Martha Stewart's Fall Vegetable Pizza

In light of Thanksgiving tomorrow, I thought I would share this recipe that I made last week at the height of packing and cleaning our old apartment. It had been sitting on my Pinterest for months, and I had finally gotten all the ingredients so I figured after a week of eating nothing but PB&J and cereal, we deserved a hot meal. Right?

Allow me to first start with the disclaimer. In my experience with anything involving Martha Stewart, I usually think it's going to be easy. She makes things look and sound like a simple process, when really they are time consuming and for only the most advanced of crafters. For example, one summer when I was bored, I bought one of her paper flower kits from K-Mart that looked like a fun summer night project. Well, after one attempt at a rose, I just about threw the whole thing away. So I should have known that when a recipe involved cutting up a butternut squash and rolling out pizza dough (two nearly impossible tasks, in my opinion) I should have maybe saved the meal for a night when I wasn't already stressing out about life. 

But the funny thing was, on this particular night I was soothed by a complicated, multi-step recipe to take my mind off everything else that I needed to be doing. It was almost theraputic. And absolutely DELICIOUS.

But anyway, the recipe. Unfortunately, as my camera was already packed away, this measly Instagram photo is the only evidence I have of my success:

Martha Stewart's Fall Vegetable and Ricotta Pizza

from marthastewart.com

Olive oil

Flour

1 lb frozen pizza dough from the grocery store

8 oz part-skim grated mozzarella cheese

6 cups of Martha Stewart's Roasted Fall Vegetables

• See, this is where she gets you! You have to prepare this recipe-within-a-recipe first before proceeding with the pizza. You can find the recipe for the vegetables here. It's really pretty simple, just make sure you leave an extra hour or so to do this. Or, better yet, make them ahead of time! 

1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

1 tbsp fresh or dry rosemary leaves (I used dry.)

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees (after the vegetables are done). Brush a large baking sheet with oil.

2. Roll out dough on a lightly-floured surface and stretch into a large oval (should be about 12 X 16 in.).

3. Sprinkle half of the mozzarella on the dough, followed by the vegetables. Dollop the ricotta on top, and then sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella and rosemary. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt ad pepper.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until bubbling and golden.

Decking the Halls: The Brodie Abode

We headed back to Virginia with a car full of Black Friday Christmas decor finds, a fake tree, and decorations pawned from my parents basement. It was time to get down to business.

Now, before I go into details, I have a confession: I don't like decorating the Christmas tree. I never have. Ask my parents; every year, when it's time to decorate and watch White Christmas, I'm always the one who hangs one or two ornaments and then retreats to the couch to gorge on cheese and crackers and sing along with Bing. I would decorate the tree happily if everyone else wasn't so particular about where things go, and the order of where and how you hang things. There are some things that need to be analyzed and thought through, and to me, decorating just isn't one of them. You just do it!

So anyway, I thought that maybe since it was me and Ian's very first tree, that would change. Since it was on display in our first home together, everything would have to be perfect. So as Ian assembled the tree from the box, we popped in Miracle on 34th Street and I worked on laying out all the decorations and turning our little home into a Winter Wonderland.

So I decided to help and start spreading the clumped together branches on the fake tree. "Wait, but you should put the lights on first", Ian says. Cue grumbles from Bren, who thought the branches should be spread first.

Then Ian said we should also put the garland on before we spread the branches. I didn't think so--we would put them on, and then they would get all pushed to the back and we would just have to go back and readjust. 

"But that's what you do when you decorate", said Ian. "You try something, and if it doesn't work, you go back and fix it".

"Well I think that's a waste of time!", I said, as I maturely huffed and retreated to the couch. As usual.

Next thing I knew, Ian was taking the lights down. "What are you doing?!" 

"Maybe we should spread the branches first".

Time for a Christmas meltdown, one of those where I cried and then laughed that I was crying over the Christmas tree, but really it was so frustrating because there is no reason to cry over Christmas decorating. So I stuffed my face with crackers and cream cheese as the movie played on and Ian went to work on spreading the branches.

"You know, I could really use some help with getting these branches spread..."

I reluctantly slinked down to the floor to help. And then we had some beer.

Soon, the branches were ready, the lights and garland were up, and by golly, our first tree was looking really fantastic. And Julia Child was now on TV.

Next was the ornaments. Obviously our first tree had to have a red and teal color scheme. Thanks to some super cheap ornaments at Big Lots, I was ready to bring some Martha Stewart to our Christmas tree.

Once I got into it, the whole hanging ornaments thing wasn't so bad.

Especially with the help of Home Alone.

It sure is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Now we just need some snow...

Reasons why I am Not Martha Stewart

I know, I know. It's really hard to believe. What with all those gourmet meals prepared in fancy cooking wares and the home-y little touches all over our Lower Level Apartment, I know you all probably think my middle name is Martha. Not to mention she/Macy's furnished half of our kitchen.

Oh you know, just some Hurricane Shepard's Pie!

Here's the truth, friends. I would love to channel Martha and make my home look like the photos on the website. An eclectic colonial dining room? Yes please.

marthastewart.com

But as newlyweds on a budget, most of our home decor has come from the following:

1. Craigslist 

2. Leftover Wedding Decor

3. Our Parents

4. Bren's Craft Projects

Aha! Craft projects? What could be more Martha?

Well, for starters, many of the projects I start go way unfinished. I always start with the best intentions, but soon I get bored, distracted, or so gung-ho about the next project that I leave what I was doing in the dust. For example, several weeks ago I decided I was going to start a greeting card business on Etsy. While I'm just poking around Virginia for jobs, might as well make some extra cash, right?

During a Saturday afternoon with Cheaper by the Dozen on TV, I quickly started to build up my starting inventory. And then stopped at four. They took a lot longer than I thought they would. 

That's the thing--I don't have patience. I usually don't read directions. Instead of investing the time in quality materials, I tend to do whatever is easiest and quickest. It's a wonder I stayed focused to make 200 wedding invitations (although, I had significant help with that one...). 

So today, I was just perusing on Pintrest and making note of all the fabulous craft projects I will (probably never) make, and I kept stumbling across this idea for earring storage:

kevinandamanda.com

This craft project just spoke to me. I had a wooden frame lying on the shelf that I had been trying to find a use for. I also had tons of string, which is like, the same as wire. Perfect.

In my true fashion, I didn't bother to click the link to find out how Amanda made that little beauty. I assumed scotch tape and string would suffice as the way to hang my earring collection.

Turns out it didn't. 

I thought to myself, oh well, and then I gave up for about an hour.

But as the pathetic tape-y frame just sat on the kitchen table, I felt kind of bad. Like all junk, the poor guy deserved a chance to be made into something fabulous. So I caved and read the directions on the website. Apparently in order to build a sound and sturdy earring holding frame, one needs some heavy duty wire and a staple gun. Eep. But then I remembered I had loads of wire in my craft basket from my jewelry making phase. And a couple thumbtacks. Same thing.

No one would see that side anyway.

And now, for the real test. Would it hold up my pounds and pounds of dangly earrings?

Answer: it sure would! And it would look pretty swell doing it:

Craft project: complete and successful! 

Who's the queen of crafts now?

(Hint: me.)