Grilled Lemon-Oregano Chicken



  Here's a quick grilling dish and an excuse to use some of those fresh herbs from the garden. I make this up earlier in the day and let it sit for a few hours in the fridge before tossing it on the grill. 10 minutes on the grill and this tasty chicken can be sitting on your plate

Grilled Lemon-Oregano Chicken

4 chicken breast, de-boned without skin

2 lemons juiced

1 tsp grated lemon zest

2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp black pepper, ground

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 c fresh oregano, chopped

1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped

3 cloves garlic, pressed

  Flatten the chicken breasts to a uniform thickness. I find it helpful to put the chicken breasts in a gallon ziplock bag and beat it with the flat side of a meat tenderizer. I can do two breast at a time this way and then I use the bag to marinate the meat as well. A food processor makes quick work out of the marinade and it can save you a little chopping to boot. Combine all the ingedients except the chicken either by hand or in a food processor and then dump the marinade in a gallon ziplock bag with the chicken . Let the meat marinate for a couple of hours and then grill. I would not recommend marinating the meat more than a few hours in advance because the lemon flavor can become very strong and over-power the other flavors. Optionally you can change this recipe up a bit by swapping out the oregano for 1/2 c of fresh cilantro. Enjoy!

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2011 Bucket Garden Update 2

  Everything is flowering and all things green are flourishing. What a beautiful time of the year.

Even our roses are blossoming.

The garden plants are no exception. We have had a few losses over the last few weeks, but overall I am pleased. The Chinese Five Color Pepper plants have sprouted up all over the original container they came in and I expect we will give a few of these away this year as gifts. These ornamental pepper plants are very colorful. It is very satisfying to watch all of these plants grow from seed and I can't wait to make some of my favorite summer dishes from our garden harvests.

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2011 Bucket Garden Update 1

  Well, seeds are planted, soil has been prepared and the buckets are being cleaned up for another round of container gardening. Actually, this photo is about a week old and the majority of the plants in the foreground have already been moved to larger pots and are coming along nicely.

  One of the biggest surprises so far are the seeds I saved from the sweet peppers we get from Costco. They have all germinated and so far are the only peppers out of about 10 varieties I started from seed that have done so. I didn't know much about these peppers (other than we really like them) when I saved the seeds. I didn't even know if they were hybrid or heirloom or even if they would grow from seed at all. They are so tasty that I figured they must be some kind of hybrid and I didn't really expect much from them. I have since discovered they are called 'Sweet Pickle Peppers' and they are an heirloom variety which means we will be saving seeds from these plants again for next year. They have germinated so quickly and they taste so good I wonder if they are disease prone or insect magnets. I guess we'll find out. :-)

  All of the basil has popped up as well and with all the pizza action going on around here lately, it is a good thing. Most of the tomatoes have done very well and we certainly look forward to eating some of the new varieties we have come accross this spring. I have several colorful dishes in mind for all the varieties of tomatoes and peppers we are growing this year. I can't wait ... :-)

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Vegetable Soup

  Vegetable soup is another one of those foods that is synonymous with the cooler weather of fall. Making the soup also gives us a way to use up all of last year's frozen vegetables that didn't get used up as well as any new fresh vegetables that are available. Usually around the cabbage harvest is when we make our soup, so for our location it is around mid October or so. This is definitely one of our comfort foods and it fills the house with a smell that is so nice to walk in to. This is not necessarily a definitive recipe so to speak, as with many of our recipes it is more of a guide and we use whatever we have available.

Vegetable Soup (Makes about 12 quarts)

2 quarts vegetable stock

2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes with basil

3 quarts frozen crushed tomatoes (from last year)
2 quarts frozen sweet corn (from last year)
2 quarts frozen Lima Beans (from last year)
2 quarts frozen green peas (from this year)
1 quart frozen yellow squash (from last year)
1 medium head of cabbage, sliced medium thin
1 quart of fresh carrots, course chop
1/4 c fresh parsley, course chop
3 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
2 tsp garlic powder

  We used a 15 quart pot to make the soup. I added only enough water to get the pot up between the 14 and 15 quart mark. It will cook down to about the 12 quart level. We add everything to the pot and brought it to nearly boiling and simmered it for about 8 hours. Be sure to taste it at least at the halfway point to adjust any of the seasoning components. Stir it every now and then to keep the soup from scorching. If the soup does scorch, don't scrape the stuck bits on the bottom of the pot. This will contaminate the whole pot. Just transfer it to an appropriately sized container and clean the soup pot or use another one if you have it to spare. If you are going to eat it right away or freeze it then it should be ready to go.

  If you are going to can the soup here are a few things to remember:

• Don't add any starch components to the soup like pasta, potatoes or thickening agents. You can add these things when you heat the canned soup for consumption.
• You can cook the soup for 2 hours less because the canning time is 1.5 hours.
• Do this when you have enough time to can the soup after making it. We can only do 5 quarts at a time and since we canned 10 quarts total we had about 4 hours of canning time after making the soup. If time is tight, you can make the soup one night and store it in the refrigerator (after it cools) and then can it the next night. Just remember to get the soup back up to near boiling before jarring.

  We put ours in hot clean quart jars and processed them in a pressure canner for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. This was the first time we canned it and we have sampled the final product and it is wonderful. We will definitely do this again!

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Poultry Seasoning

  Poultry seasoning must be worth about the same amount per pound as gold or at least my local grocery store thinks so. I must have spent $20 last year on this blend alone. After that I made up my mind I was going to grow as many of the components as I could in my garden and find the rest of the ingredients cheap at a bulk spice retailer. I was able to easily grow the sage, thyme, parsley and rosemary. The volume I made today would have cost me over $20 in bulk already mixed and about $40 in those tiny cylindrical containers at the grocery store. I calculate it cost me only $1 using the stuff I grew and the other bulk components I bought. Ka-ching! Now if I could only find a way to get those bagged bread cubes for something less than the going rate for silver I would be in business. :-)

Poultry Seasoning

1 tbsp dried sage

1 tbsp dried rosemary

1 tbsp dried thyme

1 tbsp dried marjoram

1/2 tsp celery seed

1/2 tsp dried parsley

3/4 tsp ground pepper

  Put it all in a coffee grinder and mix it for 5-10 seconds. Done! This makes about the same amount as one of those small cylindrical containers you buy at the grocery store for $5.

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Lucy's Awesome Carrot Cake

  I never met Lucy. She befriended my girlfriend in another life and she wrote down her carrot cake recipe for her to try. Lucy is no longer with us but she is immortalized through her recipe. This is a perfect excuse to use up some those miniature carrots I grew in the bucket garden too. :-)

Lucy's Carrot Cake (1 loaf pan or 1/2 small cake pan)

1 c sugar (the poor dear forgot to write this down ;-)

1 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

2/3 c veg. oil

2 tsp grated orange zest

1 tsp vanilla

1 c carrots, finely chopped

3/4 c golden raisins

1/2 c walnuts, chopped

  Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Mix all ingredients together. Bake for 40 minutes in a loaf pan. Double the recipe for a medium to large sized cake pan.

Cream Cheese Frosting (makes about 1 1/2 c)

1/2 stick butter, melted

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 c 10x sugar

1 tsp grated orange zest

  Mix ingredients well. Frost cake when cooled. Enjoy!

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Last Garden Update for 2010

  Well, the last of the garden has been picked. Tomatoes, tiny bell peppers and a few herbs are all that remains. As usual we try to use up what we grow, but I won't bother to tell you how our green tomato pie turned out. We nicknamed it tobacco juice pie if that is any indicator. :-) The green tomato relish looks like it came out ok. We canned it already, but I haven't tasted it yet.

  It has been many weeks since my last post, but we haven't been idle. I have so many things to write about and hopefully I'll find the time to get it all done. There are still several canning items to post about from late August and early September and we canned some bread and butter cauliflower too. We made our own italian sausage and sourdough cinnamon rolls that are heavenly. I can't believe I have so many things in the queue that haven't made it to the blog yet. Look for more posts in the near future.

  Oh, and I just enabled comments for non-members. We'll see how that goes for a while. :-)

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Fire Roasted Red Peppers

Roasted red peppers are another handy preparation to have around. We harvested these from the bucket garden and Mommasan had the great idea of roasting them, so on the grill they went. We hadn't done this before, so we have some wisdom to pass on. Cutting in half and coring was the only prep work we did. Getting the roasting part right is the tricky part. You want the peppers to lay as flat as possible with the skin side toward the heating surface. You can do these under your oven's broiler as well. The trick is getting every part of the skin blistered. If it isn't blistered everywhere then it will be tough to get all the skin off. The skin comes off very easily if it is blistered properly. If you are having a tough time getting the skins off put'em back on the grill. We had more than we could immediately use so I canned the remainder into half-pint jars for later.

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Gramma & Grampa's Pasta Sauce

This is a family recipe that I'll wager only family members will appreciate. It isn't a 15 generation Italian recipe that came to America on a boat. Nope, it was invented right here in the states by my Mother's parents and it was born out of the necessity to feed 6 children with what little money they had. I use the term recipe loosely because they didn't really follow a recipe when they made it. They just used whatever they could get their hands on and they put it all together in the same pot and cooked it for a long time. When it was ready it always had the same distinctive taste that still takes me back 35 years today. My mother, being the oldest, remembered many of the ingredients that were gathered to make the sauce, so it wasn't too difficult to recreate. Below is our rendition of this family recipe.

Gramma & Grampa's Pasta Sauce

10-12 quarts tomatoes, skinned and cored

1 large onion, chopped

24 oz tomato paste

2 lbs chicken hearts

2 lbs chicken gizzards

1 large pork bone or boney pork chop

1 chicken back or chicken thigh with the skin

10 cloves garlic, pressed

1/4 c salt

2 tbsp pepper

1/4 c sugar

1/2 c fresh oregano, chopped

1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped

1/2 c fresh basil, chopped

2 sprigs of rosemary

4 bay leaves

1/2 tbsp sage or poultry seasoning

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Heat the oil in a 15 quart sauce pot. Add onions and pressed garlic to the pot to render the aromatics into the oil. This process should only take a few minutes. Do not scorch the garlic or onions. Add tomatoes. If using fresh tomatoes, crush them with your hands in the pot after they have been skinned and cored. We actually added 2 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes to the pot because we didn't have quite enough tomatoes from the garden. Fresh tomatoes are not a must and we used them because that is what we had. Add salt, pepper, sugar and herbs to the pot and bring to a boil. Stir often to avoid scorching. Lower heat and add all the meat and bones. Make sure you count the boney things that are added so you can fish them out later. Simmer uncovered for at least 8 hours and if using fresh tomatoes, at least 12 hours is needed. Stir at least every hour. The sauce will transform from a bright red runny mixture to a full bodied dark red sauce. When the sauce is done fish out the bones, bay leaves and rosemary sprigs(if you can find them).

If dried herbs are substituted, only use 1/3 the amount listed above. Most of the moisture has been removed from the dried herbs, so volumetrically they are not compatible. I would encourage everyone to use fresh herbs as often as possible, but I understand that isn't always easy.

As you can see from the picture, we decided to can this batch. The freezer tends to get crowded and with the new canner this became an option. We ended up with 10 quarts of sauce from a beginning volume of about 14 quarts. We'll see how it holds up. Enjoy! ;-)

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Mild Green Chile Sauce

The pepper plants are still cranking. As a matter of fact, there are probably enough peppers ready to pick for another batch by now. Green chile sauce comes in handy for all sorts of things, so a few jars will definitely get used over the next 8 months or so. I never made this before, so I got on the internet and read how others do it and this is what I came up with:

Mild Green Chile Sauce

25 Jalepeno peppers

10 green Cowhorn peppers

15 green Cayenne peppers

10 Hungarian Wax peppers

13 dried chinese hot peppers, divided

10 cloves garlic

2 tbsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 large red tomato

2 small red bell peppers

1 yellow bell pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

4 c distilled vinegar

De-stem all the peppers. Also de-seed the bell peppers. Process all ingredients except olive oil, vinegar and 8 dried chinese peppers in a food processor. Heat oil in a 4 quart or larger pot and add processed ingredients and vinegar. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer for several hours. I started with about 6 pints of material and ended up with  4 pints. I added 2 dried chinese hot peppers to each pint and canned the result according to the Ball Blue book.

This recipe was driven by the produce gathered from my bucket garden. Any mixture of ingredients similar to this will result in a similar product. Use what you have. The resulting product was fairly mild, so I added 2 dried chinese hot peppers to each pint before canning, to add a little heat. Enjoy! :-)

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Chinese 5 Color Pepper Plant

  A good friend of mine got me this Chinese 5 Color Hot Pepper plant. These are very beautiful ornamental hot pepper plants. The fruit is edible and comes in green, purple, yellow, orange and red. It appears the peppers change color as they mature. I am told the little peppers pack quite punch too. I am going to see if I can save some seeds for next year. What an awesome gift. :-)

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Garden Update 2

  Well, I guess the garden is in full production now. In the last two days we got two large bowls of produce. The tomatoes and peppers are coming in large quantities. The zuchini and squash have dropped off a bit. They may be getting too much water between the everyday watering they get from me and the large amount of rain we got in a short period recently. I have three softball sized watermellons and two butternut squash on the way as well. None of the root vegetable did very well in the buckets. I will probably skip those next year.

Both bowls are destined for the sauce pot. The tomatoes will be used for my mom's family pasta sauce recipe and the hot peppers will be used for hot sauce.

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Vegetable Lasagna

  The continuing saga of trying to find ways to use up all the zuchini and squash the summer months provide. We used Mom's regular pasta lasagna recipe and swapped a few things out, most notable was the zuchini and squash for the pasta. We also use ground turkey instead of hamburger or sausage because that was what we had in the freezer.

Vegetable Lasagna
7-8 c good tomato sauce (recipe)
6 c mozzarella cheese shredded
2 lbs ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 lbs ground turkey browned and seasoned
3 medium zuchini's
4 medium squash
3/4 c fresh parsley chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees farenheit. Slice zuchini and squash lengthwise in 1/4" thick pieces. Combine ricotta cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, parsley in a bowl. Mix well.

In a deep pyrex or stoneware baking dish layer the ingredients. We used a 13x9 stoneware baking dish. Put a layer of sauce (about a fourth), slices of zuchini and squash, meat (about a third), ricotta cheese mixture (about a third), mozarella (about a fourth). We got three layers in this pan. Finish with a layer of sauce and top with remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake covered with foil for 30 minutes then lower the temperature to 350 degrees farenheit and bake uncovered for 30 more minutes. Enjoy!

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Fried Green Tomatoes

  Fried green tomatoes may be food related to usage of all those green tomatoes that will go to waste if not eaten at the end of the growing season, but I have a whole bunch right now and I don't want to wait for 3 months. I have eaten them fried before, but never made them myself until now. Once again I looked at everyone elses recipes and used that information as the basis for my own.

Fried Green Tomatoes

3 large green tomatoes cut into 3/8" to 1/2" slices

2 c canola oil for frying

1 c panko crumbs

1/2 c corn meal

1 c flour

1 c milk

2 eggs beaten

salt

pepper

  Lay tomato slices out onto a cookie sheet or similar surface, salt and pepper each side and let sit for 15 minutes. Heat oil in a skillet on medium high. Setup a four station assembly line: milk first, flour, egg followed by panko and corn meal mixture. Plates work well for the dry ingredients and bowls for the wet. Take each tomato slice through the assembly line. Coat each one with milk, dredge in flour, coat with egg and finally dredge in panko and corn meal mixture. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Remove from oil and drain on paper towel. Season with salt as soon as they are removed from the oil. Serve with lemon wedges and hot sauce. They are pretty good with ketchup too. :-)

  This version came out very crunchy and will definitely be served here again.

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Ratatouille with Quinoa

  Around our home anything that remotely resembles the recipe below is called Ratatouille. Maybe we're wrong, but one thing is for sure, if any combination of eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, yellow squash and zucchini is available, we cook it and call it the R-word. I'll list the ingredients for this version, but it isn't likely this exact recipe will be repeated here again. We even cook it different depending on the time of the year. In the summer we tend to use the stove top more and try to get it cooked relatively fast to avoid heating the kitchen up, but in the fall we make it in the oven and roast everything. As many ingredients as possible were used from the bucket garden.

Ratatouille with Quinoa

1 small Lavender eggplant cubed

2 small to medium zucchini cubed

3 small yellow squash cubed

3/4 medium white onion chopped

1 yellow bell pepper chopped (light green really ...)

4 plum tomatoes chopped (seeds removed)

1 14 oz can diced tomatoes

1/2 c canned mushrooms

2 cloves garlic (pressed)

1 1/2 c celery chopped (leaves and all)

6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 bunch parsley chopped (reserve small amount for garnish)

1 small bunch oregano chopped

1 small bunch basil chopped

4 c cooked quinoa

grated mozzarella cheese

salt

pepper

  In a large skillet heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic. Stir until soft and the aromatics are released. Add celery eggplant, and yellow squash. Lightly salt to help the vegetables to weep. Saute for 5 minutes. Add zucchini peppers and tomatoes. Once again, lightly salt. Saute for 5 minutes. Add additional salt and pepper to taste. Add parsley, oregano, basil and mushrooms. Stir well and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Serves 4. Plate over quinoa. Melt cheese on top. We use the microwave. Garnish with chopped parsley. Enjoy!

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Garden Update 1

  Things are coming along well. Production isn't at its peak yet, but we are starting to get stuff that looks like vegetables. The only real problem I am having at the moment is keeping enough water in the buckets for all the succulent plants. After a particularly sunny day at 90 plus degrees, most of the plants are very wilted and drooping. It takes a gallon or more for each bucket to bring the plants back.

  The tomato plants have really grown and are full of green tomatoes of all shapes and sizes. I noticed tonight the grape tomatoes are starting to ripen. We pulled all but 2 or 3 of the first radish planting and the second planting is coming right along. In another week or so some of the bigger tomatoes should be big enough to make fried green tomatoes. I can't wait. :-)

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Quinoa Tabbouleh

 

  Or as we often see it here in the states, Tabouli. This dish absolutely screams spring and summer. I wasn't real familiar with this dish until very recently and I am so glad I was exposed to it. I have a lot of parsley to use up from the garden and I recently started using Quinoa just to check it out, so this event was timely. The recipe I was exposed to planted the Tabbouleh seed, but after some research it was immediately labeled inadequate. The recipe didn't call for enough parsley (Tabbouleh is a parsley salad after all) and it didn't have any lemon juice either, so I made my own recipe:

Quinoa Tabbouleh

1 c parsley (coarse chopped, flat leaf)

1/2 c cilantro (coarse chopped)

1 c quinoa (cooked and cooled)

1 med cucumber (coarse dice)

2 Roma tomatoes (seeds removed, coarse dice)

1/4 med onion (small diced)

5-6 mint leaves (coarse chopped)

1 clove garlic (garlic pressed)

2 tbsp lemon juice

6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Mix ingredients well and serve chilled.

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Basil Cilantro Pesto

  With plenty of basil and cilantro coming out of the garden, some experimentation was in order. After a little research I came up with the following recipe:

Basil Cilantro Pesto

2/3 c packed basil leaves (washed)

2/3 c packed cilantro stalk and leaves (washed)

1/3 c grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp roasted sunflower seeds (instead of pine nuts)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 clove garlic

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

Blend the first 7 ingredients in a food processor (about a minute). With the food processor running, slowly drizzle the olive oil into the mixture (about a minute).

I was really happy with this recipe and will definitely make it again. There are plenty of uses for pesto including pasta sauce, pizza sauce and crusty bread topper to name a few.

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Bucket Garden

  Alright, I don't like to weed and I get called out of town unexpectedly, so I decided to grow a garden ... in buckets. It has worked out pretty well and if I get called out of town it shouldn't get too out-of-hand. The weeding has definitely been lessened and most of the big critters seem to stay away. All-in-all there is 4 different kinds of hot peppers, 4 different kinds of regular peppers, Lavender Eggplant (looks like Antigua), 6 different kinds of tomatoes, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Butternut Squash, Watermelon, Carrots, Beets, Radishes, Cucumber, Brussel Sprouts, Thyme, Oregano, Parsley, Sage, Basil, Cilantro and Rosemary. Take a look ...

Herbage

Eggplant

Hot Peppers

Yellow Squash

Watermelon

Cucumber

Tomatoes

Peppers

Brussel Sprouts

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