What dishes are on your family's menu? Here at my farm, everyone gets to enjoy Marley Spoon!
Every week, I receive several meal kits to test in my kitchen and share with my staff. I like to try as many recipes as possible to ensure we're sharing the best ones with all of you. Yesterday, my housekeeper Enma Sandoval cooked one of the kits I selected from the current menu - Pan-Roasted Ribeye Pork Chops with Basil Aioli & Bacon-Corn Succotash - low carb, high protein, and full of flavor! The entire dish was cooked in under 30-minutes. And as always, all the main ingredients are pre-measured, pre-packaged, and included with the delivery. Marley Spoon features so many inspiring recipes, including some of my own, and you can choose the ones that best fit your family's lifestyle. It's a win-win! Subscribe now by clicking anywhere on a highlighted link.
Here are some photos.
Whenever we cook our Marley Spoon meal kits, we remove all the ingredients and place them on the counter. These ingredients are pre-portioned and come in easy to open packaging. All one needs to provide is the olive oil, salt, and pepper if needed.
One of the great things about these meal kits is that it includes a large recipe card with the photo of the finished dish on the front with the estimated cooking time listed…
… And images on the back showing each of the main preparation steps. Plus, we include the ingredients list, the tools or supplies necessary, and a rundown of the nutrition values. These recipe cards are great to save for future use.
Step one: finely chop the onion – if you don’t want to use the entire onion, you can save half to use later.
Then finely chop two teaspoons of garlic. When cooked, garlic’s pungency mellows and provides a rich, nutty flavor to foods.
Two small zucchinis are provided for this recipe. Cut them both into quarter-inch pieces.
All the chopped ingredients are set aside. This preparation is called “mise en place” – a French culinary term that means “everything in its place.” It refers to the practice of preparing and organizing all the ingredients and equipment before cooking begins, so everything is ready promoting efficiency and order in the kitchen.
Next, the bacon is also cut into quarter-inch pieces.
Here, Enma pats the pork dry and seasons with salt and pepper.
Enma heats one tablespoon oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until it is shimmering. She is using a Martha Stewart nonstick pan.
Once heated, Enma adds the pork one piece at a time. It should sizzle vigorously.
The pork should cook until it is golden brown and medium – it should have an internal temperature of 145-degrees Fahrenheit and cooked approximately two to three minutes per side.
After it is cooked through, Enma places it on a plate and keeps it in a warm oven. One can also plate the pork and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.
Next, in the same skillet, Enma cooks all the bacon over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until brown and crisp. This takes a few minutes.
She adds the chopped onions and garlic plus a pinch of salt.
Everything is cooked until softened. A wooden spatula is used to carefully dislodge any browned bits.
To the same skillet, Enma adds the zucchini, corn and edamame, or young soy beans. Enma seasons with salt and pepper and cooks them while stirring until the vegetables are softened.
Then any resting juices from the pork chops are added plus a tablespoon each of butter ad water and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. The skillet is removed from the heat and the ingredients are stirred until creamy.
Finally, in a small bowl, Enma mixes the basil pesto and mayonnaise. Everything is now ready to plate and serve.
The pork is sliced and served alongside the succotash and basil aioli.
This dish is quick and easy to prepare and so flavorful. Plus there’s more than enough for two or four, depending on the meal kit size. Sign up for Marley Spoon today and enjoy these dishes with us.
After my "Super Fans" luncheon and garden tour last week, members of the group traveled together to visit some familiar shops, studios, and eateries in the area - the Orangerie Garden + Home, a charming shop and nursery owned by my friend Anthony Bellomo in Millbrook, New York, the pottery shop of master potter, Guy Wolff, the home and garden store and café, Terrain, in Westport, Connecticut, and my former home Turkey Hill.
Enjoy these photos.
Guy’s shop is located in the small borough of picturesque Litchfield County – originally in Woodville and now in Bantam. The front is a restored 1740 post and beam structure, which houses his showroom. An addition on the back is his work space.
At the entrance, Guy still has the old Woodville sign hung up by the front door and window.
Guy displays some of his red terra cotta pots. These pots were made by Guy or his wife, Erica.
Guy also displays some of his pots in use. These are terra cotta pots in the back of the shop. Terra cotta comes from the Italian term for “baked-earth,” ceramic pottery. It is made out of a coarse, porous type of clay that is high in iron oxides.
The showroom and studio is a charming space filled with redware and stoneware in the front. Redware is an unglazed or dry-bodied stoneware.
On another side – dozens of beautiful white clay vessels with decorative edges.
Here’s devotee Bernie Wong looking at some of the lighter clay pots. On the side of his pots, Guy also stamps his name and the wet weight of the clay used. This standardized system for horticultural pots was adopted by Victorian potters.
Through a small doorway is the additional room where all the pots are created. Look closely – the corner wall behind the potter’s wheel is filled with small tools called coggles, roulettes, or rolling stamps, which are used to decorate the pottery.
Here’s a pot Guy is working on now. Every pot is handmade right here in his shop.
All of Guy’s pots are hand thrown, so no two are exactly alike.
Here is Guy with devotee, Nathan Schmidt with his purchase.
The next stop was at the charming shop and nursery, Orangerie Garden + Home, where owner Anthony Bellomo sells many home items as well as gardening supplies and seasonal plants. Here’s the group pictured with Anthony in front of the shop.
The group admired these giant ostrich eggs…
… and the hand carved moose antlers.
Andrew Ritchie took many photos of the displays around the shop. Everything was so beautifully presented including these scented candles.
The nursery was filled with lots of greenery.
Then it was a drive to Connecticut’s Terrain, another quaint store filled with home and garden products.
The group stopped for a late afternoon meal at the Terrain Café, which focuses on seasonally inspired lunches and dinners.
Here’s a photo of the breads – cooked in terra cotta pots to give them a crusty, brown outside and a soft, chewy inside.
Terrain sells a variety of plants, including potted houseplants, shrubs, fruiting trees, and fresh flowers. They also carry gardening supplies and other interesting gifts.
Here is the group in front of the old Adams House in Westport. I helped to renovate this home with my late brother, George. You may have seen it in my 1992 book, “Martha Stewart’s New Old House: Restoration, Renovation, Decoration, Landscaping.”
And they also stopped at the local Goodwill to see what they could find – Nathan found a Martha Stewart pie plate.
Here are Bernie, Andrew Ritchie, and Dennis Landon, driving to the next spot. I wonder where it is…
The day ended with a photo in front of my former home, Turkey Hill. It was a great day and a great trip for this community of devoted fans.
Hard to resist the intoxicating scent of a garden rose.
I have many, many roses - a group of my newly released Martha Stewart hybrid tea roses and a collection of climbers are planted in a cutting garden adjacent to my chickens coops, but I also have roses in my perennial flower garden, in my allée of lilacs, and in a more formal space behind my main greenhouse. It is a 68-foot by 30-foot rose garden that includes floribunda, hybrid tea, and shrub roses - all with gorgeous color, form, and fragrance.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
I planted more than 120 roses in this space. Roses offer such an abundance of blooms, it looks so beautiful when planted in large quantities.
I planted a variety of floribunda roses, hybrid tea roses, and shrub roses.
This garden is surrounded with boxwood. Large boxwood shrubs anchor the corners and mark the center footpath of the garden.
The smaller boxwood, which I nurtured from bare-root cuttings fill in the rest of the perimeter. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. Boxwood is native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
All of these roses came from rosarian Danielle Dall’Armi Hahn, the owner of Rose Story Farm in Carpinteria, California and author of “The Color of Roses,” published by Ten Speed Press.
Right now there are gorgeous, fragrant blooms, some as big as one’s hand.
Hybrid tea roses, also called large-flowered roses, usually have only one flower per stem and tend to flower in three flushes from summer to late autumn. Floribundas or cluster-flowered roses have many flowers per stem and tend to repeat-flower continuously from summer to late autumn.
This garden includes a variety of different colors from dark pink to apricot to lavender, yellow, and creamy white.
A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae. There are more than a hundred species and thousands of cultivars.
The leaves of the rose are described as “pinnate” – meaning there is a central rib and then leaflets off to each side, with one terminal leaflet. Rose leaves can have anywhere from two to 13 leaflets. And rose stems are often armed with sharp prickles – they aren’t thorns at all. Unlike a thorn, a prickle can be easily broken off the plant because it is really a feature of the outer layers rather than part of the wood, like a thorn.
Garden roses are mostly grown as ornamental plants. They are among the most popular and widely cultivated groups of flowering plants, especially in temperate climates.
When selecting a location, plant roses in a sunny spot where they can get at least six hours of sun and good drainage.
Rose roots grow deep, so also be sure there is adequate room for the roots to spread.
These are strong disease resistant varieties. Many roses are bred and selected to resist the most common rose problems.
When watering roses, give them the equivalent to one-inch of rainfall per week during the growing season.
And don’t forget to feed. As I often say, if you eat, so should the plants. Keep roses well-fed with a slow release formula specifically for roses.
When pruning in early spring, prune with the goal of opening the center of the plant or shrub to let in better light and air circulation within and between the plants.
As part of a yearly maintenance program, also eliminate dead, dying, and diseased plants and plant parts to help keep the garden healthy. When needed replace plants with new, healthy ones.
Given the right care, healthy roses can bloom through summer and all the way until early fall.
This rose garden is flourishing behind my berry patches in an area where guests can see them in their splendor. I am so pleased with how it is doing.
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