I’ve always admired photos of yule logs, and love the idea of a luscious rolled cream filled cake covered in chocolate. Inspired by Mary Berry on The Great British Baking Show, I decided that this was the year to make a yule log. One of my friends is also a fan of The Great British Baking Show so I suggested…
Gingerbread houses!
I have fond memories of making gingerbread houses at Christmas time with my mom. I got to relive some of those happy moments the past few years when I made gingerbread houses with the children of my friends. Not only did it bring back a flood of sweet memories, it was a such a pleasure to see the joy on…
“Chicken Marvelous”
My Mom was a wonderful cook, but due to advanced age and poor eyesight her cooking days are mostly over. I feel fortunate to have inherited her love of cooking along with many of her favorite recipes. About 10 years ago when my Mom was still able to prepare simple dishes, she told me about a recipe for “Chicken Marvelous,” which she had…
Reminiscing…
Feeling sentimental today and thinking about my dear sweet cat Harvey whom I had to put down ten days ago. The grief is profound yet mixed with so many happy memories of my life with Harvey. One of those memories is illustrated in this photo from the set of a Knots Landing reunion movie in 2005. I was a producer…
Easter Tomato Soup
My Mom loved making soups. She was a genius at creating wonderful hearty soups with whatever she had on hand. After my sisters and I left home for college, my Mom continued crafting her soup skills by volunteering for the Salvation Army on Cape Cod. Every month she would transport vats of her homemade chicken and vegetable or beef and barley…
The Best Roast Chicken I’ve ever made!
With a blizzard in the forecast, I decided that roast chicken would be the perfect comforting meal for a snowy evening. I saw this recipe for Roast Chicken with Scallion, Ginger & Lime on the Everyday Food site. The idea of putting ginger scallion paste under the skin before roasting intrigued me, and the taste was a flavor explosion. The…
Chicken roasted in a paper bag?
Beautiful cakes!
Homemade peanut butter cups!
Earlier this year I took a cake decorating class which was taught by a wonderful instructor named Nicole Branley. Among Nicole’s other skills is making homemade chocolates, so when she offered a chocolate candy class, I signed up immediately. The kids in the class outnumbered the adults, which I took as a good sign! The syllabus covered molded chocolates, homemade peanut butter cups and chocolate dipped marshmallows. The smell of chocolate permeated the classroom- I would go back to school if there were melted chocolate in every classroom! We started with the molded chocolates, using melted white chocolate in a different colors to fill a variety of candy molds. I chose hearts and sea creatures. We used plastic piping bags to fill the molds. You can stick with one color or get creative and make a green and purple turtle as I did! While those were setting up, we moved on to peanut butter cups. Using a small paint brush, we painted the inside of mini foil cupcake liners. The peanut butter filling is a mixture of creamy peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs and confectioners sugar. More melted chocolate forms and seals the top. They look like a slightly less perfect version the store bought ones, but taste so much better. For our final exercise we put marshmallows on a stick and dipped into melted milk chocolate. After taking this class, I can definitely say that making candy is as much fun as eating it!
My famous pumpkin!
Last Fall, I entered a Halloween-themed photo contest called “Martha’s Halloween Hunt.” The challenge was to answer a daily riddle and post a photo of the answer on instagram. I had a lot of fun with the riddles and photos. The answer to one of the final riddles was “decoupage” and I just happened to have completed decorating a pumpkin with colorful Fall leaves. My leaf covered pumpkin was chosen as the winner of that week’s contest, which was such a thrill. Here is a link to the photo on marthstewart.com:
http://www.marthastewart.com/1041303/halloween-hunt-week-4-finale
The idea came from Country Living Magazine (http://www.countryliving.com/crafts/projects/pumpkin-decorating-1009#slide-3). It’s a fun and easy project for kids and grown-ups- all you need is a pumpkin, leaves and mod podge glue. Happy Halloween!
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