One Hundred Forty Four: Asian Chicken Salad for Dummies

When my husband and I were married, my sister gave us a rotisserie.  On the few occasions we've used it, we marvel at the amazing dishes it makes....and then promptly store it away for another year.  

At my son's request to see the toy appliance in action, we baked a chicken in the rotisserie.  He watched, enraptured for half an hour as it turned the chicken over and over and over.  As usual, it turned out amazing. :thank you, Tracy:  I decided to take the chicken and make Martha's Asian Chicken Salad.

If a knife is the only utensil/ appliance you are capable of using, then this salad is for you.  Spend a few minutes cutting/chopping/mincing and you can turn rotisserie chicken and some fresh veggies into a colorful, delicious salad.  

Cut ingredients:

I bought shredded carrots, so this dish took about ten minutes to make.  You can't beat it:

There you go:  Chicken Salad for Dummies.

Day One Hundred Forty Three: Victory Lemon Bars

My husband had a Work Victory today.  This Victory is the sort of thing that one celebrates after work with some champagne or a nice bottle of wine.  But I thought:  why put off the celebration when you can start the fun immediately?   Since I figured his company might frown on him enjoying a cocktail at the office, I made him Martha's Lemon Bars with brown-butter shortbread crust.  I delivered them to his office with coffee and a little note.  :Wife of The Year:

I made enough lemon bars for my husband to share with his colleagues.   They were....well, not to brag, but they were amazing.  :head swells:   I was the proud recipient of several emails gushing about these lemon bars....from several people who allegedly don't like lemon bars.

Just sayin'...I may have a Fan Club.

Day One Hundred Forty Two: All Hail! Buttermilk Chicken Caesar Salad

After all those cookies recently, I needed to eat a little something healthy.  Or healthy-ish, at least.  My healthy(ish) quest ended when I found Martha's Buttermilk Chicken Caesar Salad.  Looks delicious and easy.  And, what's more healthy(ish) than a salad, right?

This recipe calls for you to cook the chicken using the broiler, a.k.a. My Cooking Appliance Nemesis.  I hate the broiler.  It's pretty much a crap shoot on results; the only guarantee is that some portion of the dish will be burned.  On this occasion, the edges of the chicken breast turned out crispy and black.

That wasn't really the look I was going for.

After salvaging the remainder of the chicken from the stupid broiler however, the dish came together in a snap.  It made a great summer dinner.  Even my husband (who claims to not like chicken) liked it.  He even ate seconds.  I sort of felt like a victorious Caesar himself.

Now, where's my toga?

Day One Hundred and Forty One: Meringue Not Merengue Swirls

In the last one hundred and forty days of writing this blog, I have learned so much.  Among my lessons, I have learned how to wield a pastry bag with brilliance, how to make a terrine, and how not to make petites fours.

I have also learned that a shocking number of my girlfriends have a guilty pleasure:  meringue.  (Not to be confused with merengue, which is the sexy Latin music and dance sensation.  I'm talking food here, people.)

All this meringue-mania comes as a surprise to me since (before this blog) I've never made meringue in my life, never been served meringue at a party, or even seen it on a dessert menu.  I feel a little behind the curve.  Like when I made fun of someone last year for wearing high-waisted pants before I realized they were back in style.  :Believe it:

With my friends in mind, I made Martha's Meringue Swirls.  They are bite-sized meringue cookies, laced with orange zest and orange food coloring and piped to look like this:

How ridiculously cute are those, right?

Too bad mine turned out like this:

Slightly different effect, I know.  Even though they don't quite look the same, they are still TA-STY.  I'm jumping on this Meringue Bandwagon. Care to join me?

Day One Hundred Forty: Not For Your Sweet Tooth Cookies

After those misleading no-bake cookies, I decided to try Icebox Cookies. These types of cookies involve rolling the dough into logs, chilling it, then slicing it into rounds.  If you like your cookies to be perfectly round, then these cookies are for you. :perfectionists anonymous:

I chose to try Martha's Rosemary-Butter Cookies because they sounded interesting...and because I get to use some rosemary from my garden.  I know what you are thinking:  Rosemary in a cookie, eh?  Martha, you daring devil, you.

The recipe is straight-forward enough.  Despite that fact, I still managed to burn the first batch of cookies:

Still not sure how that happened...because the second batch turned out as perfect as Kate Middleton's blowout:

These are really....interesting cookies.  They are sweet and salty.  I have to admit they are rather good, but nothing to satisfy your sweet tooth.  And isn't that why Martha invented cookies?

One Hundred Thirty Nine: Missing Cranberry Cereal Bars

I am intrigued by the idea of "no-bake cookies".   Imagine:  Cookies!  Without an oven!  That just screams: "No Burn Guarantee" to me.        
                                             
I decided to try Martha's No-Bake Cranberry-Oat Cereal Bars.  They look sort of like Rice Crispy Treats but with dried cranberries and different cereal.  To be fair, you do have to melt the marshmallows in a saucepan.  Since that doesn't involve an oven it's technically "cooking", not "baking".

False advertising?  :you decide:

The cereal bars turned out really well, although I had to use raisins instead of dried cranberries because my dried cranberries disappeared somewhere between the grocery bag and my pantry.  I'll be posting an Amber Alert.)  The recipe makes 24 bars, so you'll want to share with friends or have cereal bars ad nauseam.

Let me know if you see my cranberries.  They are red, wrinkled and in a small-ish plastic bag.  Last seen with a paper grocery bag.

Day One Hundred Thirty Eight: Kung Fu Cookies

My son has recently started taking karate lessons.  I can thank his interest in All Things Martial Arts to the movie Kung Fu Panda.  If you've never seen it, here's the run-down:  it's about a Panda who learns kung fu.

No really. That's about it.  The title pretty much sums it up.

When my son spotted the photo of Martha's Vanilla Chocolate Wafers from across the room, he shouted "Kung Fu Panda!!!" and hurled himself over the couch for a better look.  (If you bother with the above link, you will see that the cookies look something like a ying-yang symbol, which is symbolic in the sequel Kung Fu Panda II, which is about a Panda who learns more Kung Fu.)

Plot lines aside, my son begged me to make these cookies and since I didn't want to listen to him nag live to make him happy, I started mixing.    

I enjoyed these cookies about as much as I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda, which is to say, one experience was enough.  I don't want to eat them again.  My son, however, loved these cookies.  Of course, if I told him a Brussels sprout looked like a Martial-Arts-perfoming Panda, he would would want to eat one of those too.

:lightbulb:

That's actually not a bad idea....

Day One Hundred Thirty Seven: It's Not the Gift, It's the Monogram That Counts

When you have young children, you attend a lot of birthday parties.  It seems like every weekend we go to at least one party for kids.  This weekend we attended a party for my son's friend, Oliver.  Once I wrapped the gift, I helped my son make Martha's Monogram Gift Tag.

Well, what actually happened is that my son and I each cut out a letter and we used the one that turned out best.  Natch, since I have thirty (or so) years of scissor-experience on him, mine was better, but it was a close call.    

Luckily, Oliver's name starts with an "O", so it was easy to make.  Thankfully it wasn't a "G".  That would have been tri-cky.

It turned out almost as cute as the name "Oliver".

Day One Hundred Thirty Six: Ice Cream Snobbery

I don't like to call people names but there is no two ways about it:

My husband is an ice cream snob.  

He cannot abide store-bought ice cream.  Despite the fact that the name actually has "ice" in it, his ice cream cannot be icy.  It must be creamy. "Icy" and "Creamy"  ice cream are mutually exclusive.  They cannot exist in the same carton.  "Icy" ice cream is caused* when the ice cream warms and then is refrozen.  This horrid, unspeakable temperature change happens routinely in grocery freezers.  Which, apparently, is why all grocery ice cream is crap.*   

* According to the Ice Cream Snob. 

So, as a special treat for him, I made Martha's Vanilla Ice Cream.  How can you go wrong with 8 (eight!) egg yolks?  Can't be done.

(Actually, it can be done if you accidentally overcook the eggs and end up with custard, but that only happened once.  Or twice...But the timing is tricky. Could happen to anyone.)

The third-time's-a-charm vanilla ice cream turned out delicious.  My kids could not get enough of it. It was rich and creamy.  Somehow it was still too icy for the Ice Cream Snob.  He actually shrugged when I asked him how it tasted.

He was clearly spoiled as a child.  His mother has a lot to answer for.  :looking at you, Elaine:

Day One Hundred Thirty Five: Pillow Talk Clip Art

My kids are headed back to school very soon.  My son will start kindergarten and my eldest daughter will start pre-k.  Mission Back to School Prep is in high gear.

Besides buying the usual shoes, uniforms, and backpacks, I also have to gather nap time gear. Specifically, my kids must have a small pillow, pillow case and blanket for nap time.  It is easy enough to furnish the gear, but having it all returned to me is another problem entirely.  See, my son has lost half a dozen pillow cases.  Everything else seems to make it home but those dang pillow cases.  I'm sure it's because they have gone home with another child.  Maybe it was an honest mistake, but the pillow-case thief has never returned the pillowcases either.

But not this year.

I thought about putting some sort of GPS-tracking device on my kids' pillowcases, but that might be overkill.  I decided instead to emblazon my childrens' names across the fabric.  I'm gonna catch that thief red-handed.

So to speak.

I had some iron-on labels left over from another project, so I decided to use Martha's Nautical Clip Art for my son and the adorable Lips Clip Art for my daughter.

Printing and personalizing the clip art was ridiculously easy.  And (unlike last time), since I managed to follow the directions for the iron-on part, they came out perfectly.

I think I'll return the GPS tracking device.

Day One Hundred Thirty Four: Grilled Corpse Salad

My husband is back from his business trip and since I didn't subject him to any seafood earlier in the week, I decided to make Martha's Grilled Seafood Salad.

After feeling like I bought half the seafood in the seafood case, throwing the salad together was ridiculously easy.  It's basically grilled seafood tossed together with a homemade lemon vinaigrette.  Crazy simple.

And crazy good.

My only problem was with the calamari. I love calamari.  I usually eat it battered and fried.   It's delicious. When served fried, however, all the little calamari body parts are camouflaged.  That's not the case when grilled.  Seeing the little octopi corpses in detail was sort of creepy.   (See red octopus body above.)

:shudder:

I did eat it anyway, though.  Scrumptious.

Day One Hundred Thirty Three: Muffins with Mom

My husband has been out of town and so I've been covering breakfast-duty alone.  As you might imagine, it's a little crazy trying to get three kids under six dressed, fed, and out the door in the mornings.  Not counting myself the prima dona.  

My kiddos eat normal stuff for breakfast everyday:  cereal, yogurt, fruit, toast, eggs...but to make it easy on myself, I decided to make blueberry muffins.  That may sound contrary, but it's pretty easy to throw muffins in front of them in the mornings.  They love muffins and muffins don't require any mixing/whisking/ toasting.

Easy. 

I made Martha's Double Blueberry Muffins and I have to admit:  they were darn good.  Really good, in fact.  They were so good that (because the recipe only makes a dozen) my kids ate them all in one day.  Even my little eight-month old daughter ate a whole one herself.  

Operation Muffins with Mom was a success. 

Day One Hundred Thirty Two: Grown-up Fish Sticks

When one's husband goes out of town, some ladies may enjoy a chick-flick and a pint of Haagan-Daz. Others may enjoy a babysitter and a bottle of wine with girlfriends.

I enjoy fish.    

As I may have mentioned a few thousand times before, my hubby loves meat.  Specifically red meat.  He will gladly eat fish (especially sushi) but I can't serve fish too often without him playing the martyr.  (Love you, honey, but you know it's true.)  Since he is out of town tonight, I decided to sneak in an extra fish dish, just for me.  I feel like Jennifer Aniston going to an expensive Italian restaurant and ordering only steamed broccoli, but whatever.

I decided to try Martha's Fish Sticks for Grown-Ups for several reasons: 

1) I :heart: salmon,

2) It's easy, 

3) I'm a lazy person at heart, and 

4) I get to use some cute over-sized toothpicks. (They're accessories for food!) 

When you buy the salmon, don't forget keep the skin on.  It will impress the fishmonger helps keep the fish together.  I actually forgot this step but the fish held together just fine.  Coat with oil and curry paste, slide onto (adorable!) skewers and grill.  I made some with just oil, salt and pepper, too.  I used my grill pan since the Grill Master (a.k.a. my hubby) was out.  The salmon turned out juicy and flavorful.  It was so good, I may start eating all fish on a stick.  Somehow I don't think this will fly at restaurants.

But it would be fun to try.

Me:       I'd like the Chilean Sea Bass with jumbo lump crab meat and the sauteed spinach...

Waiter:   Okay.  Great!

Me:   ...And I'd like that served on a stick, please. 

Just the dumbfounded look on the waiter's face would make it worthwhile.  

Day One Hundred Thirty One: Zucchini Moment

I bought an adorable skirt recently. It's very Audrey Hepburn.  It's been hanging in my closet because I haven't been able to work myself into a mood to wear it.  I'm not having an Audrey Moment.

It reminds me of some zucchini I bought about a week ago.  It's been sitting in my crisper ever since...staring at me accusingly every time I open the refrigerator.   I'm sure the zucchini is about to go bad any day now, but I just can't bring myself to cook it.   I'm not having a Zucchini Moment either.

And unlike my Audrey Hepburn skirt, my zucchini isn't timeless.

In an effort to use the poor vegetable before it goes bad, I decided to make Martha's Marinated Zucchini Salad.  :points for not wasting food:  Sauté the onions, cut the zucchini and add the vinegar: this salad is idiot-proof.  Besides, what's not to love about a dish with six ingredients?

I'm off to my closet.  My Audrey skirt is waiting.

Day One Hundred Thirty: Not a Salad Squash Salad

I'm tired of eating salad greens.

Nothing against salad greens or anything, but I've eaten so much salad lately I'm starting to feel like a rabbit.  So I decided to make Martha's Herbed Squash Salad with Yogurt.  The squash is uncooked and it's as easy to make as a green salad:  just throw it together and you're done.

The resulting salad is not only delicious, but I have a feeling its probably better for you than a green salad.  Not that I checked or anything, just wild speculation.  :Online Dietitian Degree:

Day One Hundred Twenty Nine: Roasted Fingers Bruschetta

On Friday my husband and I decided to have a nice, quiet dinner after we put the kids to bed. An "adult" dinner means that dinner is served closer to nine than seven.  To keep our appetites in check I decided to make Martha's Roasted Pepper, Feta and Basil Bruschetta.  Since roasting bell peppers is far from simple, I won't tell if you decide to use the store-bought stuff in the jar. It will be our secret.

If you decide to roast the peppers yourself, all you have to do is peel the skin from some charred peppers, probably burning your fingertips in the process.  If you are like me, the burn numbs the feeling in your fingers, so when you cut yourself with the paring knife, you hardly notice.

If you decide to give up and use the store-bought peppers, all you have to do is cut up and mix a few ingredients, toast the bread and you have this:

Looks lovely.  Tastes lovely.  And easy to eat, even with bandages covering your fingertips.

Day One Hundred Twenty Eight: Rain Drops Keep Fallin' on My Head Corn ChowderCorn Chowder

It's been raining lately.  Raining a lot.  Whenever it rains, I prefer to stay in my pajamas and curl up on the couch with a good book. Maybe have a bowl of soup.  In reality, I usually end up schlepping through the rain with a bad hair day.

It was raining especially hard on Thursday.  Part of my errands that day was to bring my son and his friend to swim lessons.  As I was completing my chauffeur service,  I dashed down the sidewalk to my car with my umbrella. As I paused at the curb to put my son into the car, I was struck in the back of the head by the sprinkler system, which had decided to come on, just at that moment.  So there I was, standing on the sidewalk with an umbrella to keep me dry...completely dripping wet.  

With bad hair.

So when I (finally) made it home, I made Martha's Corn Chowder.  I had a few ears of corn already, and the rest of the ingredients are pantry staples.  The chowder is excellent, although I added some red pepper to spice it up a bit.

At least now I'm warm and dry. But I still have bad hair.

Day One Hundred Twenty Seven: Some Bunny Loves Asparagus

I never ate asparagus as a child.  I ate lots of other veggies, though.  My mother tricked me into eating broccoli as a toddler by insisting it was a "little tree" and I was giant.  (I currently use this trick on my own children.)  I would only eat cucumbers sliced into spears, never cut into circles.  And, I liked to bite into tomatoes like one would eat an apple. I refused to eat tomatoes sliced.

At age four, I was a white bunny for Halloween. The costume had a pink belly, large yarn tail and a headpiece with floppy ears.  For years afterward, whenever I would eat a raw carrot, I insisted on doing so in character, bunny ears and all.  I quit when I outgrew the costume, but raw carrots just aren't the same without it.

I was a peculiar child.

But since becoming an adult, asparagus has become a household favorite.  My husband claims part of the appeal is the reminder you receive when you visit the restroom afterward.  Typical boy.  I can't agree with his assessment.  I think it's just plain good and easy to make.  Martha's Sauteed Asparagus with Dijon Vinaigrette jazzes it up with an easy dressing that you can drizzle over the asparagus.

It tastes good with or without bunny ears.  Costume entirely optional.

Day One Twenty Six: Make Your Mama Proud Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are sort of like miniature cabbages.  They are the pariah of the vegetable patch and the bane of children everywhere.  Kids feed them to their dog or develop elaborate hide-it-in-the-napkin maneuvers.  Brussels sprouts are like a C-List Celebrity with bad plastic surgery and a drug problem.  They never get invited to the good parties, and if they show up, people are always a little disappointed.

I know this because I've been known to serve a roasted Brussels sprout or two at dinner parties. Guests usually look at me like I'm attempting to engineering some elaborate joke...Like maybe I'll bring out the real side later.  If they are brave (or hungry) enough to try them, however, they are always pleasantly surprised.

So as a champion of the Brussels Sprouts Cause, I made Martha's Caramelized Brussels Sprouts with Lemon.  It's a simple recipe that calls for you to splash fresh lemon juice on caramelized Brussels sprouts.  I was so excited to taste the cooked veggies, I may have tasted the Brussels sprouts before adding the lemon.  :Official Household Taste Tester:  Allow me to save you some effort:  the lemon here is totally unnecessary. In fact, just stop after you finish the caramelization part.

Now rush off to the store to buy some Brussels sprouts.  After you try this recipe, you can call your Mother and tell her you finally finished your Brussels sprouts.  No dog involved.  She'll be so proud.

Day One Twenty Five: Holy Grail of Burgers

My husband loves hamburgers.

In fact, if I locked him in a room with a lifetime supply of hamburgers and access to ESPN, he would deem himself personally blessed by the hand of God.  He wouldn't even attempt escape. He might not even realize he was locked in until football season was over.    

Because he is a hamburger junkie, he considers himself the Chief Judge of all hamburgers on the planet. He likes to compare them.  He's sort of a Consumer Reports for beef products.  This rating applies not only to restaurant burgers, but to home-cooked burgers as well.  If you invite us over for burgers, your entry will be judged and rated accordingly.  Bring your best game.  All hamburgers are compared to some hazy standard known as "My Best Burger":  a mythological burger he grilled himself one afternoon when he was especially hungry.  

So just for him, I made Martha's Cheese-Stuffed Hamburgers.  Technically, it was a joint-effort. A sort of bovine tag-team:  I made the patties and he grilled them.

After adding Worcestershire sauce* and spices to the ground beef and dividing into mounds, take a piece of blue cheese and form a disc.  Make a well into the mound-o-meat and put the cheese inside.  Seal closed.  Now, form a patty and grill.  

Not quite My Best Burger, but I don't think my hubby would mind testing this one out a few (dozen) more times.

* I love the name Worcestershire sauce.  It's like gymnastics for your mouth.

Day One Twenty Four: Feel-Good Yogurt Dip

I like to eat healthy.  Really, I do.  Unfortunately, eating healthy foods and eating foods I enjoy is often mutually exclusive.  When I stumble upon a dish that's delicious and healthy, I feel like I just discovered a diamond wrapped in a winning lottery ticket in the glovebox of a Rolls Royce at the bottom of the gold mine I just inherited from an unknown deceased relative.

It's a pretty good feeling.

Martha's Cucumber-Mint Yogurt Dip is one of these rarities.   It's a could-not-be-simplier dish, and perfect for summer.  Serve with crudites* and you'll feel like Publishers Clearing House just arrived at your door ahead of George Clooney who mows your lawn for free.

:savor the visual:

*Crudites is fancy name for raw veggies.

Day One Twenty Three: Biblical Beignets

There's a Cajun restaurant down the street from my house that sells delicious beignets.  Once a month or so, we change out of our pajamas and stroll down the street to buy some. These little pastries are like kiddie crack:  my children can't get enough of them.  Between my kids and husband, they approach a plate of beignets like a biblical plague of locusts.  So as a treat for them, I decided to make Martha's Beignets.

I was really excited about these beignets.  As I mentioned before, I'm from Louisiana.  Beignets are in my blood.  I've spent many a morning at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter eating my weight in beignets with a chicory coffee chaser.  As a testament, I was going to cook the heck out of these beignets.  Knock them out of the proverbial ballpark. People far and wide would hear about my beignets and make breathless requests for breakfast.  My beignets would become family lore and my grandchildren will reverently mention them at my funeral.  Make that my great-grandchildren. (I intend to live a very long time.)  

Unfortunately, these beignets didn't realize that I'm a Beignet Goddess in the making.  The dough would not cooperate.  Martha rolls the dough and cuts out neat circles.  I was forced to pull bits of it apart to make the beignets.  I blame the stupid humid weather.  While the resulting beignets were far from perfect, they were still delicious.  Actually, my husband said they were "not bad", but he ate at least six, so his apathy doesn't count.  

The best evidence that these beignets were lip-smackin good?  Remember what I said about the biblical plague of locusts?  The only thing left after breakfast were empty plates.  

Day One Twenty Two: Compromise Cucumber Salad

My husband and I don't always agree. Compromise is a staple at our house. 

For example, he squeezes the toothpaste from the bottom.  I squeeze from the middle.  He insists on hand-washing wine glasses.  I think it's unnecessary.  Our compromises mean we have two tubes of toothpaste and I sneak wineglasses in the dishwasher when he's not looking. 

If you may recall from yesterday, I love no-cook salads.  My husband loves vinegar-based salads, especially cucumber ones.  So Martha's Cucumber and Sweet-Onion Salad is destined to make a happy couple.  

Excellent compromise.  And easy too.  

Day One Twenty One: Summertime and the Livin' is Lazy

I have a Summer Cooking Philosophy:  Avoid the oven.  And the stove.  Actually, we try to grill outside as much as possible.  Cooking outside has two distinct advantages to cooking inside:   1)  The kitchen stays clean, and 2) since my husband is our resident Grill Master, he does most of the cooking.

Shameless, I know.

Unfortunately, we can't cook everything outside. So, I'm always looking for good no-cook recipes, especially for side dishes.  So when I came across Martha's Tomato, Corn and Avocado Salad, I had to try it.  If you share my Summertime Cooking Philosophy, or you're just lazy, hop on down to the grocery and pick up the short list of ingredients.  When you get home, whip out a knife and you're a few slices away from a salad that's not only deliciously easy but also impressive enough for guests.

Try. This. Salad.  It's too easy to pass up.  You don't even have to cook the corn.  It's eaten raw.

Gorgeous, isn't it?  :sigh:

Day One Hundred Twenty: Berries, Part Deux: Vacherin Dessert

Happy Independence Day!

With the virtual berry cornucopia, I decided to try Martha's Vacherin with Whipped Cream and Berries.   I settled on this dessert having no earthly idea what in the heck a vacherin is.  After a quick internet search, I discovered that a vacherin is a dessert consisting of a meringue shell filled with whipped cream, ice cream or fruit.  Martha's version consists of two layers of meringue with a whipped cream center and topped with red and blue berries.

This meringue takes about five hours to make.  You read that correctly.  Five.  Hours.  But you only have to work for about thirty minutes.  The vacherin is in the oven the rest of the time.  It's worth it.  This was a ridiculously festive (not to mention yummy) dessert.

Just take a look.

Day One Hundred Nineteen: Berries, Part I

There was a sale on berries at the grocery on Tuesday.  Strawberries.  Blueberries.  Raspberries. Blackberries.  It was like a wonderland of fruity goodness.  I walked through the sliding glass doors and everything was suddenly technicolor.  If my life were a musical, oompa loompas would have jumped out and burst into song.  As it was, I sashayed over to the display and filled my cart.

I went a little overboard.  

As I was unpacking my bags at home, I realized I had more berries than even our berry-loving family was likely to eat in the next few days.  Thankfully, I came across Martha's Mixed Berry Salad.  It looks simple and refreshing, but best of all it will use all those technicolor berries.

All you do is mix a few tablespoons of Grand Marnier (or any orange liqueur) with sugar, then gently mix in the berries with a little mint.  It would probably not kill you to add a little more Grand Marnier.  I did, and it tastes lovely.  Add as much as you like.  It's just for flavor, right?  At some point, however, adding to much liqueur will change this from a salad to garnish.

Just Sayin'.

Day One Hundred Eighteen: Lobster Wrestle Salad

Today I'm making Martha's Lobster Salad with Grapefruit, Avocado and Hearts of Palm.  It's in one of her recipe books and I've been passing it up for years, looking at it longingly.  It just sounds nice and light.  Martha serves it as an appetizer, but I thought it would make a great summer dinner.

Confession:  the recipe calls for you to actually buy and cook four live lobsters.  I did inspect the lobsters at my grocery.  Since none of them really looked like they were ready to be dinner, and I really didn't feel like wrestling with four lobsters, I kept walking.  I also wanted to avoid the inevitable request by my son to keep one as a pet.

I bought the tails instead:

The tails were much easier and faster to cook.  (No wrestling involved.)

The dressing for this salad is made with white wine vinegar and fresh basil.  It. is. wonderful.  After spilling it on the salad, I very nearly licked the remnants from the bowl.

The resulting salad is wonderfully light, and really, really good.  Like fancy restaurant good.

Had I known it was going to be worth it, I would have wrestled the lobsters.

Day One Hundred Seventeen: Give Me Some Sugar, Cookie

I tried Sugar Cookies again today, by request.  My kids' request, that is.  I tried Martha's Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies this time, and let my kids cut out the shapes.  Holy hollandaise sauce, were these cookies good.  I wish I could say the same for the shapes.  Despite refrigerating them before putting them in the oven, they ended up looking like melted butter.

This is a cookie I can be proud of:

:Commencing internal dancing:

Um, this is a duck...whose head has melted into it's back like some sort of deformed zombie-duck:

Clearly, a pteranodon, not a bat:

A burned (but non-burned) duck:

There were also a few burned hearts.  I'm sure there is a clever Valentine's Day card punchline here:

I made about two dozen cookies.  Taking into account the ten or so that I burned, plus the roughly half dozen whose shapes were completely unrecognizable, I ended up with about seven edible, pretty cookies.

I've done worse.

Day One Hundred Sixteen: Something-for-Everyone Meringue Cake

Saturday was a lazy day for my family.  Having been on vacation, then sick, then with sick kiddos, we were all wiped out.  We stayed at home all day.

As I was perusing MarthaStewart.com, my daughter caught sight of Martha's Meringue-Frosted Cake with Raspberry filling.  With nothing else on our plate, I decided we should make this little beauty.

This cake is a layered cake.  You start by baking two separate cakes, layering them by separating them with raspberry filling.  This is much simpler than baking one cake and cutting it evenly in half.  Trust me.

In fact, my layers looked so nice, my husband commented on my improving skills.  (He was there when I cut my daughter's birthday cake to shreds, trying to make it even.)  I confessed to my new methods, but still felt pretty smug with my new talents.  :easily impressed:

The cake is iced with a meringue topping.  After it sits in a very hot oven for a couple of minutes, the meringue is crisp and sweet.  Perfect foil to the tart raspberry center.    

As much as the kids were excited about this cake, I found I could make neither of them happy.  My son would only eat the meringue, the raspberry filling being too tart for his tastes.  My daughter would only eat the cake and filling.  She's not much for crusts. I felt like that nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.

Well, almost clean. My husband cut the cake in half and ate it in one sitting.

I'm not joking.

Day One Hundred Fifteen: Corney Salad

Summer is the season for corn.  Not having grown up on a corn farm, I was unaware of this fact until recently. Sweet corn on the cob is just one of those delicious treats I recall eating as a child.  (I also have distinct memories of picking the annoying corn out of my teeth, but I digress.)

I bought some corn on the cob this week and decided to make it as a side for dinner on Friday.  As I was boiling the corn, my daughter (age three) informed me that she didn't want corn "on the stick" as she termed it.  Rather, she wanted it "like at school" meaning she preferred it off the cob.  Hmmm.  I guess my usual "you'll eat it and be happy" philosophy could be broken for the evening. :such a meanie:

I decided to try Martha's Grilled corn salad.  Technically I couldn't grill the corn since it was already in the water when I decided to make the salad...which just goes to show how easy and fast the salad actually was.

After boiling the corn, I cut if off the husk and tossed it with the remaining ingredients...and lots of salt.

Just. Delicious.

Kids were happy to eat the corn "off the stick", but wouldn't touch the green stuff.

And no one had corn stuck in their teeth in the end. :best part of all: