pesto roasted chicken

I have basil coming out of my ears.

A few weeks ago, I spent over an hour at the sink rinsing and stemming the basil I’d cut from my garden, and I wound up with a mixing bowl packed with fresh basil. You would have thought I had massacred the garden for this basil, but the garden appeared untouched, despite my ten cups of basil leaves. I then spent a long, long time with my mini-Cuisinart making small batches of pesto. I froze some in ice cubes, so I now have enough pesto on hand to last me through next year.  I also oven-dried some of the basil, with great success. So now, I and the basil gods offer you pesto roasted chicken.

Once you’ve made the pesto (which goes really fast if you have a larger food processor, and are not stemming and washing a zillion cups of basil, but rather a more manageable amount), this dish comes together super easy. All you do is spread the pesto on the bird, pop it in the oven, and wait. A juicy, fresh, summery roast chicken greets you after about an hour.

Pesto Roasted Chicken
Adapted from About.com: Southern Food
Serves 4

You will need:
1 roasting chicken, washed and dried
1/4 cup pesto (See this recipe to make fresh pesto, or just use the jarred stuff)
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Fresh basil leaves
Salt and pepper

Rub about half of the pesto under the skin of the chicken, and about half on top of the chicken. Put the sliced lemon and fresh basil leaves in the bird cavity. Sprinkle the bird with salt and pepper. Roast in a 425 degree oven until the meatiest part of the thigh registers 165 degrees. Remove from oven and let rest about ten minutes before carving.

canning, anyone?

I would like to learn to can.

I’ve been Facebooking about this all summer. Apparently, I have an uncle who is an excellent canner and has directed me to a few online resources, such as PickYourOwn.org. I’ve been stalking and bookmarking every post on preserving from one of my favorite blogs, Simple Bites. My father has offered to set me up with a beginner’s canning set, like this one. I’ve been keeping an eye out at used book stores for one of the books in the Ball canning series.  I admire the cans in local housewares stores– the jars remind me of the glass jelly jars I used to drink juice out of when I was little. Some have the familiar diamond pattern, and others are simpler, smooth with one raised floral design. Some are large, some are short and squat, and some look so standard. But I haven’t actually canned anything.

I have a million excuses. My boyfriend and I recently moved, and who wants to move a dozen or more jars, in addition to the fourteen (!!) boxes of books? Now that we are settled in, we are still waiting for the apartment complex to finish installing our pantry. In the meantime, where would I put the cans? Not to mention, who wants to stand over a hot stove for more than an hour when it’s over 100 degrees outside? Also, I can’t afford a pressure cooker, and don’t you need one of those? But these are all just excuses, a way for me to get out of trying something new.

So I’m putting it out there. Sometime in the next few weeks, I’m going to do some sort of small-batch canning. (I mean, who needs a zillion jars of tomato sauce? Not me. Small steps, people.) A friend of mine is also excited about canning, so she and I are going to have an afternoon canning party, and I will finally get over my irrational fear of food-borne illnesses and boiling water baths. What I need from you, dear readers, are ideas.

What should I can as my first project?

Photo by 3liz4, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.

creole-esque pasta with shrimp

I’m honestly not sure what to call this pasta. When the fork hit my mouth, I thought of gumbo and jambalaya and all those wonderful Creole flavors, although I’m not sure that was the original intent.

I also am not the designer of this dish. This dish came together after my boyfriend realized that some of the peppers from our garden needed to be eaten like, now, and we had a few other leftover veggies that were running low on shelf life. So he sautéed them in a pan with oil, boiled some water, and made me dinner. And it was delicious. And took about twenty minutes.

Creole-esque Pasta with Shrimp
Serves 2
Note: We tend to use frozen, raw shrimp. When we can find them already peeled and deveined, we do that as a time-saver. This week, we could only find deveined, but peeling them is a cinch. Just put them in a colander under running cold water (or, if you’re in Texas and in a drought, in a colander in a sinkful of cold water) and in about ten minutes, they’re soft enough to peel.

You will need:
1/2 lb. pasta
10-12 large shrimp
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. butter
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Cayenne pepper, to taste (substitute with red pepper flakes, if desired)
Creole seasoning
Splash of heavy cream
Salt and pepper, to taste
Freshly grated parmesan cheese, to taste

Boil a pot of water and cook pasta according to package directions. Set aside.

Heat the oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, but don’t let the butter burn. Add the shrimp and cook about 1 minute. Turn all shrimp and cook about 30 seconds. Remove from heat.*

Add onion, pepper, garlic, and spices, and cook until softened and slightly caramelized. Add pasta and shrimp to skillet and toss to coat pasta in oil and vegetables. Add cream and toss to evenly distribute. Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary. Serve in bowls and top with parmesan cheese.

*The key to not overcooking shrimp is to undercook them. When you remove them from the heat to a bowl, they will continue to cook each other for a few more minutes. For pasta, they also continue cooking when you add them to the hot noodles. You want them to be just barely opaque when you cook them initially.

tomato soup, made with fresh tomatoes

I know I’ve already posted a tomato soup recipe, but that one used canned tomatoes. This one uses fresh tomatoes.

It’s completely different.

Actually, it’s not, but it’s nice to think it would be. And currently, my garden is bursting with fresh tomatoes. I may post about my first foray into canning in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, my every meal revolves around tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are halved and sauteed to go into tomato-basil pasta, or diced, mixed with olive oil and basil, and spooned onto toast for cool bruschetta. Larger tomatoes are sliced and eaten raw or roasted to top a pizza. Green tomatoes are chopped fine and mixed into guacamole. Several pounds of tomatoes were exported to Mississippi and dropped with my grandparents, where they were sliced onto homemade doughburgers. And last week, 5 or 6 ripe tomatoes were sliced, diced, tossed in a pot, and blended into spicy tomato soup.

I know soup isn’t a summer food, but it had rained for the first time in months so it was an unseasonably cool 87 degrees outside! Bookmark this and make it in November, ok?

Tomato Soup with Fresh Tomatoes
Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Note: The original recipe called for processing the soup in a food mill. If you own one, do that. I don’t, so I used an immersion blender. Some of the reviewers strained the soup through a fine-mesh strainer for a smoother texture. I don’t mind my soup a little chunky, so I also skipped this step, but feel free to go for it!

You will need:
4 c. diced tomatoes
1 quarter onion, diced
1/2 celery stalk, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 c. chicken broth
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. sugar
1-2 pinches red pepper flakes (optional)

Combine the tomatoes, onion, celery, garlic, and chicken broth in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Using an immersion blender, blend the soup until smooth.

In a separate saucepan of similar size, melt the butter over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, to make a roux. When the roux is medium-brown, add a small amount of the soup and stir constantly to avoid lumps. Add the soup in small batches to the roux, stirring constantly. Add the salt, sugar, and pepper. (I was unable to avoid lumps, so I just gave the soup another shot of the immersion blender. It was fine.)

Serve immediately garnished with basil, chives, grated cheese, or croutons, and alongside a grilled cheese sandwich or some cheddar-scallion biscuits.

Photo by roboppy, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.

grandma’s chocolate gravy

Grandma, please forgive me.

I just got back from visiting my family in Mississippi, and in between touring the largest home garden I’ve ever seen, being kicked out of the kitchen more times than I can count, and drinking quarts of sweet tea, I kind of stole my grandmother’s recipe for biscuits with chocolate gravy.

I’ve never been to Mississippi and not had chocolate-and-biscuits for breakfast. It’s a family tradition, but like most traditions, we all do it differently. I split the biscuit, slather it with butter, and spoon the chocolate on top. Mom chops the biscuits into small pieces, dots the plate with butter, and pours on the chocolate with a heavier hand than I do. Grandma puts a pat of butter on the plate, tops it with chocolate, smooshes the butter and chocolate together, and then dips the biscuit in that. Grandpa eschews the chocolate altogether, but uses Grandma’s method to mix butter with sorghum molasses. Grandpa’s way, lacking chocolate entirely, is obviously wrong.

Like so many family recipes, it never occurred to me until this most recent visit to ask Grandma to teach me how to make the chocolate gravy. (Her attitude about me in the kitchen was such that I didn’t even ask, but instead resorted to subtle subterfuge. The one thing I got to do all weekend? Chop pecans. Grandma needs no help, thank you very much.) My great-grandmother died without my having ever inquired after her recipe for chocolate pie. Thankfully, the chocolate pie was passed down to a cousin of mine with more sense than I, but I’ve learned my lesson. I casually asked my grandma what she put in her chocolate gravy, ran to get a notepad when she wasn’t looking, and stuffed the recipe in my purse.

It’s for posterity, Grandma! I had to do it!

I’ve printed the recipe below as Grandma dictated it to me, but (at the risk of incurring significant wrath) I’ve added a few suggestions. Serve this alongside your favorite biscuits at your next brunch or Christmas breakfast and your family will swoon. My hunch is that leftover gravy, should you have any, would be excellent on ice cream, a brownie, crepes, or on more biscuits.

Grandma’s Chocolate Gravy
Serves 6-ish
Note: The amount of liquid is approximate. The gravy should be on the thin side, but not too thin. Practice.

You will need:
1.5 c. granulated sugar
2 tbsp. flour
2-3 tbsp. cocoa powder
About 1 c. water (I bet you could use milk to get a creamier gravy)
2 tbsp. butter

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring intermittently, until mixture bubbles, becomes very frothy, and thickens significantly, about 15 minutes. Serve immediately over warm biscuits.

Photo by thebittenword.com, available under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

summer drinks: ginger beer margaritas

I’m blessed with a friend who makes the best margaritas I’ve ever tasted. Brittany’s margaritas are also dangerous, because as the night wears on, she gets more and more heavy-handed with the hard stuff. She’s never shared her secret recipe with me, but I have seen her include finishing splashes of unexpected ingredients. Once, she topped off my glass with pomegranate Italian soda. Another time, it was some sort of prickly pear soda. I think she’s also been known to make a regular margarita with lime soda. The lesson for me has been that margaritas are much enhanced with the addition of a little bit of carbonation.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when she showed up to my most recent poolside barbecue with ingredients for her own tequila concoction, but this one stands out. As she tells it, this drink is a lazy man’s version of some fancier drink she had in LA. She’s been recreating the drink at home, steadily leaving out ingredients until she came up with this simple, refreshing cocktail. It’s so easy that it feels like cheating to share this with you, but you’ll wow your friends at your next gathering, shindig, or hootenanny with this fizzy margarita.

A note about tequila: Brittany’s boyfriend, a tequila connoisseur, has been kind enough to school me on the proper usage of tequila. Expensive, premium tequila should be reserved for sipping. For most mixed drinks, however, a mid-level tequila blanco will taste fine and go down smooth. Personally, I’m one of those women who doesn’t like my cocktails to taste like they have any alcohol in them, and tequila blanco lacks the smokiness found in more aged tequilas, like tequila reposado. For your day-to-day mixing needs, I suggest El Jimador Tequila Blanco. If you insist on the “top shelf” experience, spring for Cabo Wabo Tequila Blanco.

Ginger Beer Margaritas
Recipe adapted from my friend Brittany
Note: to make a pitcher for a party, use 3-4 bottles of ginger beer, and 2 shots of tequila per bottle. Add lime juice to taste and serve over ice.
Serves 2

You will need:
1 bottle ginger beer
2 shots tequila blanco
Juice of 1 lime

Pour 1 shot tequila into each of two small tumblers. Add ice and split the ginger beer between the two glasses. Top with lime juice, stir, garnish with a lime, and serve.

Photo by Chromodoris_Lochi, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.