone would be mad at me if I actually made them clean their stove top AND oven with the same precision Martha requires.  So, instead I chose these.  Coconut Cream Sandwiches.

Can you tell I've been on a coconut kick lately?

I was worried that this cookie would be a real flop.  Really it's a shortbread.  A coconut shortbread.  But my cookie dough just wasn't coming together.  It never did make a cohesive ball in the mixer.  I had to sculpt it into a rectangular mass with my hands.  I guess that's why Martha has you wrap the log in plastic and freeze it.  Once frozen for a bit, it did actually stay together.

As for baking them, DO NOT follow Martha's directions.  I did.  And I burned the first batch.  Twenty to twenty-five minutes is waaaaaaay too long for these babies to bake.  Mine were done at 14 minutes.

Vanilla ice cream was sandwiched between two cookies and a creamy treat was born.  I really liked them even though my ice cream smushed out the sides while I ate it.  These would be great with all kinds of frozen concoctions . . . chocolate ice cream, mango sorbet.

Check out some of the other Martha Monday participants to see what their results were!  And check out the recipe for these cookies.

Martha Monday: Chicken with Artichokes and Angel Hair

Megan from Megan's Cookin' picked this week's recipe, Chicken with Artichokes and Angel Hair.  I was not interested in making it in the slightest.  Artichokes are not my favorite.  And CANNED artichokes are even more ghastly.  But, in true Martha Monday spirit, I added the ingredients to my grocery list and put it on the menu for Monday night.

The recipe looked bland though.  Chicken cutlets were dusted in flour, cooked until golden, and then the pan was deglazed with plain old chicken broth with some capers and CANNED artichokes thrown in.  Parsley was the only herb and, let's face it, parsley is usually a garnish not a main flavor.  Since this chicken resembled a chicken piccata recipe I decided to substitute 1/3 of a cup of lemon juice for 1/3 of a cup of chicken broth, still using the remaining 2/3 cup of chicken broth.  Plus I added a single minced garlic clove.

The verdict?  I think the flavor of my version was a bit better than Martha's but I still think the CANNED artichokes with their slightly metallic aftertaste dominated the dish.  My children wouldn't even consider eating them.  But they did eat the chicken.  Along with the pasta with a bit of butter and parmesan.  So, don't make this recipe.  Try this one instead and maybe serve FRESH artichokes on the side.

Martha Monday: Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Greens

Sometimes there are benefits to procrastinating.

Like when you put off starting dinner so long that your husband just has to take the family out to dinner.

Or you delay buying tickets to the basketball game your kids wanted to go to so that by the time you go to buy them they are sold out and you don't have to sit through a basketball game juggling hot dogs and coats and foam fingers.

Or you put off buying the ingredients for this cauliflower soup so that you can't actually make it on Monday and everyone else makes it and complains about it so that when you do finally make it you change the recipe entirely.

See?  Procrastinating can be a good thing.  Sometimes.

But, back to the soup.  Brette, and Pru, and Ana all made this soup and blogged about it.  So, I took their comments and made my own soup.  You see, Martha's recipe from January's Living magazine was rather lackluster.  Onions, garlic, and cauliflower were to be boiled in water.  Water?  Really?  So, I substituted chicken broth.  Dill was the herb called for and, since I don't really care for dill, I used thyme.  Kale or collards were supposed to make the soup a lovely shade of green.  I used Swiss chard because I knew my kids would NOT eat it with the strong flavor of kale lurking about in there.  And to make it just a bit more decadent I added a few glugs of cream.  In the end, it was so tasty that my seven-year-old exclaimed, "It tastes better than I thought it would!" and slurped his up.  The three-year-old was less convinced.  Even with a straw for a utensil he could only stomach half of his bowl.  I ate two bowls.

So, I feel pretty good about this procrastinating thing.  Here's the soup recipe begotten by it.

Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Greens
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Living Magazine


Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt
1 head of cauliflower, florets and stems chopped
4-5 cups of chicken broth or vegetable broth
A few sprigs of thyme
5 large leaves of Swiss chard, kale, or collard greens, chopped
Pepper
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions:
1.  Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Cook onion until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and a pinch of salt.  Cook for another minute.  Add cauliflower and enough of the broth so that the broth almost covers the top of the cauliflower.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Add the sprigs of thyme.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until cauliflower is very tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
2.  Add greens and simmer for another five minutes.  Take off heat and let the soup sit for five minutes to cool a bit.  Fish out the thyme stems and discard them.  Puree the soup in batches in the blender until very smooth.  Add more broth if it is too thick.  Return to the pot.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in the heavy cream.  Serve.

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