No doubt Martha Stewart’s envious, but here’s an idea I had for a recent gathering. Rice crispy treats with a little food coloring (a ratio of 3 yellow drops to 1 red for the orange), half a fruit loop for the stem (my wife’s idea), and voilà! Festive fall pumpkin treats. They were met with coos of “cute” from the women, and few leftovers remained.

THIS FUN party food gets your guests involved with the cooking by allowing them to make their own kebabs. This dish, a traditional Greek entrée that chef Michael Psilakis revised for the grill, is perfect for any season.

Ingredients:

1 leg of lamb, boned and cubed; bamboo skewers; soaked in water for at least two hours; 2 cans of artichoke hearts, halved

For the marinade:

2 cups red wine; 1 cup extra virgin olive oil; 2 tablespoons Greek oregano; 1 tablespoon salt, 1 teaspoon ground pepper; 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard; 1 fresh bay leaf, 2 fresh basil leaves, 2 garlic cloves crushed, chopped; 1 small shallot, peeled and diced.

For rice pilaf:

1 sweet onion, peeled and diced; 3 cups long grain rice, washed to remove starch; 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil, 6 cups water or chicken stock; zest of one lemon; 1 tablespoon fresh dill

How to:

1. Place lamb in a shallow pan.
2. Mix marinade ingredients together and pour over lamb. Tightly cover with plastic, making sure to push down onto the lamb. Refrigerate over night.
3. Sautee onions in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add uncooked rice and bring up to high heat. After two minutes, add liquid and bring to boil, stirring. Reduce to a simmer and cook covered for 10-15 minutes.
4. Add lemon zest and dill using a fork to ?uff. Preheat grill and begin making skewers, alternating artichoke and meat.
5. Place on grill (for medium rare, about 3 minutes).
6. Scoop rice onto plate and top with 2 skewers per order.

I didn’t follow the instructions exactly, because I wanted to make do with some ingredients on hand (and I’m cheap), and I didn’t want to marinate it all night. Here are the differences:

• Cooking wine instead of regular
• Lemon juice instead of zest
• No bay or basil leaves or garlic cloves
• Just regular olive oil, not “extra virgin”
• Some juice from the pickle jar instead of fresh dill (that’s probably not even close)
• George Foreman grill instead of the fire and charcoal kind

One thing the article didn’t make clear was how many people the recipe’s supposed to serve. Since I was cooking only for my wife and myself, I just had to guess. I chopped up about 1/3 of the leg of lamb (now to find something creative for the remaining 3-4 lbs.), used 1/2 of a sweet onion and about 1 and 1/2 cups of rice. And I opened only 1 can of artichoke hearts, which was insufficient for 2 people (the recipe calls for 2 cans, which I can’t imagine holding enough for a group). Speaking of groups, the recipe says it “gets your guests involved with the cooking by allowing them to make their own kebabs.” I’m trying to imagine a bunch of people standing around in the kitchen, skewering cubes of raw meat. Do people actually do that?

The result: tasty, tender kebabs (at least my wife says they were “delicious”). I think the rice could have used a little more seasoning, but otherwise it was fine.

A quick survey of our household mixes reveals that some require eggs and some don’t:

Mix Company	Requires Eggs	Does Not	Founded
Jiffy			1887
Pillsbury			1869
WhiteLily			1859
Martha White			1899

As it turns out, there’s no reason one must add eggs to a mix: it’s just a psychological ploy to make cooks feel as though they’re contributing to the process. From this week’s U.S. News:

Marketers learned a few tricks along the way. The first instant cake mix was introduced in 1931, but 20 years later, many women were still baking from scratch. The “egg theory”–leave the dehydrated eggs out, and women would regain their sense of ownership as they cracked fresh eggs into the batter–is credited with winning more converts.

It’s like the suds in soaps: added to replace a felt need of consumers, even when the real need is gone. A surprising number of digital cameras make the clicking shutter sound of an SLR for the same reason, I suppose.

And the founding dates help explain–nothing at all. But I’m not going to delete them after looking them up.