Snapper Veracruz Style

This will give you a way to use up those last tomatoes of the season, the ones you've saved from the stink bugs.  Yes, the stink bugs!  They are sucking the juice from them right on the vine and then passing some sort of bacteria or virus on to the vine.  I think there are still some questions about what exactly they are doing with them.  Anyway, the tomatoes don't look so pretty anymore, so why not cook them up in a yummy dish like this.

This is taken from the Queen of homemaking and insider trading, so it should be pretty perfect, just like her. (tongue firmly planted in cheek).  It's pretty close to what I do and since I don't have a recipe for what I do (for anything except baking), I am posting this one for you.  Personally, I like to add strips of sweet bell pepper to mine, usually yellow since there's already red and green in the dish.  Saute or grill your snapper with a touch of salt and pepper in butter if sautéing and with oil if grilling.  By the way, Canela is Spanish for cinnamon, but you can use regular cinnamon.  They usually use one that's from Ceylon, but it really doesn't matter unless you're grinding your own.  Cinnamon is cinnamon, lady.

Makes 6 to 7 cups

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 10 garlic cloves, 6 left whole, 4 very finely chopped
• 2 medium white onions, finely chopped
• 8 to 10 large ripe tomatoes, (about 4 pounds), finely chopped, or two 28-ounce cans Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano), coarsely chopped, with their juice
• 24 pimento-stuffed green olives, sliced if large
• 4 to 6 pickled jalapeno chiles, stemmed, seeded, and cut lengthwise into thin strips
• 2 teaspoons small capers
• 4 dried bay leaves
• 1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme
• 4 sprigs fresh marjoram, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried marjoram
• 4 sprigs fresh oregano, or 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried Mexican oregano
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground canela
• 1 cup dry white wine

Directions

1. In a medium stockpot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add whole garlic cloves, and cook, stirring, until golden on all sides. Remove garlic and discard. Add minced garlic and the onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced, about 15 minutes.
2. Add olives, chiles, capers, bay leaves, parsley, thyme, marjoram, oregano, salt, canela, and wine. Cook until the sauce has thickened to desired consistency, 15 to 20 minutes. Taste and adjust for seasoning. If using fresh whole herbs, remove and discard before serving.

NEXT TIME: POTATOES!!!!  Including roasted, almost potato chips and mashers!

I'm Finally Getting Melons!!

Anyone who knows me, knows how funny that title is, but the reality is, I've never successfully grown melons.  HA!  That's funny, too.  Seriously, folks, (because you know I'm always serious), this year the melon patch is doing really well. (From here on I will refer to the melon patch, not melons).
"What did you plant," you ask.  I have no idea.  Well, let me clarify.  I know I planted a type of cantaloupe (orange fleshed) and a type of watermelon.  I just don't know the variety.  I'm guessing Muskmelon or Crenshaw cantaloupes and Sugar Bush or Sugar Baby seedless watermelon.  The fun thing is that they will be coming in toward the end of August, maybe middle of September, way after all the others are done.  Maybe any cool nights will make them extra sweet, who knows?  

The only other time I did have mild success with a melon patch was also the year I had a very successful groundhog.  He was extremely good at assessing the ripeness of a cantaloupe which proved to be his favorite thing in my garden.  I was growing a French variety.  (Oui, oui, hunh, hunh)  I would look at the cantaloupe and smell it and say, "One more day and you should be just right" or "Two more days", etc.  Well, Mr. Groundhog was obviously trying to be helpful and just wanted to teach me how to judge a melon's ripeness.  Sure enough, the next day, I would find the carnage in my melon patch.  Usually there would be a half eaten or mostly eaten cantaloupe either still in the patch or right by the gate.  He was crawling under the gate to enter and exit, so I imagined him dropping the melon in a mad dash to escape.  Either that, or he was full, considering he was also eating beans that year.  And by eating beans, I mean he started out with groundhog ADD and ate the bottom half of each bean and then he just mowed the plants down.

I'll take a whole herd of deer over one groundhog. The one time a buck jumped the fence, he only ate a cucumber.  Thankfully, I have a nice fence apron buried down in the ground about two feet and it goes out another four feet or so, so they're discouraged and I have a board buried in front of my gate, so they can't dig under it.  I have my fingers crossed that they won't climb the fence because they can climb.

In the meantime, it's cucumber heaven out there and would be squash heaven if it weren't for the squash bugs (an evil variant of the stink bug) and the worm vine borers.  If you have any leaves just wilt and fall or break off, you've got worm borers.  No real solution.  I used my last organic resort last night.  After finding a dead bumblebee in my cucumbers I worried that it was from the spinosid I sprayed the night before.  I tried to keep it off the blooms and fruits, but it's really hard to do that when the bugs you're trying to eradicate are in that spot.  Also, squash and cucumber blooms close up at night, so I thought they were safe.  I always wait until I don't see any bees buzzing around.  So last night I just did some direct spraying of the bugs with some Espoma Earth Tone.  It contains pyrethrums, an extract of chrysanthemums, but also has canola oil which smothers eggs. I use this only as a last resort because it effects the nervous systems of bugs and I worry about the beneficials getting hit.

If anyone has some suggestions for how to use all these cucumbers, let me know!

Thanks! Happy Gardening!

Provencale vs. Veracruz

And the winner is......

They're both winners because they're easy, tasty and will make people think you've been cooking for hours!!

Following are the two recipes for Provencale and Veracruz that I use.  The first one is for Chicken Provencale but you don't have to make it with chicken the way it describes.  For instance, I made the sauce earlier and used a TBL of butter in place of the chicken fat.  The next day, I flattened a chicken breast, grilled it and then heated my sauce and poured it over, followed by some freshly grated parmesan.  You can also serve it over fish, like grilled halibut.  And you can dump all the ingredients in a crock pot on top of some chicken, set it and forget it and come home to a house that smells incredible and a finished dinner.

Pasta is great with it, too.

Chicken Provencal - Poulet Provencal
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

6 - 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 tsp of olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 anchovy fillet, minced or 1 1/2 tsp. anchovy paste
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 C dry white wine
1 C chicken stock/broth
1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
2 1/2 TBL tomato paste
1 1/2 TBL fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1 1/2 TBL fresh oregano1 bay leaf
1 tsp herbes de Provence (optional)
1/3 C nicoise olives, pitted and roughly chopped
Zest from 1 lemon
2 Tbsp fresh parsley

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Cook the chicken thighs in batches (4 at a time if you’re cooking 8, since I was cooking 6 small thighs, I squeezed them all in there). Add the thighs skin side down and cook until the skin is crisp and golden brown, about 5 minutes. At first the skin will stick to the pot but when they start to brown, they'll release easier from the pan. Turn the thighs over and brown the second side until golden brown, another 5 minutes. Remove the chicken thighs and set aside. Drain all but 2 tsp of fat from the pot.

Add the onions to the pot and cook over medium heat until browned, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, anchovy, tomato paste, and cayenne and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. 

Add the wine and scrape up the brown bits and then add the chicken broth, tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, and herbes de Provence (if using). 

Remove the skins from the chicken thighs and nestle them into the pot with any accumulated juices. Bring to a simmer then either cook in the oven at 300ºF for about 1 hour or barely simmering over low heat for an hour. 

Remove the chicken and set aside and discard the bay leaf. Cook the contents in the pot over high heat until thickened and reduced, about 5 minutes. Stir in olives and cook for 1 minute. Then off heat stir in the parsley and lemon zest and spoon the sauce over the chicken. Serve with crusty bread. 

Gardenitis Gangbusterus

The cucumbers are coming hot and heavy, so I don't know where the "cool as a cucumber" thing fits in!  Well, of course, I do: after you get them in the fridge and it's too hot to eat anything but frozen grapes and cucumbers!

Speaking off hot, what a great year for peppers!  My hot peppers are gangbusters, too.  Trying to find fun things to do with them, but they are SO hot, that's it's challenging.  Give 'em away and freeze them is about the only thing I can do.

I don't even want to think about the beans I have to go out there and pick...RIGHT NOW!!!  It'd be a shame to waste them and I will be wasted if I don't beat the heat.  I already hear the cicadas and katydids, so I better get out there pronto.  I just wanted to let you know that if your tomato plants are looking terrible, that's perfectly normal for this time of year, especially if you planted them early, like April.  Plus, the heat is hard on them.  Any temperatures over 95 and they're irritated little campers.

A warning, too, about a new pest for tomatoes: our friend the Stink Bug.  Yep, they are crawling all over those last little fighting fruits and leaving little white spots on the skin.  I'm looking into finding out exactly what they're doing, so I will be back on that.

If you have any seeds left over, plant them now!  Especially broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, beets, and any other cole crop.  That's cole, not cold.  I always thought it was cold, too, but it's actually cole:

“Cole crops” is a general term used to describe several vegetables in the mustard family, including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, and kohlrabi. All cole crops are cultivated varieties of the species Brassica oleracea. They are cool-season vegetables that prefer 60° to 70°F temperatures for optimal growth and can withstand light frosts without injury.

So there you go.  It's kind-of like: "a hard row to hoe".  Most people mistakenly say, "a hard road to hoe" which actually combines two idioms.  "It will be a hard road ahead" and "a hard row to  hoe".  Of course you cant hoe a road!  Silly.  But most people have never had a garden, so they don't know what that refers to and they only know the word "hoe" in one illicit context with a different spelling.  So there ya go!

It just so happens that cole crops are also "cold" crops in that they do well in cold weather.  Cooler weather also makes them sweeter, so that's something you got going for you.  But beware the harlequin beetle!  He is so pretty, but when my broccoli was dying off, they were covered with tons of them "Getting down" if you know what I mean (kind-of like "hoeing") and then when I dug my potatoes, I saw millions of leeeetle baby ones all over the place.  They're going to have a field day when they see my little broccoli coming up.  So just be aware and get that Spinosid ready.  And remember spray spinosid only after all the bees and butterflies have bedded down for the night and are no longer feeding.  Spray the leaves of the plant only.

So plant your cole crops, your spinach, lettuce, arugula, etc. and enjoy veggies straight into October.  With our long Indian Summers, you're really not limited very much by growing seasons.  Pick up some old sheets and you can cover them when there are frost warnings.  I'll have more information on this stuff as it gets closer, but for now, enjoy those cukes, squash, eggplants, beans, whatever you have coming in and check the Farmer's Market for anything you need.   Buy local, eat seasonally for better taste and better health!!! (And it's a whole lot cheaper, too!)

Happy gardening!

Technical difficulties

So apparently, the Blogger mobile updates function is buggy.  I noticed that several of my posts were either broken up or missing parts.  Not able to load photos either, so I will only be able to make little tiny posts from my iPhone.  Sorry for the confusion!

Cooking with Kids

Jolie's Pizza

So, what to do with all that bounty and a rainy summer day?  Cook with kids!  Pizza is one of the best things you can do, because it involves baking, assembling and eating one of kids' favorite foods.  Recently, I did this with my girls in culinary kids' camp at Culina, so I thought I would try it again with my friends' kids while they were visiting from the lake.  It's a good thing that I planned on this activity because we had a totally rained out day at the lake during our week there, so in lieu of TV, movies, or computer time, I dragged them into the kitchen for some happy pizza making.  Once they donned their matching girlie Jesse Steele aprons, they were only too happy to cook!

We used the Ina Garten pizza dough recipe, substituting one cup of white flour for wheat and used the bounty of tomatoes from the garden, some handmade mozzarella, turkey pepperoni and some mixed shredded cheese.  What a blast.  Then we made some for the adults, using some leftover pineapple (from Tropical black bean salsa), prosciutto, onion, mushrooms...you get the idea.  Instead of sauce, I just cooked down some tomatoes, skins and all, added some garlic and used those on the par-baked crust.  I must say, that it worked great.

It's a great project with kids and if you use parchment paper to roll out the dough, you can then transfer the parchment right to your stone or cookie sheet and then pull the paper right off the hot sheet (it cools almost immediately) and there's virtually NO MESS!!!!!!

Don't forget to make a fun playlist of music for your pizza making soundtrack.  Some tunes on mine:

• Louis Prima: Oh Maria, Volare, Buona Sera
• Dean Martin: You're Nobody, Sway, Ain't that a Kick in the Head
• Diana Krall: World on a String, Peel me a Grape
• Jamie Cullum: I Get a Kick Out of You, Get Your Way
• Pink Martini: Hang on Little Tomato, Una Notte A Napoli
• Nat King Cole: Mona Lisa
• Perry Como: Forget Domani, Papa Loves Mambo, Anema E Core, Catch a Falling Star
• The Gaylords: That's Amore
• Peter Cincotti: Ain't Misbehavin', Raise the Roof, You don't Know Me
• Any Sinatra, Dino 
• Tony Bennet: I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Here are some photos from our pizzeria night.

Little Jessica's Margherita Pizza

Nearly perfect crust

FOR THE DOUGH

1 3/4 cups warm (100 to 110 degree) water

2 packages dry yeast

1 tablespoon honey

Good olive oil

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading

Kosher salt

1. Combine the water, yeast, honey and 3 tablespoons of olive oil in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. When the yeast is dissolved, add 3 cups of flour, then 2 teaspoons salt, and mix on medium-low speed. While mixing, add up to 1 more cup of flour, or just enough to make a soft dough. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until smooth, sprinkling it with the flour as necessary to keep it from sticking to the bowl.

2. When the dough is ready, turn it out onto a floured board and knead it by hand a dozen times. It should be smooth and elastic.

3. Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl and turn it to cover it lightly with oil. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Cucumbers with hummus, grilled squash, tomatoes, rest of the farm stand corn. Simple dinner :)

{ Skipped the garden today due to all the rain last night. Grilling squash, eggplant from the garden and cucumbers with sweet chili dressing.

Looks like the veggies won't make the grill tonight! Plan B: oven roasted!

Gardenitis Uncontrollus

That's Latin for what happens when you have a heat wave followed by some overcast days, a bit of rain and cooler temperatures.  Oh, and you're gone for a week!     Last night we had quite the thunder boomer to welcome me back.  Before the storm, I managed to get out to the garden and check out how the weather break treated it.  Good news to report!  My cucumbers are going gangbusters, there was a whole new pile of beans, some yellow crook-neck squash and of course, those crazy peppers.  This morning I ventured back out in the mud and picked beans and peppers and some squash and cucumbers that apparently grew overnight!  Last night I had to use my skirt....I wasn't planning on picking anything, and as you can see I was enjoying a glass of wine, just out for a little stroll with the cat and a gander at the garden. So much for that!!!

I should know by now not to go out there without a basket!

One of my little watermelons!!  He's about the size of a softball.  Another one out there is baseball size and I have some cantaloupes that are various sizes and some are as big as two softballs put together.
Judging by the number of fruits on the vines, it's going to be quite the melon bounty.  Hopefully, they'll do okay, because I have never had good luck with melons.  The one year they did well, Mr. Groundhog found them before I could pick them.

In the meantime, I guess I have enough stuff to tide me over for a while.  We visited a stand in Burnt Chimney this week-end and bought some sweet corn, zucchini and peaches from a little lady.  (She was really little, seriously, and her voice was like a munchkin).

I'm thinking a veggie dinner tonight: caprese salad (yes, still have some hanger-on tomatoes), corn on the grill, cucumbers (maybe I'll throw those into the caprese) and...that will probably be enough!

Tomorrow, I'll make some zucchini bread and take a loaf to my friend who just gave birth.

I use the recipe from Cook's Illustrated.  I've tried them all.  No, really, I have.  One year I had a bumper crop of zucchini.  It was INSANE!  So I was on a mission to find the best recipe and I like this one the best.

So here it is.  Don't tell anyone.  THE BLUE NOTES ARE FROM ME, THE ORANGE ONES FROM THE CHEF I GOT THIS FROM!!!

  

Oh, and incase you're wondering where I was for a week and what I was doing?  I was cooking and chillaxin' at Smith Mountain Lake.  Here's a peek:

Zucchini Bread

Yields = (1) 9-inch loaf

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 pound zucchini, washed and dried, ends and stems removed, cut in half lengthwise and seeded if using large zucchini, each half cut into 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped coarse *I used pecans because most recipes call for walnuts and they were so good, I don't think I'll ever go back to walnuts in zucchini bread. (This is  note from another chef, not the garden spot.  I think I used pecans once, too.)1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup plain yogurt *I used lemon yogurt, since I didn't have plain yogurt on hand. This worked well and I will stick to the lemon yogurt in future batches. (I've never tried lemon yogurt, so I can't vouche for it.  there will be more sugar in a flavored yogurt, so keep that in mind)
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
1 Tbsp. juice from a lemon
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees f. and adjust oven rack to middle position. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan; dust with flour, tapping out the excess.

2) Shread zucchini using a food processor, using the shreading blade. Transfer shreaded zucchini to a strainer, toss zucchini with 2 Tbsp. of sugar, then place strainer over bowl, set at least 2 inches over the bowl and allow to drain for about 30 minutes. (you may also want to squeeze the zucchini with a paper towel.

3) Meanwhile, spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 5 to 7 minutes. *Jill's Note: Don't skip this step! The toasted pecans added another level of flavor to this bread--so yummy! Transfer the nuts to a cooling rack and cool completely. Transfer the nuts to a large bowl; add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and whisk until combined. Set aside.

4) Whisk together the remaining 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar, yogurt, eggs, lemon juice, and melted butter in a medium bowl until combined. Set aside.

5) After the zucchini has drained, squeeze the zucchini with several layers of paper towels to absorb excess moisture. Stir the zucchini and the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture until just moistened. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth surface with a rubber spatula.

6) Bake until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55-60 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool for at least 1 hour before serving.

Fall Garden

 (yep, time to think about that)!

o Garden Spot will be catching up today from the computer w/ garden updates and photos, recipes, menu recaps, cooking with kids and some fall garden chat.

 Bought some veggies at a farm stand: beautiful Japanese eggplant, zucchini and squash and roasted it with fresh onion, garlic, a couple splashes of soy sauce.  Grill would have been better, but still DEELISH!

Drinking a cup of Super Irish Breakfast Tea waiting for a Bald Eagle to leave his perch and take to the sky again...

Garden is  probably loving the cool snap and rain! A lot of work awaits, I'm sure!!

V Cooking for friends this week! Pictures and recipes coming soon!! Cucumbers and squash are coming in, new bean plants and okra are up and everything is p