Three projects in this month’s magazine just didn’t make much sense to me. Two of the three looked good and I was even excited to make one of them, before I read the details.
The first was Martha’s recipe for olive oil flavored with spring herbs. Sounds good right? She suggests simmering 2 cups of olive oil with 2-3 sprigs of herbs. Good so far. Strain the herbs, put the olive oil in a container and viola, you have 2 cups of herb infused olive oil that will last refrigerated for …. one week. A week? Who could use 2 cups of olive oil in a week? Ridiculous. Yes, I know, I could cut the recipe down, but to what? Honestly, we wouldn't even use a 1/4 cup olive oil in a week. I skipped this one.
The second recipe is the one I was excited to try, the Cinnamon-Bun Bites http://www.marthastewart.com/893055/cinnamon-bun-bites. These looked like a made-from-scratch version of an Easter Brunch treat my sister makes every Easter using Pillsbury rolls. I thought it would be fun to try Martha’s version this year and see if going the extra mile to make dough from scratch. Keep in mind I was on vacation for Easter and I didn’t have a stand mixer, but I was prepared to knead the dough by hand. But ... then I read the fine print. Total preparation time – 5 hours and 40 minutes! Hmmm. I checked the article again to make sure it was supposed to be for a brunch. It was. In fact, the subtitle to article was “a no stress brunch and an egg hunt in the park add up to one enchanted Easter." No stress? Ha! I wonder how un-stressed and “enchanted” the host felt when she started making Cinnamon-Bun Bite dough at 4:20 a.m.! For a 10:00 brunch (and for kids who want to hunt eggs, making it to 10:00 is a challenge) that’s when you’d have to start cooking. And, this wasn’t a recipe you could make partially in advance. Dough needs to rise, be punched down, rolled, rise again, yada, yada—you get it. I could have made it and baked it the night before, but who wants to eat day old Bun Bites? So, I skipped this one too and frankly don’t see a possibility that I will ever want to get up at the crack of dawn for this.
The last project was in an article on getting organized. Now I am very organized myself, so I usually embrace new organizational ideas. I had to draw the line though at Martha’s idea for organizing a tool drawer by tracing, yes, tracing the tools. She actually traced each tool and then painted a picture of each tool in the drawer. Seriously?
Who has time for something like this and even if someone did, why on earth would they want to spend that time tracing around tools that aren't going to stay in the right spot anyway? Maybe Martha is playing some kind of sick game with the type-A, obsessive compulsive types. She convinces them they will be super organized and all their problems will be solved if they just outline their tools. Then they go crazy every time they open their tool drawer because the tools shift around and move off of the stencil design. That’s just mean Martha.
- Jacqui
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| Photo credit: Martha Stewart Living |
- Jacqui
Hey guys,
ReplyDeleteNot sure where to start. So maybe the tool drawer. I sorta get it. One I dated someone who would think this a marvelous thing. If we'd stayed together, I would not be alive to respond to your blog. But two, think about Julia Child and people who move a lot. She reconstructed her kitchen based on peg boards and silhouettes of her tools. Just saying some will find comfort in this project.
Lemon curd - how wonderful to hear those results.
COSTCO meatballs. Easy, just don't read the ingredients. But I totally get that non-meat people would rather not roll raw meat. I eat hamburger out of the package with a little salt and think of tartare as sometimes too done - so you may want to discount my comment.
Frying....oh my. It is an art unless, well even if you do have, a deep fryer. The batches have to be small enough to not lower the temperature. I'm still trying to get my Grandmother's fried chicken in a skillet perfected.
Being a bit older than you two and way into crystal and linens and ...... I did not think her Easter table too done. Liked the classic lines of it.
Like the colors and technique in your balloon 'paper mache' eggs.
Just my musings.....
Love your musings, always! :)
DeleteYou realize Ali knows I'm a 'nut case,' and you are encouraging me. That was the phrase right Ali? Not denying it.
DeleteI forgot to ask about the shrimp, which look scrumptious. I may try them this weekend with the 'modification.' Did you buy fresh (too lazy to look for the magazine as I ask this since the computer is on one floor and magazine another...) or use jumbo frozen?
I'm loving your project.
Sadly, I always use frozen, for two reasons really. First, with a pretty hectic schedule, I'm never sure when I'm going to be able to make something, so it's just easier (and I end up throwing less spoiled shrimp away) if I keep frozen on hand. Second, it seems like every store's "fresh" shrimp is actually previously frozen, so truly fresh shrimp is a bit hard to locate. I know though that if I was on Top Chef, I would definitely have to pack my knives and go.
DeleteJacqui- good call on skipping the outlining and painting of a tool drawer. That's really starting down the path to Crazyville.
ReplyDelete