I took one of her recipes and fixed it. Here's the deal, I save recipes from magazines in hopes of trying them out someday so I'm trying to see which ones are keepers and which aren't. With high gas prices, and higher grocery costs I'm also trying to use what I have on hand. So here's my version of Martha's Savory Fall Stew from her Original Classics cookbook, and how I fixed some problems I found. I list my ingredients and if different I put her original ingredients in parenthesis.
SAVORY FALL STEW MY WAY2 T. olive oil 12 oz. hot italian sausage, cut into small chunks 1 med. onion, peeled and chopped (
12 cipollini or pearl onions, peeled)
1 14.5 oz. can stewed tomatoes (
1 1/2 c. canned crushed tomatoes)
5 c. water + 5 tsp chicken bullion (
3 c. homemade chicken stock or low sodium canned broth) I found that 3 cups of broth would not give enough liquid for stew
1 handful combined fresh rosemary, thyme, oregano, Or 2 t. dried italian herbs
1 - 1 1/2 lb. butternut squash peeled, seeded and cubed (
2 1/2 lb butternut squash - too much!)
3 carrots cut into 1/2" pieces 1 medium size zucchini, cubed (
3 parsnips, cut into 2" sticks, 1 fennel bulb, halved, cored, cut into 1/4" slices)
2 c. beet greens, chopped (
12 brussel sprouts, trimmed, cut in half)
1 1/2 cups macaroni or shell noodles ....my addition for hubby
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Cook sausage, stirring until it breaks into small pieces and is not longer pink. Remove sausage with slotted spoon, and set aside.
Pour off all but 1 T of fat and discard. Raise heat to medium high, and add the onion; cook stirring, until golden, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, broth and herbs, simmer over medium heat until the liquid starts to thicken, about 20 minutes. Add everything else but the beet greens and noodles, cover and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Add beet greens and noodles and turn down to medium low. Simmer until noodles are done. Season to taste and serve hot.
Martha claims this will only serve 4 done her way, but this really makes a large pot of soup for about 8 people even without the changes I made due to the amount of squash called for in the original recipe. It's delicious either way I'm sure, serve with home made buttermilk bisquits or cornbread. My husband loves it!
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As with most artists, we have many creative hats we like to wear. One of mine is cooking. Mom used to make THE BEST Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie when we lived in Wallowa Valley before. Well, I went to the local fruit stand the other day and saw some long ruby red stalks of Rhubarb, so I picked some up. We also bought some Strawberries at Safeway so I searched the net and found a recipe and Whalaa! We have pie!
Let me tell you, the crust is a butter and canola oil crust so it is flaky and tender, one of my best yet, and the filling is to die for! So this was a huge success and now I will go to sleep with a full tummy, dreaming of pie for breakfast......well okay, I won't really have pie for breakfast, I would probably fall asleep in church, but I can look forward to pie for dessert after dinner. Then a long walk to enjoy the fresh pine scented breezes and the towering snow capped mountains. 
