Nutty about hazelnuts

This month, Martha Stewart's magazine has a focus on hazelnuts. Though my only real love of hazelnuts comes via Nutella or Ferrero Rocher ... I decided to investigate this high class nut and it's flavors using Martha's recipes in that issue.
The first thing we tried was her hazelnut pizza dough and the two toppings, butternut squash and the broccoli rabe. The butternut squash pizza was delicious!!! But the broccoli rabe... Not so much. I didn't know broccoli rabe was soooo bitter. Almost to the point of being inedible. So I tried my own topping on that delicious crust, while still keeping it vegan and I think the spinach, caramelized onions and pinenuts was the best tasting. The butternut one came in second.  It was very tasty.
We made vegan nutella and lovely hazelnut cookies too and the hazelnut pancakes were a hit!
This experimentation made me realize that hazelnuts are a great versatile nut!

The butternut squash is best sliced with a mandoline slicer, since it's the only way to get it nice and thin.







Here it is tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, sage and fresh garlic .

And that is it!!

Delicious and vegan!

Here is the broccoli rabe one. The broccoli rabe is blanched first and added to olive oil, salt, garlic, and chopped red onion.

Here's the spinach, pinenut and caramelized onions.

Mmmmm, hazelnut pancakes with a raspberry sauce.

These were devoured by the clan.

Lovely hazelnut cookies. These tasted like short bread.

Dipped in vegan hazelnut chocolate spread!! (nutella)

Home made and Vegan nutella  :)

I'm including the links to the recipes above.  Definitely give them a try!

Thanks Martha ! ~_^

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Coconut cookies

Today we are all about Martha Stewart's coconut cookies.  
I have been getting her emails about the "cookie of the day", full of great  recipes and last week there was an amazing amount of yumminess going on.  
These were baked more for honeypie's pop-pop who is a true coconut macaroon lover.  These cookies are a cross between a macaroon and a short bread cookie... so coconut island goodness in every bite and so easy to make!


Here is the recipe from Martha's site... (here)


and sign up for her "cookie of the day" recipes... you wont be dissappointed!!  (here)
well maybe the thighs will be dissapointed at the amount of cookies you'll now be baking during bathing suit season... 
but how can you say no to macaroon like cookies????  who has that kind of will power?????


^_^

 I scooped the dough with a small ice cream scooper 

so each cookie would be the same size...

roll each into coconut

place them on parchment paper on a cookie tray and bake!!

mmmmmmmm soooo good!!

Martha's encyclopedia of sewing and fabric crafts

OoOh!!!!!! New book out by Martha Stewart!!! ^_^
Sooooo thrilled!!!
This one is called the "Encyclopedia of sewing and fabric crafts" and I have to tell you it's beautiful!!!
Honeypie has been putting post-it notes on what she wants me to make and she even started her own little handmade drawn book of her favorite pages from the book!!
(I think I am creating a little Martha lover out of her too!!)
Here's some projects I'm "supposed to " work on for honeypie...






I'm suppossed to make,
The dollies ...









The cutie bunny...






A little quilt for her dollies...





As for me?
I'd like to tackle the embroidery section... Especially the ribbon embroidery how-to which looks beAutiful !!!

















Here's honeypie's Martha book...

The cover with Martha Stewart and her sewing tools...





A sewing machine





Martha sewing a quilt





Tools you need to sew ...





Tools for quilting... Scissors, rotary blade,etc





On Martha's show last week she made cute animal bath mitts and honeypie wants to learn to sew those , so that will be her project!

Great book!!!

Goat butter and honey caramels

Martha Stewart and candy expert Beth Kimmerle were making goat milk butter, honey and sea salt caramels last month on her tv show and I was really looking for an excuse to make them!
Two things in one weekend came up... My sisters 40th birthday and a friend's engagement party!
So Perfect!!! Let's go!!
I got my candy thermometer out and went shopping for Goat butter which was not as hard to find as I thought. I found it at wholefoods for about the same price as regular butter and let me tell you that it was my first time trying goat butter and it was DELICIOUS!!!
Even honeypie could not get enough of it on crackers! So that's a "good thing"!
And now that my sister introduced me to "watermelon radishes" with butter on baguette slices ... Omigoodness I can only imagine the taste with goat butter... But I digress!
Back to caramels.

A couple of things the recipe did NOT tell this "new to candy making" gal...

~Invest in a good candy thermometer. Not a digital one. A nice one that clips to the side of the pot. It is important for this mathematical and scientific process that can quickly change taffy to brittle in seconds!!

~Do not let the thermometer touch the bottom of the pot ... This can lead to wrong temperature readings and again...( As you will see how I learned the hard way) can lead to caramel sauce and dissappoinent, as oppossed to the beautiful caramels you are expecting.

~Also... Do not fear. If by chance your caramels do not harden, you can place them back into the pot and try boiling them again to a slight higher thermometer reading and harden the mixture. ( This recipe called to boil to 250 F but they did not harden. So I re-boiled the caramels to 260 and was successful) I think my thermometer was touching the bottom of the pot the first time.


Here's the goat butter I used.





And I found this beautiful pink salt





And this Hawaiian red gold sea salt too





Watch that thermometer Like a hawk !





After an hour ... Sprinkle the salt. The caramel has to be sticky and not too dry for the salt to stick. If the caramel is too hot the salt will melt!!!





Here' s my initial dissappointment...
Caramel sauce and no time to loose!!!
What to do???
I packed some of it into a canning jar, put a pretty ribbon over some colored tissue paper around the lid and here was the first gift.
Caramel sauce for dipping fruit.





I then thought of caramel chocolate cups with toasted almonds...





Here I poured melted semi-sweet chocolate into mini cupcake tinfoil cups. Waited for it to harden in the refrigerator (10 minutes). Added the toasted almond slivers (cooled first) and sprinkled some sea salt over each one.
Voilà ... Second gift.









I did not pour too much chocolate in... Did not want it to overwhelm the taste of the caramel which was so uniquely special.






Found a beautiful wooden box, lined it with parchment paper and placed the caramel chocolate love inside.





And I then glued some pretty paper, added my sisters name in pretty Martha Stewart stickers, and wrapped pretty ribbon around the box! ( It would have been absolutely perfect if my handwriting was not chicken scratch ).





One more...






Here's the caramels after re-heating them and trying again for the second time. Pure success!! Yey!!





I wrapped them in wax paper individually.





And used pretty paper to seal them in a bag like Martha suggests.
Wonderful idea!!





So all in all. Scary at first but sucessful. I ended up with 3 gifts rather than my initial ONE.

So wonderful surprise to my mistake!

Delicious and... A really "good thing"!!!

Here is the recipe on the Martha Stewart website.

Valentine's day sweets

For valentine's day sweets this year honeypie and I chose two recipes from Martha Stewart's February issue of "Living".
We chose her heart pocket pies and the pink heart meringues.
The pocket pies called for a pear/raspberry mix but we chose strawberry / pear instead.

Here are her meringues on the cover...





And here are her pies...






I also added a little bit of blueberries to deepen the red color of the fruit mix.






Honeypie brushed a egg yolk /heavy cream wash to help seal the edges of the pies










Pressing the seams






We crimped the edges of the pies with a fork (which Martha does not say to do...) but I think it seals the edges better and makes for a cute little pie.







Honeypie added an egg wash over the tops...






And sprinkled pink sugar over them





Ready for the oven







And out of the oven!
Delicious!

















And now for the heart meringues !
I used a star tip for the ridged effect and the batter was 2 egg whites, a pinch of cream of tartar, and half a cup of sugar... Beat until fluffy!
We added a bit of pink gel coloring.






My batter was a little runny... Probably needed more beating time. So piping the hearts was a little harder...







Into the oven.....








Out of the oven!!!


















Hope your valentine was Sweeeeet!

Xoxoxo