Kentucky Fajitas

My spring and summer days have gone into planting, weeding, watering, harvesting then eating or preserving. Yes, in my absence from the blog I’ve been doing what I write about –enjoying the goodness of the garden. I hope you’ve been doing the same.

I return today with last night’s meal. Anyone who’s been in a Mexican restaurant has smelled the sizzling fajitas as the onions and spices waft through the air on a trail of steam. The server delivers the tempting plate to a neighboring table and I sometimes wish I had ordered it. 

Fajitas are one of those dishes that easy to prepare at home, especially if you have leftover fried chicken. My husband is the fried chicken king. He generously cuts the breast portions in half so I have smaller pieces that are more appropriate for my appetite. If only the two of us partake of the chicken, I have plenty for leftovers for the upcoming week. So I return to my blog with Kentucky Fajitas, created with Jim’s fried chicken and vegetables from the garden.

Kentucky Fajitas

1 red bell pepper
1 small onion
1 small zucchini
1 carrot
a handful of Swiss chard
2 cloves of garlic
1 TBSP olive oil
salt, pepper, oregano and cumin to season
favorite salsa, cheese and tortillas

Slice first four vegetables into small sticks. Heat oil at medium heat in skillet. Add veggies and a little salt. Warm chicken in toaster oven. (You can also use a microwave or the skillet, but I find a toaster oven keeps it moist and doesn’t heat up the house tremendously, a benefit in warm weather.) Chop chard until you have 1 cup or so. Chop garlic and add to veggies. When veggies are nearly as soft as you want, toss in the chard then add a sprinkle of the remaining seasonings, except salsa. Turn veggies to low and check on chicken to see if it’s heated through.

Grate cheese. I use whatever I’m in the mood for and have in the house. Sometimes I like the crumbly, white Mexican cheese. Then I get on a Swiss cheese kick or only have cheddar in the house. Last night I used marble cheese.

I also alternate tortillas. I prefer corn tortillas, which have more flavor and fewer calories. Sometimes I also use whole wheat tortillas. Either kind will warm well in the microwave for 10 – 20 seconds or in a warm skillet.

With everything warm, I chopped the chicken into slices then laid out one whole wheat tortilla and one corn tortilla. The whole wheat tortilla was larger, so I put in a layer of cheese, veggies, chicken, salsa (we make our own) and more veggies. The corn tortilla is smaller so I filled it with just a little cheese, veggies and chicken. 

The result? When I return from our favorite Mexican restaurant, I drink lots of water. Their flavorful food is high in salt. Not so for our home-grown and prepared Kentucky Fajita. So try your own and enjoy the goodness of your own garden.

When the tomatoes need to be cooked now

We all have busy lives so we don’t always get into our gardens the minute something is ready to harvest. This week when I filled my basket with tomatoes, some of them needed to be cooked immediately. If a tomato is split or has a soft spot and it sits in the kitchen window too long (that’s where I keep them until there’s enough to can) they will attract fruit flies. The same is true of any other fruit or vegetables left on a counter. To avoid that problem, I decided to make a batch of pasta sauce.

By the time I had picked the tomatoes there wasn’t time to complete the sauce. What follows is a very rough two-day recipe for making a simple sauce from fresh produce and herbs. You could, of course, make it in one day but sometimes sauces deepen their flavor if left in the refrigerator overnight.  I apologize in advance for not being more exact with the recipe; it leaves lots of room for creativity! You’ll want to use the proportions of ingredients that are right for the amount of tomatoes you have.

Easy pasta sauce

Day 1 (takes 1 hour or so)

Chop ½ onion and 2 carrots. Sautee in olive oil in a large skillet or pot (that has a lid) that will hold all of the tomatoes you have. Smash two cloves of garlic then chop and add to the pan.

While the onion and carrots are slowly sautéing, chop 12 or so ripe tomatoes. Add them to the pan. Lightly salt and cook. Add ½ cup of red wine. Bring to a nice boil then turn down to simmer. Taste to see if you need to add sugar. I sprinkled just a little (no more than ¼ cup) over the top then stir it in.

Chop a big handful of fresh basil and add along with other herbs you like. I added dried marjoram, rosemary, thyme, black pepper, salt and a sprinkle of red pepper to give heat.  Turn off, cool then put on lid and store in refrigerator.

Day 2 (takes 30 minutes)

Warm the sauce base.

In another pan, brown ½ - 1 pound sweet Italian sausage. Chop green pepper and add to sausage. Chop 2/3 cup zucchini and add. Salt lightly. 

While that is cooking, boil salted pasta water and add pasta.

Drain fat from sausage pan, add to sauce and stir. Add ½ cup fresh parsley. Taste and adjust seasonings. If you have a leftover rind of Parmesan, chop it and add it. That will give you wonderful little bites of Parmesan in your dish.

When the pasta is done, spoon it onto the top of the sauce. Grate Romano cheese onto the pasta then stir. Grate more cheese onto the top of the dish and serve.

By the way, I know this might be some sort of sacrilege to the Italians, but I had a little bit of two different types of pasta leftover from earlier meals (bowtie and penne) so I mixed them for this dish. You can see that in the photo.

Tasting Summer in January

One of the beauties of preserving garden produce is that you have the opportunity to enjoy a bite of the season gone by even when your garden is resting. That’s what we did last night with a group of friends.

I decided it was time to start digging into the freezer to see what I had preserved to add some summer sunshine to a winter day. I found frozen yellow squash and pawpaw puree that I wanted to use. I also pulled a jar of our canned tomatoes from the shelf, garden carrots from the fridge, sweet potatoes from the basket and fresh parsley from under the grow light and went to work. Here’s the menu I came up with.

Italian Squash Soup
European Peasant Bread
French Lentil Salad
Sweet Potato Fries with Avocado Dip
Panko Crusted Salmon
Pawpaw Sour Cream Pie

I prepared the pie the night before so it could sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours before serving. The bread, which mixed white, whole wheat and rye flours, I put together during my Friday lunch break. Everything else I began preparing 2 ½ hours before I expected our guests.
The result? The smiles around the table and the requests for seconds told me the meal was a hit. Here are two of the recipes you can try.

Italian Squash Soup (adapted from Neal Brown’s recipe)
2-3 cloves fresh garlic
1 lb. cubed, frozen squash that is thawed
1 lb. cubed potato
1 small sliced carrot
1 jar tomatoes, crushed
16 oz. vegetable broth
¼ cup olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried parsley

Prepare potato and carrot. Heat olive oil. Add potato and carrot and sauté 5-10 minutes, until they begin to soften. Chop garlic and add to oil for one minute. Add remaining ingredients, cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Pawpaw Sour Cream Pie (adapted from Moosewood Cookbook, 1977)
Note: Most pawpaws are quite sweet so when cooking with them it’s important to taste them then decide if you should lessen the amount of sugar you add. This recipe has less sugar than the original. In addition, this pie is similar to cheesecake but not as firm; it’s very creamy.)

Crust:
1/3 lb. (1 package) crushed graham crackers
8 Tbs. melted butter
¾ tsp. cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
½ cup chopped, slivered almonds
Combine all ingredients and press into pie pan.

Filling:
¾ cup pawpaw pulp puree
12 oz. softened cream cheese
1/3 cup loosely packed brown sugar
t2 TBS fresh lemon juice
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup sour cream

Beat together well. Pour into crust. Cover and chill overnight.

Enjoy!

Sunday is garden feast day

I know Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest but it’s especially hard for me to do that during gardening season. I don’t feel a big Sunday obligation to weed and harvest (that was yesterday; more about that in tomorrow’s post) but I so love to cook that it’s hard for me to stay out of the kitchen, especially when my husband presents me with freshly dug carrots, a beautiful head of cabbage and apples to go with the tomatoes I picked the day before.

I began the day with the apples. I wanted to make chutney to can but still had a few apples left. Those I turned into applesauce, one of the easiest things you can make. Simply chop the apples, almost cover them with water, bring to a boil then turn down to simmer until they are soft. Keep an eye on them in case you need to add more water. When they are soft, I mash them then season with sugar and cinnamon. This simple method yields a chunky applesauce that you know is homemade and if you begin with flavorful apples, it will be much more satisfying than jarred apples sauce from the store. If you prefer it to be smoother, put it into your blender or food processor to finish.

With apple chutney and applesauce complete, I turned to the chicken I purchased from Marksbury Farm Market. Jim and I both took a gardening break on Saturday to watch Lidia’s Italy on public television and saw an easy and appealing preparation for Chicken Catanzaro-Style. I went to work on the stuffing while Jim removed the necessary bones. I do want to point out that when we watched her prepare it, Lidia appeared to use more herbs than the recipe called for. In addition, she used wine for cooking liquid after she had browned the chicken on both sides.

Another of our favorite Saturday cooking shows is America’s Test Kitchen. I had a recipe from them for Roasted Smashed Potatoes so I started on them while Jim made cabbage wedges wrapped in bacon. Next, I began the Maple Roasted Carrots (recipe below). While those three items roasted in the oven and the chicken continued to cook on the stove, I prepared bread, tomatoes and cheese for Baked Caprese Salad.

I love arranging the food on a platter when I have so many pieces to play with! I saved the beautifully green carrot tops for a vegetable bed. (They taste like carrots so make a nice addition to a meal.) With everything on the table I decided I should also put out the Concord grapes I bought at the farmer’s market to round out our meal.

When Jim walked in and saw all the food, he wanted to know who else was coming to dinner. Although I love to have friends and family here, this week it was just the two of us enjoying the Sunday garden feast—an apt reward for the sweat we put into growing most of the food on the table.

Maple Roasted Carrots
(With apologies for my vague instructions—it’s how I often cook!)

Fresh carrots
Olive oil
Maple syrup
Salt

Chop off carrot tops. Remove skin. Cut into whatever shape and size you prefer. I made our carrots into sticks about ¾” wide.

Put into pan with nearly ½” water (don’t cover them completely). Cover pan with foil and roast 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Check carrots for doneness. When they are nearly as soft as you want them, drain any remaining water, drizzle with olive oil and maple syrup. Toss. The carrots should be coated but not swimming in the oil and syrup. Sprinkle with salt. Return to oven 10 – 15 minutes until you can easily pierce them with a fork. Serve on a bed of carrot tops.

Soup season continues

Although we had a few days of temperatures in the 70s, the cooler weather has returned and along with it a pot of soup. I took two chicken backs out of the freezer the other day and didn’t use them. What to do? They looked perfect for using as a soup base to which I could combine some of our preserved vegetables. Even though this soup has very little meat in it (a chicken back is mostly bone) Jim still gave it a 10. That’s saying a lot!

Beth’s Gumbo
2 chicken backs plus miscellaneous chicken bones
1 strip dried seaweed
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 ½ c tomato juice
¾ c carrots
¾ c okra
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp oregano
½ tsp hot pepper
1 c barley (use less if you want more broth)

Put chicken in soup pot. Cover with water. Add seaweed and heat until boiling. Lower heat and simmer for an hour and a half.

Remove chicken from broth to cool. Add remaining ingredients and stir. When the chicken is cooled, remove the meat from the bone and add to the gumbo. Simmer for 30 minutes – 1 hour and taste for seasonings. This makes a thick soup so if you prefer more broth, adjust the ingredients.

Canned and frozen vegetables combine for good flavors

We harvested our first rhubarb this weekend. I made pie, which was delicious, but I plan to experiment with some savory rhubarb dishes as well. In the meantime, here's what else we've been eating . . .

I still have a few vegetables in the freezer and more on the shelves, so I’ve been trying to use more of them recently to accompany our meals. It’s fun to create new combinations of flavors and see which we like the best. Here are two that worked well for us.

Brown Garden Gumbo
1 quart jar canned green beans
1 quart jar canned tomatoes
½ bag frozen okra
Salt, pepper and red pepper

Cook together until the okra is cooked. Season to your taste.

Brown Garden Peas and Carrots
1 onion
1 pint jar carrots
1 bag frozen snow peas
Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Slice onion thinly. Carmelize by cooking slowing with a little salt in olive oil for 20 minutes or so. Add carrots and peas. Season with salt, pepper and garlic or garlic powder to taste.

Tortillas and cheese enliven frozen vegetables

I am beginning to see the end of some of my frozen vegetable supply. I think I used my last package of frozen greens this week when I made a burrito bake casserole based on a more protein heavy recipe I found years ago. This is something anyone can easily make to suit their own tastes.

For my version, I laid out the whole wheat tortillas and topped them with unthawed greens and corn, plus a few carrots we had canned. Then I added a mixture of our canned salsa and tomato puree plus the remains of our roasted chicken and some black beans that I whipped with sautéed onions and sour cream. For more bite, add jalapenos or your other favorite peppers. You can also add sour cream and cheese inside or anything else you think you would like.

Next, I folded them like burritos and put them in a casserole dish then covered with salsa and topped with cheese. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Alternately, you can prepare tortilla dishes like an Italian lasagna, alternating layers of tortillas with cheese, meat, vegetables and sauce. Of course, you can also make it meatless.

Either way is a relatively quick meal if the meat is leftover and the vegetables have been preserved, and therefore softened, and don’t need to be cooked. Use your creativity and see what you can come up with to tickle your taste buds.

Guest Column: Inspired by Company by Rachel Correll, St. Asaph Farm

From time-to-time, I’ll publish guest columns on this blog. Today, meet Rachel Correll, from whom I’ve been buying chickens for a couple of years. In fact, we just ate our last one from the freezer this week and are looking forward to the spring crop!

We have freezers full of our delicious meat but at 5 pm when I usually start thinking about dinner I wish I had thought about it the night before and had something thawing out in the fridge. I was craving a spicy chicken dish for a few days and needed some motivation to fix it. Our friends, the Bensons of Rolling Fork Farm, were coming for dinner. I still had some of their peas frozen in my freezer and two sweet potatoes remained from their farm as well...I started thinking. I had my own carrots and colorful peppers frozen, canned tomatoes, I had some parts and pieces of our chicken left and homemade broth—this was going to be good. I just needed to buy a few items and we had one rockin' Moroccan Chicken Stew!

Begin with . . .
Olive oil and butter
Salt
Pastured Chicken - I had frozen legs and wings and then I cut up a whole chicken and used all the pieces (except the neck and back and wingtips which I throw in a pot of water with my vegetable scraps and call it stock!)

First, remove the chicken skin - just for recipes that are more like a stew since the skin gets mushy and in my opinion does not add to the dish!

Rinse the chicken with cold water and pat dry with paper towels, sprinkle with salt.

Then, in a smoking hot skillet (I use my large Le Creuset since you can just continue to throw ingredients in and put the whole thing in the oven) add some olive oil and butter until it is hot and melted.

Place your chicken in the hot skillet and let it sear the outside well, a few minutes on each side will give a nice, crusty look to the outer parts of meat.

Turn and cook for 2-3 minutes on the other side(s) and remove from pan to continue cooking the remaining chicken.

When all of your chicken is done - you will need the rest of your ingredients -
Chopped onions -2
Ginger
Garlic
Red, yellow, green peppers - sliced to desired size
Can of tomatoes
Carrots - cut into 1 inch rounds
Sweet potatoes - cubed
Potatoes - cubed
Chicken stock
Cumin
Coriander
Tumeric
Cinnamon
Salt
Pepper
Spicy red pepper (Indian is what we have on hand)

Sautee onions, grated ginger and garlic in juice left in pan (add butter or oil if needed).

Add the peppers, cook until soft. Add a can or two of tomatoes. Then add your spices; I do not measure, just a spoon of each of these will do - except the spicy pepper, go easy on it, maybe 1/4 teaspoon. Cook this down for a few minutes.

Add your chicken stock, a few cups, and then toss in the rest of your vegetables. Bring to a boil and add the chicken pieces. Here it is. Cover it up, let it cook on your stove top for about an hour or more (the longer the better) or toss the whole thing into your oven at 325 degrees for a couple of hours. You may wait to add your root vegetables since they can get mushy. Taste test frequently once you know the chicken is cooked through and spice it up to your liking.

Serve this over basmati rice cooked with peas—a seriously rockin' dinner for your family and company, too.

Rachel McKinley Correll and her family own, operate and reside at St. Asaph Farm in Stanford, Kentucky. It all started four summers ago in a little house in town, with a newborn and 200 baby chicks in the laundry room. Our family, farm and home have grown - two kids, thousands of chickens, and plenty of turkeys, pigs and cows! We grow pastured, naturally raised meat and eggs - no hormones or antibiotics - just healthy and delicious food for our family and yours.

A hot pie for a cold night

Chicken pot pie is sort of like soup—you can throw in lots of vegetables that you’ve preserved to make a warm meal for a cold night. That’s what I did last night. Using carrots we had canned, peas and corn we had frozen, our sweet potato and the remains of a locally grown chicken that I had roasted earlier in the week, this dish came together in about 30 minutes. You’ll also notice that I didn’t use a canned, creamed soup for the broth, as many recipes call for. You can easily substitute brother and milk and end up with far less sodium.

Although I like to make my own pie dough, I cheated last night and used the puff pastry dough from the grocery freezer section. It did taste good. I didn’t even ask Jim for a rating, but he gave it a totally unsolicited 10.

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:
1 TBSP unsalted butter
1 yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic
1 C chopped carrots (fresh, home canned or frozen)
1 ½ C corn (fresh or frozen)
1 C sweet potato, diced
¼ C flour
1 C low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups chicken
1 C whole milk
1 ½ C frozen green peas
Sprinkle of oregano and parsley
Salt and pepper
1 TBSP white vinegar
Pie dough or frozen puff pastry, unthawed

Directions:
Melt butter in large, deep skillet. Sauté onion until soft, about five minutes. Add chopped garlic, carrots, corn and sweet potato. Sprinkle with salt and pepper then sauté a few more minutes. Sprinkle flour over vegetables, pour in broth and stir until all is well incorporated. Add chicken and milk. Stir and continue cooking until broth slightly thickens. Add peas, oregano and parsley. Stir and taste to determine if you need more salt and pepper. Remove from heat and stir in vinegar.

Place six ramekins on a cookie sheet. Fill each with the pot pie filling. Cut dough to cover the top of each ramekin and place dough. Cut a slit in each top. Bake approximately 25 minutes at 400 degrees.