A Brief Pause in the Action

My Martha Stewart project has stalled. I’ve been away at cottages and packing up a house, so trying new recipes or any of the other things I’m supposed to be experimenting with just haven’t happened lately. But now that I’m installed in my new house, with one month before returning to work, I’m ready to continue the project with renewed vigour.

I’ve decided I need more structure. In order to accomplish anything worthwhile, I have to construct a more concrete plan. My four main goals, as originally stated, were something along the lines of:

1. Learn to cook.
2. Learn to be a bit more crafty.
3. Learn to garden.
4. Become organized.

So far, I’ve only focused on the first and without any great success. My new plan calls for increased accountability and increased emphasis on all four areas.

To start, I hope to try at least two new recipes per week. That should take care of learning to cook. Or at least adding some variety to my rather skimpy existing skill set. As for the crafts, well, that’s really a minor goal and I’ve decided to relegate it to holiday occasions. Things like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then, I’ll turn up the heat in that area. Gardening. I have a plan there. And it’s a little bit strange. But with a new house, and a blank slate, there’s no end to the potential. The actual plan will follow in a later post – if I have the guts to go through with it. That leaves the final goal: organization. My life-long nemesis. Once again, with a new (and bigger) house I have grandiose plans to finally conquer that one.

Therefore, I am ready renew my enthusiasm for Project: Martha Stewart Me and start to see some real progress!

Piccata Nightmare

Well, I finally made the Lemon Chicken Piccata last night. It was not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. But first, I should point out that I clearly wasn't ready to handle this dish and only made it under considerable pressure. I had company, to boot. In fact, it was my company's mother who encouraged/demanded I make this dish for her daughter. (Perhaps so she could enjoy a first-hand account of my failure?)

It started out innocently enough. I had to cut some slices from a lemon, and then squeeze the juice from 3 others. I put my company to work on that easy task. While she squeezed, I began to prepare the chicken pieces. First, I had to coat them with Miracle Whip. That sounds relatively simple, as well. But coating slippery chicken with equally slippery Miracle Whip is actually quite challenging. Because I was concentrating so hard, I realized too late that I was dipping my raw-chicken-coating spoon directly back into the jar of Miracle Whip, thereby contaminating the entire contents. Great. The next step was to coat the already coated chicken with crushed Ritz crackers. Since the chicken was such a slimy mess, I opted to sprinkle the crumbs over the pieces and then flip them over to repeat the process on the other side. Which didn't work. The Miracle Whip stuck to the plate instead of the chicken and no matter how many times I flipped those pieces of chicken, they never seemed to have any Ritz crumbs on them!

Moving on to the cooking part. The recipe suggested cooking the 4 small pieces of chicken in a frying for 5 min. per side. My pieces were apparently much larger or thicker than the recipe intended and took about 25 min. to cook. Which meant that the lovely Ritz cracker/Miracle Whip coating was burnt to a crisp and I had to keep scraping it out of the pan to avoid setting off the smoke alarms. It also meant my rice was done ages before my chicken. And finally, it meant I had destroyed yet another "easy" meal. At this point, I was meant to sprinkle the chicken on my platter with fresh parsley. Given that my decimated chicken was sitting on a plate surrounded by a pile of burnt scraps, and that my not-fresh parsley from a jar was actually 7 years old and an interesting yellow colour, I opted to skip that step altogether.

Interestingly, in the end everything tasted fine. It looked horrible, but I didn't have to order an emergency pizza. Still, I had such high hopes for that Piccata...

Just Add Water

Despite my recent experiments in the kitchen, I haven't really changed my basic cooking habits. Take, for example, Hannah's 4th birthday. As a Martha Stewart wannabe, this occasion was the perfect opportunity to do something special. Instead, I made an angel food cake. From a box. The only instruction: add water. Heck, even last year I did better than that by making little monkey cupcakes. If possible, I'm regressing!

For further proof, look no further than this morning. I have, in the past, made pancakes from scratch. And it's not hard. Yet, this morning I once again resorted to a pre-packaged mix of pancake batter where I could just add water. To be fair, I did throw in some blueberries...

Just add water? Is that really where I'm at? I absolutely must make that chicken piccata before I lose all forward momentum.

Peppers, Panic, and Invisible Sauce

I did it. I made the asparagus pasta dish with orange pepper and sun-dried tomatoes. But not without incident. I had all the ingredients, minus the fresh oregano - really, who has fresh spices on hand - and even arranged them around me as if I was on a cooking show. I had little dishes of chopped pepper ready to go, a neat pile of cubed cream cheese, and even an audience consisting of a captivated 4 year-old and an interfering 2 year-old. I felt good. The skillet was heated. The ingredients were ready. Well, almost. When giving quantities or measurements in a recipe, certain descriptions are hardly helpful. 450 grams of fresh asparagus, for example. How about telling me an approximate number of stalks? That would seem to make more sense. However, using the beautiful picture to make an educated inference, I think I came close. About that picture...

I understand that magazines have special people to make the food in pictures look good. But really, when the real thing deviates so drastically from that unattainable image, it's very discouraging. Especially to the cook who is using the picture as a measure of success for every step in the recipe. Does this look right? Are my peppers the right size? Needless to say, my final product did not exactly resemble the model on the page. Which made me feel bad. Like I'd already failed before even tasting the dish.

One last complaint about the actual recipe: when the instructions say "stir until sauce is slightly thickened" it would be helpful if said recipe actually produced some kind of sauce. Then the already frazzled cook would not have to mutter things like, "What sauce? I don't have any sauce! How come I have no sauce? Did I miss something?" Panic is so not-helpful in the kitchen.

I did manage, however, to complete the recipe (invisible sauce and all) in time to serve my family their incredible dinner. I liked it. A lot. Hannah did not. She proceeded to spit out every bite of pepper or tomato that snuck into her mouth. To be truthful, she didn't just spit them out. She gagged. She made faces. She commented that this was "asgusting". To my relief, she did like the noodles. So all was not lost.

I Say Piccata

I've been a bit negligent in the kitchen lately. I haven't been diligent about trying new recipes and that doesn't bode well for becoming an accomplished chef (or even a competent cook). So, to make up for my lassitude, I am attempting three new recipes in one week.

First, I will try an asparagus pasta complete with sun-dried tomatoes and orange peppers (add two more items to the list of vegetables I have never purchased before).

Second, I will make a lemon-chicken piccata. I have no idea what a piccata is, but it sounds quite advanced. I like the way the word rolls off my tongue, too. Piccata.

Third, I will test-drive a recipe for home-made pizza. This one isn't really a stretch for me, because we make pizza often, using our bread maker. This time, however, I will be making the dough without the aid of any equipment. Just thinking about it makes me feel a bit more domestic.

Introducing Colour to the Kitchen

A few days ago I prepared a simple dinner that almost made me pull out the camera. For someone who used to only cook about 4 different dishes, there hasn't been a lot of variety or colour around the kitchen during meal preparations. However, in assembling the ingredients for this tasty meal I had an array of bright colours neatly piled on my white cutting board. Okay, by "array", I really mean 3 different colours - but it was striking, nonetheless. So, what did I make?

I started with marinating some chicken in pure lemon juice (squeezed straight out of a lemon) and Montreal Chicken Spice, which I would later barbeque to mediocre perfection. Colour #1 = bright yellow halves of lemon, sitting at a picturesque angle.

Then, I chopped up some mushrooms to saute with sugar snap peas in teriyaki sauce. So delicious and simple. Colours #2 & 3 = brilliant white paired with intense green. Add in the lemon rinds and there you have the photo opportunity. Or what for me would be a photo opportunity.

I also had some rice simmering, but it was not picture-worthy. All in all, I have to admit, I felt a little Martha Stewartish. If only I had concocted some type of home-made dessert to complement the meal. Maybe a nice chocolate souffle.

To Blanch or Not To Blanch

It's been almost a week since my last post, and although I've been busy, I have not abandoned my project. In fact, I tried another new recipe which further highlighted my ineptitude around the kitchen. Not complete ineptitude, I can handle some basics - I just lack a certain finesse. That finesse including a few possibly basic cooking terms. Like blanching. To me, that means "turn white". Thankfully, my recipe provider understands the need to explain the instructions in her recipes.

Example: blanch the spinach (dump it into boiling water for a short time)

I appreciated the additional explanation, as attempting to turn the spinach white would have been a fruitless endeavour; however, for a short time, is rather vague. How long is a short time? 30 seconds? Seven minutes? I certainly had no idea. And, as we've seen, previous vague instructions like "add some cornstarch to thicken" did not cue my cooking common sense to kick in.

Rather than mess up another recipe, I asked someone in the staff room. Ah, apparently, a short time is about a minute, or until the spinach is limp. Helpful. Then I asked my next question, which in hindsight, even I admit was embarrassing: "Would it be about the same amount of time for frozen spinach?"

Pre-cooked, frozen spinach. Given a second to think about it, I could have answered that one myself. But the fact that my brain even entertained the thought long enough for my mouth to spew it out is rather telling. These things do not come naturally to me!

Enough about the blanching. Here's what I actually made, and spinach aside, I had no other hiccups.

The Recipe: 
Ham and Spinach Quiche

1 cup cubed ham

1 small package of spinach, blanched in boiling water. Squeeze out water from the wilted leaves. (Or 5 cubes of frozen cooked spinach -- don't forget to squeeze out the extra water.)

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

Scatter the above ingredients in to pie shell.

In a medium mixing bowl :

4 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Pinch of black pepper

Beat together and pour over pie shell crust and filling.

Bake @350 for 35-45 mins. or until center is set. Cool for 10 mins. before cutting.

* You may sub in any cooked veggie you like in place of the spinach (i.e., broccoli, asparagus, etc.).