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.

Gnocchi makes for great kid-friendly cooking

Two years ago or so my goddaughter and I made gnocchi together. She enjoyed it so much that she has repeatedly asked since then if we could make it again. On Sunday, we did just that.

Preparing gnocchi (an Italian potato dumpling) is a great experience for anyone who enjoys tactile cooking. The potato, egg, flour dough becomes silky as you knead then roll it into a rope. After that, you cut it into small pillows that you can “roll” with a fork or a honey dipper. Either of them shapes the pillows with subtle lines that help absorb whatever sort of sauce you decide to put on it.

Anna and I made what we called Italian Patriot’s Sauce with sautéed spinach, onion, red pepper and garlic. The colors of the Italian flag suggested its name. With that combination of fresh from the garden vegetables, you also get some nutrition to add to all of that butter and potato.

We used Michael Chiarello’s gnocchi recipe. Instead of using only egg yolks as the recipe calls for, I use 2-3 whole eggs.




After we mixed up the dough, we rolled it into ropes.











Next, Anna cut it into small pillows, then rolled it with the honey dipper.


While the gnocchi rested, we prepared the sauce by slowly sautéing our vegetables in butter.



After dropping the gnocchi into boiling water, we were only a few minutes from topping it with the sauce and eating.

We decided that the next time we need to make a double batch. One batch barely feeds four people who love gnocchi!

Haitian Rice and Beans

Just about daily I chat online with my friend Juana Rodriguez who is working in Haiti to improve living conditions. Her dream is to establish a cocoa farm that would give people dignified work while also protecting the land. Those sorts of dreams can be very difficult to bring to reality in a country of so much poverty. But like the people of Haiti, Juana is resilient. She moves forward, even if conditions dictate moving at a slow pace.

Yolantha Harrison-Pace is another woman I think of when Haiti comes to mind. An artist who lives in Kentucky, Yolantha visited Haiti prior to the 2010 earthquake and returned to write a chapbook called, Nobody Knows the Haiti I’ve Seen. Besides relating stories of the land and people she came to know, Yolantha also included recipes from Haiti. She agreed to share one of these recipes with us for our simple Lenten meal of the week.

Haitian Rice and Beans

¼ cup fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of thyme
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 TBSP salt
2 TBSP oil
1 cup rice
2 cups cooked beans
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup water

With a mortar and pestle, mash parsley, garlic, thyme, onion and salt into thick paste. Heat the paste and oil in a pot, add rice. Coat rice with oil, add vegetable broth, water and beans. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and cover, simmering until the rice is tender and water has been absorbed. Stir and serve hot.

As I eat my rice and beans, I also pray for Juana, Yolantha and people of Haiti.

The gift of gardening

Yesterday I lost an earring and found a pair of glasses. It reminded me of the balance of life—things come to us and go away. Sometimes what comes to us is totally unanticipated. It might be something we never would have put on an “I need” list yet when it arrives we discover joy in the richness it has added to our lives. We realize it’s a true gift from God.

Gardening is like that for me. It wasn’t something I had written on my “To do before I die” list. I hadn’t thought that much about how I had become a gardener until recently when I was asked to give a talk to a group of high school students about how I, as a writer, brought green spaces into my life. I called it “Writing as a gardener . . . gardening as a writer.”

As I prepared the talk, I remembered the disillusionment I felt after a few years in the work world—going into a building to work before 8:30 every morning and not leaving until 5:00 or later. It seemed so unnatural to be that disconnected with nature when God had given us so much beauty and goodness. Writing requires substantial time sitting at a desk and putting down the words, but it seemed there should be a better way than doing this in an office cubbyhole every day.

Yet there were also times when, as a journalist working on an assignment, I learned about the benefit of planting beans with corn in Central America. I later interviewed Fr. Al Fritsch at Appalachia Science the Public Interest about living simply and making organic gardening and edible landscaping part of that lifestyle. I toured farms in Appalachia, met with farmers in Honduras and began to ask questions about the food I ate. Over the course of several years, my work as a journalist unearthed my desire to integrate gardening and more outdoor time into my life.

So I am blessed with the lifestyle I now have that allows me to write, most days from my home, and get up from my desk for a walk around the yard, a weeding break or time for harvesting the vegetables. Tonight I’ll eat chili made with our own tomatoes and roasted vegetable—all from the back yard garden. I’ll also be thankful, once again, that God dropped this wonderful gift into my life.

Fall Roasted Vegetables

Peel and cut into uniform pieces butternut squash, onions, peppers and potatoes. Cut beets into slightly smaller pieces because they take longer to roast. If you have okra to add, cut off the ends and leave this in slightly larger pieces. Experiment with the vegetable mixture you like.

Toss everything with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Put on a baking sheet in a single layer. Roast in 400 degree oven for 30 – 45 minutes, stirring every 10 – 15 minutes. The length of time the vegetables take to cook will depend on the size you cut them. Enjoy vegetables alone or mixed with rice.

For the scent of basil

This morning I cut some of the fresh, beautiful basil that is happily growing in my garden. It grew so generously from seed that I planted it with the vegetables as well as in two pots on the front sidewalk and still had some to give away. When I cut it, the aroma is so enticing that I want to use it immediately.

So that’s what I did, almost. I brought it inside, washed it, dried it and put half of it into a bag; the other half went into a container with chives. When my hunger awakened, it would be the centerpiece of my lunch for the day.

But oh, the garden had some other fresh goodies to add to the lunch, also. When it came time to prepare it, I chopped zucchini, sweet onion and garlic from the garden, along with part of a red pepper from the store. I sautéed them all in olive oil and butter, with a little salt, then tossed some al dente penne pasta with it, sprinkling on some parmesan cheese to stick to the veggies and pasta. It seemed a little dry, so I added a bit more olive oil and tossed again. I filled my pasta bowl then topped it with grated pecorino romano cheese.

Yes, I felt like I was in heaven. A good bowl of pasta can make me happy any day of the week. And it took less than 30 minutes to prepare and cook.

Just in case you’re growing basil, too, check out the piece from NPR about this year’s basil blight. If I see it coming my way, I’ll harvest as much as I can and bring one of the pots inside to see if it will continue to grow, free of blight. It will just depend on which way the wind blows.

Timing the garden

Our spring came later than usual this year in central Kentucky. The beginning of the month was as dry as August and filled with encouraging sunshine. But it only takes a day for clouds, rain and cool winds to reappear and remind us it’s not summer yet. That’s what we have this week.

Gardeners pay attention to the weather because it’s important. The vegetables I have in the ground now are thriving because this is when they like to grow. Lettuce, spinach, arugula, onions, potatoes, beets, peas, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage are all happily opening their arms to the drizzle and the cool nights. The weather will make them sweet, crisp and filled with flavor. This is their season.

Just last week the warm weather dangled temptation in front of many gardeners, including my husband. “When are you going to plant your tomatoes?” he asked as he eyed the healthy plants I grew from seed. He encouraged me to go ahead and put a few of them in the ground. I declined. In Kentucky it’s never a good idea to put summer crops in the ground until some time in May.

If you’re new to gardening and unsure about the timing of setting our your plants, check with your local agricultural extension office. When I first started gardening, a friend gave me a gardening guide from the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service that included earliest and latest safe planting dates. Just last year I picked up an updated version. It’s invaluable, especially on those tempting days of spring.

First garden meal of the season

Jim and I are fans of the television show Chopped and he’s been promising to give me a Chopped challenge. It came on Sunday in our modified version—prepare an entrée plate, no time limit, with fresh garden asparagus, onions, arugula and radishes.

So I went to work. All of those great veggies sounded like they would pair nicely with rice and fish, so I first got out two salmon fillets to unthaw. Then I put on a pot of brown rice to cook. Next, I sliced the onions thinly and put them in a sauté pan with olive oil and a little butter and salt to slowly caramelize them. We love onions that way!

With the longest cooking items on, I turned the oven on 425 degrees then cut the asparagus in one to two inch pieces, tossed it with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and put it in to roast. I also prepared the salmon with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and put it in approximately 10 minutes later. Remember, you only need a small amount of salt to bring out flavors; no need to go overboard because then you’ll only taste salt.

As the rice cooked, I considered what to add to it. I decided to head outside to check out the herbs. I cut some oregano, parsley and sage. I put the sage into the pan where I was slowly browning some butter and two whole garlic cloves. Then I chopped the oregano and added it to the cooked rice, along with chopped arugula and a little bit of freshly grated parmesan cheese. I used that as the bed for the salmon (topped with fresh parsley) and the onions and asparagus, which I mixed. On the side, I placed a fresh arugula and radish salad, a piece of parmesan flatbread (leftover) and a bowl of tomato soup (leftover also).

Since the sun was shining, I suggested we eat outside, which turned out to be a wonderful choice for our first garden meal of the season. By the way, it might not have gotten me anywhere in a competition but Jim gave the whole thing a 10 and didn’t even add salt. This recipe is a keeper!

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.

Getting started in the garden

After a weekend of hours outside in the yard, my muscles screamed in relief at being exercised once again in the garden. Yes, the digging and bending and squatting reintroduced those muscles to their typical spring soreness, but it’s a welcome ache.

In order to eat from the garden all year long, it’s necessary to either garden yourself or find a reliable local food source in your community. This is the time in Kentucky when the weather typically allows us to begin stepping outside to get started on this year’s planting adventures.

So what is it gardeners should be doing in March? I learn a little something new every year, from articles I read as well as fellow gardeners who are always happy to share what they know. Here are a few tasks to consider:

1) Decide what you want to plant. If you’re new to gardening, start small and purchase plants that are easier to begin from started plants (cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, etc.) and buy seeds for what can easily begin in your own soil (corn, squash, lettuce, greens, etc.).

2) Think about the best places to plant in your yard. Where do you get the most sunlight during the growing months? Remember that the sun shifts throughout the seasons so the sunny spots you see in your yard now might not be so at the same times and for the same length in two months. Also, trees will be recovering their leaves, which will provide a shade you likely don’t see in your yard now.

3) Make a garden plan on paper. It will help you decide how much you can put into your space. Keep in mind that tall crops, like corn, can shade some vegetables around them. Crops that vine, like cucumbers and pumpkins, will travel around your garden. And, because that cauliflower plant is small when you buy it doesn’t mean it will stay that way. Allow space for plant growth.

4) If you do decide to start seedlings yourself, put them in a very sunny, warm window in the house, keep the soil moist and cover with a plastic top or plastic wrap to promote the heat and humidity that encourages sprouting.

5) Prepare your soil. If the soil is heavy and clay-like, you’ll want to add compost to improve it. Your local Extension office should be able to test the soil for you if you have questions about its acidity.

6) Get a hoe, shovel and pruning sheers to use throughout the season.

7) If you already have fruit bushes or trees in your space, as well as flower bushes, March is the time to prune.

I’m hoping we can get our onions and potatoes to plant within the week. That would be an even stronger sign to me that spring really is on its way!

Don’t Give Up on the Kale

As the end of October nears, I feel like every growing thing I still find in my garden is a gift. Last night we feasted on salmon, roasted vegetables (butternut squash, beets, sweet potatoes, white potatoes and onions) and kale. Since I had neglected it, the kale was surely a gift.
I had planted it in the corner of the garden in the spring. I didn’t realize that corner of the garden was prone to takeover by grass and no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to keep it clear enough for the kale to grow uninhibited. So I gave up on it, assuming I wouldn’t get kale this year.

This summer, I broke my ankle and couldn’t get into my garden for about seven weeks. When I returned, I saw the kale had grown into enormous leaves that actually overshadowed the grass! Knowing that kale so large would likely be bitter, I cut it anyway reasoning I could season it to get rid of the bitterness. That’s exactly what I did last night and it worked. I first caramelized onions then added the chopped kale, layering it with salt. I then put in a little sugar, lemon juice and chicken broth, topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds, and there wasn’t a bit of bitterness in that powerful load of vitamins K, A and C. I’ll never give up on my kale again!

For more information about the powerful nutrition you get from kale, go to http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38.