When life gives you lemons...

...make lemon cookies!

There are moments in life where chocolate just wont do. Although these moments are definitely few and far between, it is in these cases where a nice lemon dessert just completely hits the spot. Sometimes, I'm just not in the mood for something super sweet and a nice tart taste is just what the doctor ordered.

I was having one of my rare lemon cravings today and as always, Martha came through in a big way... in the form of lemon glazed cookies. They looked just too good to pass up.

Of course, I still don't have a mixer, which makes baking slightly trickier. That will have to be my next purchase, because it really isn't much fun hand-mixing cold butter with other ingredients. That, and a zester. Instead of a simple zesting process, I ended up having to peel lemons with a knife and cut up the peels into small pieces, which, I hoped, roughly resembled zest.

Aside from this slight stumbling-block, the remainder of the recipe was simple enough. I mixed the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest) in one bowl, and stirred the wet-ish ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and lemon juice) in another. I then combined the two together and baked the mixture.

The glaze was nothing more than lemon zest, lemon juice, and powdered sugar mixed together. Simple enough... minus the fact that I had to zest the lemon the hard way.

The resulting cookies totally hit the spot. I have plenty of leftovers too, which I plan to keep around for a rainy day... or another lemon craving!

Sick day... again

It probably is not shocking to anyone that I am still sick. As much as I wish this was a 24-hour bug, it appears that this cold is here to stay. And, with the added bonus that every time I get up I immediately want to faint, this cold is a doozy.

Naturally, I was in the mood for some soup. While most people crave chicken noodle when they're sick, I always go for a good tomato soup. I love tomatoes and can seriously eat them any time, any day. Tomato soup is a particular favorite of mine whether I'm sick or well... especially with tons of cheese.

I decided on Martha's classic tomato soup; I definitely don't have too much experience making soup (read: no experience), so I thought that something with the word "classic" in front of it would be on the easier side. This lack of soup chops, plus my current fainting issue, meant something simple was the order of the day.

And simple, it was. I melted some butter in a pot and added olive oil and half an onion. Once the onion was transparent (yum! I love myself some sauteed onions), I added flour and tomato paste. Then I added some vegetable broth (the recipe called for chicken broth, but I substituted vegetable), canned whole tomatoes, and thyme. It was really therapeutic to squeeze the tomatoes until they popped - a perfect way to let out some energy - and, called for in the recipe. I don't have a blender, as the recipe called for, so the soup was on the chunkier side. Thankfully, this is just how I like it!

But no tomato soup, in my opinion, is complete without cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. Thankfully, I had some ricotta and mozzarella on hand, and once the soup had cooked for 30 minutes, I added my fair share of both.

The highlight of my day was definitely sitting in bed, eating some homemade tomato soup. It definitely did the trick! Warm, filling, and delicious....

Sick day

My immune system officially hates me. Especially now that I work in a hospital, I get every cold, flu, cough, etc. that comes by. My current ailment is some sort of fire in my esophagus that seems to be radiating into my lungs. This is not made better by movement or activity of any kind. 

What would Martha do? Thankfully she has a list of Secret Kitchen Cures, including something for a sore throat. As she suggested, I took a spoon, filled it halfway up with honey and then topped it off with lemon. I then sprinkled (or dumped) cayenne red pepper on top.

According to Martha's health guru, Dr. Elson Haas, the honey is supposed to soothe and disinfect the throat and the lemon is used to contract inflamed tissue and contribute vitamin C. The cayenne provides the added bonus of "stimulating circulation and encouraging healing".

I sucked the honey, lemon and cayenne mix off the spoon and while it was super spicy, I didn't hate it too much. Most throat cures taste absolutely horrible, but this one wasn't too bad. 

So far, my throat feels much better. I'll definitely be using this trick throughout my horrible cold... which I hope will not last too long!

Good morning, sunshine!

It's really hard for me to wake up in the morning. I am one of those people who hit the snooze button over and over again until it gets completely ridiculous and I emerge from my bed, groggy and confused. It is for this reason, that I purchased this, which I'm sure will be SUPER FUN once it arrives.

Until then, I thought it would be inspiring if I were to wake up to something that reminded me of warmer climes, especially in the midst of this bitter winter where snow has become the norm and I live in a pair of oversized rainboots. I was in the market for anything that would make leaving the warmth of my comforter for the frigid atmosphere of my room slightly more palletable.

As always, Martha had just the thing. She had this awesome craft, crayon hearts, that she used as a Valentines-day themed project. Seeing as Valentines day is a few weeks away, and I was hoping for a more permanent solution to my morning woes, I decided to mix it up a bit and settled on a tropical theme.

The project itself was interesting. Essentially, I took waxed paper and shaved different colors of crayons onto it. This felt kind of ridiculous, but I went with it, seeing as Martha has never steered me wrong in the past. I folded the wax paper over itself with the crayon in between, as she had described. I then ironed the sections, which I made different colors, until the crayons melted.

Naturally, I did not follow her instruction of folding over the EDGES of the wax paper to prevent crayon from leaking out, and I got crayon all over everything, including the iron and ironing board. The crayon came off the iron with some hard scrubbing, but if anyone has any awesome tips for getting melted crayon out of fabric, I'm all ears.

The resulting wax paper sheets looked awesome! I drew tropical shapes on them and cut them out, tied them to string, and hung them from my window. I have to say, it was nice to wake up to some tropical imagery when the weather outside looks like this.

Springtime dreaming

Let me say that this winter has been rough. Between the snow, wintry mix, sub-zero temperatures and all around gloominess, I'm pining for spring. I want to see my bare skin again! I want to make it from point a to point b without a runny nose and rain-boot-induced blisters! I want sun! So today, inspired by the promise of the distant spring (two more months? Really?), I made flowers. Martha-style.

Martha loves her tissue paper. She has a ton of crafts that use this material, which can be found cheaply at a local drug store. Today, I picked tissue paper pom-poms. They had a nice flowery feel and can be used for a variety of things: party decoration, jewelry, gift wrapping, napkin ring... you name it.

I ran to the Duane Reade down the street, ducking falling ice that was, of course,  blowing directly into my eyes, and acquired a megapack of tissue paper in every color imaginable for under five dollars. Thankfully I already had beading wire on hand, which worked well for the project.

I decided to make two different sizes, perfect for different uses. Cutting the tissue paper was definitely the hardest part; I ended up ripping more than slicing neatly. Thankfully, this is a very forgiving project and I could hardly tell from the resulting pompoms. After folding a stack of eight sheets of tissue paper fan-style and tying with wire at the center, I then cut shapes into the ends, varying between pointy and round. Then I just spread apart the paper, and voila!

I am not sure what I am going to do with these yet, but they definitely cheered me up on a snowy, freezing day.

P.S. Did any one else catch the reference to Martha Stewart in the latest 30 Rock? I definitely perked up at the sound of her name...

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

When I was young (I feel like many of my posts start this way, but that's life) one of my favorite books was entitled, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The title pretty much describes the premise, but it was essentially about this poor kid who suffered through the worst day ever. It begins as follows: "I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

Yesterday was just one of those days. Although I didn't wake up with gum in my hair, essentially everything that could go wrong, did. Thankfully, as an adult who is finally 21+, I now have a not-so-terrible way of dealing with days like this. And by that I mean I have alcohol.

My mom and I are huge fans of a good lemon drop now and again and thankfully Martha had a super easy, fast recipe that was essentially just lemon juice, sugar and, of course, vodka. Even though most of the sugar stayed undissolved at the bottom and I had to drink out of a wine glass not a martini glass, the lemon drop definitely did the trick!

I hope I never have a day like yesterday again, but it's nice to know that when I do I'll always have a good lemon drop to pick me up at the end of the day. And that, my friends, is a good thing.

Red fish, blue fish, salmon fish

I have been dying to use the dill in my fridge, both because I'm terrified it will go bad and I will have wasted some money, and because I was extremely curious. I have had dill before, but actually cooking and garnishing it was definitely something novel for me.

I decided to cook some salmon. I have had to learn to like fish a lot more after I started keeping kosher, because it became one of the few options I had access to on a consistent basis. Martha had a delicious recipe for seared salmon with mustard caper butter which I decided to try.

I bought fresh salmon and froze it last week in preparation for future cooking ideas. This turned out to be kind of a bad idea. I tried to defrost it, but I was unable to strike a good balance between defrosted and cooked, so I erred up on the side of frozen. I then cooked the salmon in a skillet with olive oil, but I don't think I cooked it properly, because it cooked on the outside, but the inside was still not too hot. I ended up heating it up in the microwave.

The sauce was easily to make - I added butter, lemon (I used lemon juice, not zest because I like the taste and don't have a zester), dijon mustard and yes, dill! I omitted the capers because I just wasn't in the mood. I also sliced up some lemon as a garnish - although this ended up being a bit ridiculous because I was the only one who ate or saw it.

The result was a delicious, filling, healthy dinner that was quick to make and satisfying. I wish I had been able to grill the salmon a bit more, but I didn't get food poisoning so if it was a bit undercooked I didn't have any severe consequences for this.

Oatmeal and Almond Deliciousness

I am not a huge oatmeal fan. As I child I would take the instant packets and add a tiny amount of water to them until it made a thick paste and scarf it down with a 1:1 ratio of oatmeal to brown sugar. Now, I eat oatmeal because it's a healthy breakfast as compared to the sugary pastries I am always tempted to scarf down as a work in the morning.

Despite my reservations, Martha's Oatmeal-Almond Crisps looked too good to pass up... plus they seemed really simple to make. I mixed brown sugar (after all, how can you have oatmeal without brown sugar?), butter, an egg, and (imitation) vanilla extract together and then added in plenty of rolled oats and sliced almonds.

I also added a bonus ingredient: wheat bran. I have been on this fiber kick lately because I have high cholesterol (ridiculous for a skinny 22-year-old, but probably due to my over-consumption of In'n'Out when I'm home in LA) and it's supposed to reduce cholesterol and just be all around healthy for your digestion. One serving of wheat bran has 24% of one's daily value of fiber, good step towards getting healthy.

The fiber-loaded oatmeal crisps, baked in the oven, were fantastic and enjoyed by my entire apartment. Most of them were mysteriously gone in a matter of a few hours.... The few that are left will make an incredible breakfast for me tomorrow. 

West coast best coast, east coast beast coast

It is currently 19 degrees, feels like 10 degrees in New York City. At my home in LA it is 57 degrees, feels like 57 degrees. It is moments like this when I wonder what in the world I was thinking moving so far east to the frigid temperatures, snow storms and, yes, wintry mix.

Today, I was in the mood from some good old fashioned California food. And, as always, Martha had just the thing - West Coast Grilled Vegetable Pizza. Nothing like an avocado to bring me back to the warmth and comfort of home.

The result was delicious and satisfying, as well as simple to make. I stuck some pizza crust into the oven and baked it for a bit and then took it out and added sliced goat cheese (so fantastic!), plum tomatoes, and scallions. I burnt the bottom of the pizza, again... I really need to figure out how to prevent this from happening!

Once the pizza cooked a bit, I then chopped up some avocado and mixed it with spinach and vinegar (I used balsamic, although Martha recommended red wine). The avocados here on in NY are not nearly as good as the fantastic, right-off-the-branch avocados in California. This, compounded by the fact that my avocado wasn't completely ripe, was slightly disappointing.

Despite all these factors, and the fact that I didn't actually grill the pizza, it was still amazing and something I'll definitely make again!

Polymers, in work and play

I spend almost every day of my life talking, learning about and researching polymers. One of my (many, after all this is my first job) bosses is a tissue engineer who specializes in the creation of natural hydrogel polymers that doctors can be injected into the human body to cure some really horrible things.

I figured that it's about time that I apply my vast polymer knowledge (I just had a horrible flashback to organic chemistry) to my craft life. This means that I'm ready for my first craft with polymer clay. Polymer clay is one of the best things ever. It doesn't dry or harden in room temperature but once it's baked in the oven for 30 minutes, it forms any number of awesome things that are extremely hard and durable.

I have definitely experimented with polymer clay in the past; over Thanksgiving weekend, while home in Los Angeles, I built a beautiful (if I do say so myself) baby sheep ornament for our January Tree (a Christmas tree for Jews). But this is something else... jewelry? Made from polymer clay? Really? It seems too good to be true, but I gave it a whirl.

Martha had an incredible necklace idea that was basically polymer clay rectangles strung on a chain necklace. I found the process of flattening the clay and pressing it in the conditioning machine (thanks for the gift, Mom!) to be extremely cathartic on a Friday night. And even though I didn't have a clear ruler and therefore made uneven and fairly ridiculous shapes, I chalked up the resulting rectangles to a hand-made look that is kind of endearing and unique. I didn't make as many as are shown in the picture - I'll have to make more next time! I also overcooked the beads a bit so all the red ones I made fell apart and I couldn't use them.

I will definitely be doing this again and hope that once I get better at it to be able to sell these to make some money for an awesome charity.

Infinity scarf: 1, Me: 0

There is something about this weather than makes me want to wrap myself from head to toe in knits. Maybe that its because it's 30 degrees and snowing or because it's constantly gloomy but knitting has become extremely therapeutic for me.

A particular obsession of mine has become the infinity scarf. Half necklace, half winter accessory there is nothing better in the entire world then a soft and fuzzy infinity scarf. There is something so cuddly and warm about a giant tube of fabric that you can wrap a bunch of times around your neck. Plus... they look kind of cool.

Thankfully, Martha has a recipe for a knit cowl (pictured right) that translated well into a infinity scarf with some modifications. Instead of casting on 44 stitches, I cast on 124 and knitted out from there. The result was a much skinnier but longer scarf.

As it turns out, infinity scarves are not super easy to make. Because they are circular, they require knitting in the round which I had never tried until today. It looked so easy! You just knit with circular needles, which are essentially needles that are attached together at the ends with a skinny piece of rubbery plastic. I thought it would be just like knitting with normal needles. And it is... with one exception: you have to be extremely careful of twisting the part that you have knitting and accidentally knitting in the wrong direction (note: this is hard to explain if you are not familiar with knitting).

Every tutorial I saw and read emphasized this. Don't twist it. Don't twist it. And guess what... I twisted it. I don't know how, but the resulting scarf, while it is cuddly and warm, is definitely twisted and cannot be untwisted. It has a sad, slightly folded-in look that I am sure will bother me to no end even though I will definitely be wearing this in the coming months.


You may have won this battle, infinity scarf, but I'll see you in the next round! I vow to knit a perfect infinity by the time this little experiment is over.

Comfort cookies

With all this wintry mix gloom and doom still lurking, I was definitely in the mood for some comfort food today. And nothing says comfort food like peanut butter, chocolate, and lots of sugar.

Today, I baked. I should have perhaps prefaced this by explaining that I don't bake. When I bake, things happen. At Thanksgiving a few years back, I dropped an entire apple pie upside-down into the open, hot oven instead of placing it gracefully in. The pie tin actually crumpled while I was carrying it and the whole thing just collapsed into the waiting oven. My mom spent hours scraping off the pie, which had become baked on.

This brings me to my current project: flourless peanut chocolate cookies. The best part of this recipe is that it is probably as easy and straightforward as recipes get... one throws a minimal number of ingredients into a bowl, stirs, and bakes.

For me, nothing is that simple. The first problem is that my apartment lacks any kind of measuring cup or measuring spoon or measuring utensil of any kind except an ancient plastic measuring cup that has the actual measurement worn off that I assumed was a one-cup and used as such. This meant some guesstimation and some crossed fingers. The second issue was that I didn't have chocolate chips and had to resort to cutting up semi-sweet chocolate into manageable pieces.

Surprisingly, I didn't screw up too badly and my roommate and I enjoyed the resulting cookies

(as did my coworkers when I brought them to work). The result was perhaps a bit too peanut-y and peanut-butter-y because there is no flour and the dough was essentially just peanut butter, sugar, an egg, and baking soda. Plus, the recipe calls for peanuts as well, so if you don't like peanuts, stay far away. I actually was a bit scared bringing them into the hospital for fear that anyone with a nut allergy within a 25 mile radius would drop dead of anaphylactic shock.

The one issue is that no matter what I do, and ho

w careful I am, I can't prevent the bottom of the cookies from burning. Even if the actual cookie isn't cooked, the bottom burns. Maybe it's the fact that I live in a Manhattan apartment with a bite-sized oven that is definitely not state-of-the-art. Or this is something I'll just have to work on... with Martha's help of course!

Here's what the result looked like:

Damn you, wintry mix.

It happens every winter: the dreaded wintry mix. How can something so pleasant-sounding be so miserable? It's the same every time - circa 29 degrees, but feels like 10, snow, sleet, hail, ice blowing into your face until it stings. The ground is covered not with soft snow, but hard, slippery ice that and intermittent puddles and only the best Hunter boots can prevent a klutz like myself (or a "fall risk" as they call us at the hospital) from flying face forward and taking an ice bath.

Aside from the traditional winter staples that I have slowly started to trust since my move east (i.e. floor-length mummy-sleeping-bag-like down coat, scarf, winter socks), there is nothing like a warm wool headband to keep the snow off your face.

Thankfully, Martha had just the knitting project to keep the wintry mix at bay. Less thankfully, my knitting skills were really rusty when I began. The project was a cabled headband (cabled matching mittens to come once I master this whole cabling thing). The whole thing took me 8-10 hours of hard labor and in the end, my fingers are definitely burning and probably will be for quite awhile. That said, I was pretty impressed at how easy it is to incorporate an I-chord and cables into a normal knit-pearl repertoire. For those of you who don't speak knitting, suffice to say that even an impatient knitter who always loses count can do this.

Although I definitely don't look like Martha's model (or Martha), I have to say that my project is pretty close to Martha's. Day 2... look at me go! More ambitious knitting to follow? It's a good thing.

Mine (tied to a chair):.....................................................And Martha's:

Eggplant "Bolognese"

I bought oregano today. Yes, it was dried oregano and yes, that is not a big deal to 90% of Americans my age, but for me this was a first. I also bought parsley, scallions, and dill. I have never felt so fancy in a grocery store, especially because my typically purchases include frozen dinners, bottles of tomato sauce, and various off-brand cereals (Marshmallow Dreams are my particular favorite).

Today's offering is Martha's Eggplant Bolognese sans the bolognese. By this I mean that I omitted the beef as I currently don't have a kosher kitchen and will not be cooking meat. The sauce recipe calls for an entire eggplant (I used half because I already had half cut in my fridge), 1 medium onion, 1 green bell pepper, 1 zucchini (I bought something called "green squash" that I assumed was zucchini, but this may or may not be the case - more on this pressing issue to follow), garlic, oregano, and crushed tomatoes.

I cooked the sauce and added it to an entire pound of pasta - which of course is way too much for one person - so I fed my roommate (you're welcome, Mike!) and have leftovers for tomorrow... and the next day. The whole thing took less than an hour, which in my book is not bad for dinner, especially because I'm a novice.

I have to say the result wasn't half bad for a first attempt and I only burned myself once, on the knuckle, and yes, it hurts like Hell. I have learned my lesson about flying hot oil. What amazed me the most was what "real" tomato sauce tastes like... tomato sauce that doesn't come out of a can. It's so... tomato-y.

So here's what mine looked like:................................And Martha's:

I really need a professional photographer and a food stylist...

A New Year

A new year, a new project.

Martha Stewart is my guru. I am not afraid to admit it. She has been everything and anything: cigarette model, stock broker, mother, best-selling author, TV-goddess, jailbird, and CEO. And she has done it all not by denying her femininity, but by embracing it. The root of her success lies in the embrace of the craft, of the DIY, and of the recipe. She makes candles out of paper towel rolls, jewelry out of Styrofoam, and fortune cookies out of felt. Her recipes are accessible, even to a cooking-challenged person like myself. Perhaps not accessible enough, but that remains to be seen.

Channeling Martha was born out of an admiration and a new years resolution. While millions of Americans join gyms come January, my goal for 2011 is a bit different. Although I should probably hit the treadmill a bit more often, I instead vow to harness my creativity in this new year. As a Visual Studies major who now works at a state hospital and is applying to medical school, I am starved for anything and everything that will provide me with an artistic outlet. And who better to guide me in this artistic journey then the queen of craft, Martha Stewart?

Now that I'm done gushing, it's time for the nitty-gritty. The premise is simple: I will complete one Martha Stewart craft, recipe, or if I'm particularly desperate tip per day for the next 365 days. I am bound to miss a few here or there, but the goal remains. This should be quite the adventure, and it begins tomorrow. Until then, remember, "it's a good thing."