Day Three Hundred Fifty Eight: A Slaw By Any Other Name

Wednesday marked a seven-day countdown to my little Martha project.  I have been so busy, these last few months have flown by.  I can hardly believe I'm almost done.

:frankly shocked:

That day I made Martha's Bok Choy, Carrot, and Apple Slaw.  My husband has a slaw love affair so I figured he would like this one.  Bok Choy is a kind of cabbage, only with a much cooler name. This recipe is pretty simple if you don't mind lots of chopping.

You start by halving the bok choy lengthwise, then cutting crosswise into thin strips. Throw it in a colander and sprinkle with salt.  Top with a plate and weight with a heavy object and set aside to drain. This gets the extra moisture out of the bok choy so that your slaw isn't all watery later. Don't skip this part.  (I was tempted to.)

Next toss together an apple (cut into matchsticks), shredded carrots, lemon juice, fresh ginger and a teensy bit of vegetable oil.  Add the bok choy and season with a bit of S & P.  

Gorgeous, no?

As expected, my hubby liked this...although if I make it again, I'd add something to spice it up a bit.  It is Asian-inspired, after all.

Six days to go!!

Day Three Hundred Fifty Seven: Pretty Recycling

On Saturday I'm celebrating the second birthday of a very sweet little girl.  I decided to use Martha's Recycled Bows to top her gift.  To start, you'll need one page per bow.  It works best if the page is mostly one color.

First cut the page lengthwise into nine 3/4-inch-thick strips of heights shown:  three at 11 inches, three at 10 inches, two at 9 inches and one at 3 1/2 inches.

Twist each strip to form loops at both ends.  Make a circle out of the smallest.  Secure the ends with a piece of double-sided tape. 

Layer and stick, starting with the longest strips.  End with the circle in the center.

 It's sweet....if slightly lopsided.  Thank goodness she is like most two-year olds and unlikely to notice.

Day Three Hundred Fifty Six: Oh Snap! Snapper

I saw Martha's recipe for Snapper with Bell Pepper Salsa on Monday and I rushed out and quickly bought the ingredients.  (Well, as much as one can rush out and do anything with three children in tow. It took us a good half and hour to locate a favorite pair of shoes for the trip. But I digress.)  The dish is simple, colorful and oh-so-good.

Make the salsa by combining red bell pepper, avocado, jalapeno, onion, lime juice, olive oil and fresh herbs. I used cilantro.  Cook the snapper for about five minutes until opaque throughout.

Divide salsa among four lucky people. Top with snapper.

The salsa was so good, my husband and I actually had a brief fork squirmish over who was going to eat the last of this salsa.

I let him win, but only after I extracted a promise from him to do the dishes.

(Are you taking notes, ladies?)

Day Three Hundred Fifty Five: Beef Carpaccio**

Sunday I made Martha's Beef Carpaccio, which is basically raw beef tenderloin drizzled in a lemon vinaigrette.  It's really rich and tasty, but maybe not for finicky eaters or those with high cholesterol.  Here's how it's made:

Wrap about one pound of beef tenderloin in plastic wrap and throw in the freezer for about an hour, or until firm.  Using a very sharp knife, cut the beef across the grain into 1/8-inch-thick slices.

If you don't need an urgent visit to the emergency room after severing a finger, move onto the next step.

Gently pound the slices between pieces of waxed paper and refrigerate for an hour.  Serve with arugula and sliced pear, drizzled with lemon vinaigrette.  Top with shaved parmesan.

Easy, good and oh so chic.

**No fingers were severed during the making of this dish.

Day Three Hundred Fifty Four: Easy-Peasy* Roasted Halibut

After ingesting entirely too many birthday calories, some healthy eating was in order.  I happened to see Martha's recipe for Roasted Salmon with Butter, which was adapted from one of those How To Cook Everything Cookbooks.  I think the premise of these cookbooks is brilliant. The author told Martha you could use any thick filet or fish steak instead of salmon.  I used halibut.

It's a simply brilliant (or brilliantly simple?) recipe.  Put butter on a rimmed baking sheet in a 475-degree oven until butter melts. (I actually used a little less butter than the recipe suggests.)  Place fish on top of butter, and roast until fish is cooked through, 8 to 12 minutes.  Sprinkle with some herbs if you like.

The fish comes out flakey and moist and delicious.  I served mine with salad greens.

I could almost hear the pounds falling off my hips.

* I am aware that "peasy" is not a word.  It's called poetic license.  

Day Three Hundred Fifty Three: Happy Birthday Favors

As part of the favors for my birthday dinner, I spent the morning of my birthday making one of Martha's favorite chocolate chip cookies: Jacques Torres's Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Since the recipe makes about 10,0000  100 cookies, it was no small task.  Even though I've made them before, I still love these cookies. I think I might have cooked a few batches a couple minutes long, but hey--a girl is sometimes too knee-deep in Downton Abbey to notice a timer chime.

I use an ice-cream scoop to make sure all the cookies are exactly the same size:

Once the cookies cooled, I put them in the favor boxes with the chocolate nut clusters, (minus the jam-filled muffin coffeecakes), along with a few other goodies. 

I tied them up with bakers string and topped the whole thing off with my personalized favor tag.

Even though my husband made fun of me for making them, I know several guests enjoyed them on the car ride home.

Happy Birthday to me.

Day Three Hundred Fifty Two: Gettin' My Jam On (Everything)

As I mentioned when I made the Personalized Gift Tags, my birthday was Friday.  My husband planned a dinner with a few friends, and I wanted to make little boxes of late-night snacks for them to take home.  As part of the boxes, I thought to include a little something for breakfast the next morning.  I decided on Martha's Jam-Filled Coffee Cake Muffins because they look seriously decadent and I thought the crumbly, brown-sugar top would keep them moist until they were ready to eat.  (I don't know this to be the case, I was just guessing.)

Martha's recipe calls for the muffins to be made in 2 3/4-inch by 2-inch panettone papers, which are basically fancy, slightly sturdier, cupcake liners.  Despite heroic efforts, I was unable to find panettone papers that size.  I decided to try these adorable, slightly smaller paper muffin cups.  Since these cups are smaller than the suggested cups, I divided the batter between fifteen muffins cups instead of twelve.

Divided batter in ridiculously adorable muffin cups:

A teaspoon of strawberry jam on top:

Covered with a brown-sugar crumble:

I can smell success...or is that just the brown sugar?



About twenty minutes later I checked the oven to find this:

Hmmm.  Looks like I should have used a few more cups.  Nary a single muffin was presentable for my guests.  If you ignored the dripping dough on the outside, however, and actually ate one... They. Are. Delicious.  A herd of elephants or Justin Beiber fans could not keep me from trying this again.