Stewart aims to make everyday food easier
Martha Stewart is making everyday food faster and easier this month, spinning off her "Everyday Food" magazine into a second cookbook and an iPhone application that offers recipes, daily dinner ideas and automated shopping lists.
The app, called "Martha's Everyday Food," lets iPhone and iPod touch users access thousands of recipes from the magazine. Its introduction accompanies the release of "Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast," a compilation of 250 recipes from the magazine that aim to land tasty meals on the table in an hour or less.
The book includes recipes that promise relatively healthy, flavorful, fuss-free meals, such as beef and scallion stir-fry and pasta with sausage, Swiss chard and pine nuts.
Oven-baked peanut-crusted chicken breasts promise a richly textured main course without the mess - and calories - of frying. Grated ginger, lime juice and curry powder should deliver a pungent kick to the crispy ginger-lime chicken thighs. And pork chops with bulgur stuffing conjure up Morocco with their combination of apricots, almonds and cumin.
Think-ahead moves - like roasting a second pork loin for future meals while preparing pork loin with figs and port sauce - really cater to the busy home cook. Low-fat raisin bran muffins take the stress out of breakfast. They're like a bowl of cereal you can eat in the car. And recipes for the building blocks of great meals - pizza dough, pie crust, tomato sauce - mean dinner is always just waiting to happen.
Many healthy alternatives to fried favorites, such as the oven-baked fries made of parsnips, sweet potatoes or polenta, are about as easy as opening a bag of the frozen stuff. And nutrition-conscious cooks will appreciate the calorie, fat, fiber and carb information for each recipe.
And you don't even have to decide what's for dinner until you're standing in the grocery store. The "Everyday Food" app will let you search and download recipes, add the ingredients to your shopping list, then let everyone in the family know what's for dinner via e-mail.
n "Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast," Clarkson Potter, 2010
n "Martha's Everyday Food" app, 99 cents from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/
Beef, scallion stir-fry
Start to finish: 25 minutes
Servings: 4
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (unseasoned)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, plus more for serving (optional)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, such as safflower or canola
1 1/4 pounds flank steak, cut diagonally across the grain into 1/2-by-3-inch strips
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 bunches scallions, trimmed, sliced crosswise 1 1/2 inches thick, white and green parts separated
Cooked rice, for serving (optional)
In a small bowl, whisk together the water, hoisin sauce, vinegar, cornstarch, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon of the red pepper flakes.
In a large skillet over high, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Pat-dry the steak with paper towels.
In 2 batches, cook the steak until lightly browned, turning once, about 2 minutes per batch. Transfer the meat to a plate.
Add the remaining teaspoon of oil to the skillet along with the garlic and white parts of scallions. Cook, tossing often, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Whisk the hoisin mixture to combine, then add it to the skillet along with the scallion greens.
Return the meat to skillet and cook, tossing to coat the steak with sauce, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Serve immediately over rice and sprinkled with more red- pepper flakes, as desired.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 278 calories; 109 calories from fat; 12 g fat (3 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 48 mg cholesterol; 9 g carbohydrate; 32 g protein; 1 g fiber; 502 mg sodium.
(Recipe from "Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast," Clarkson Potter, 2010)