Roast Chicken Salad

Recently, my Mom's friends have been having a monthly cookbook dinner, were the host chooses the cookbook and then each person, or family, chooses a recipe to bring. Two months ago, my Mom's friends Sue and John hosted the party. Since Sue had just returned from Great Britain in December, she choose  Jamie Oliver's, Jamie's Great Britain. Of course, every time we get the cookbook, we try to pick a recipe where we can use a majority of local ingredients. Through Utah Farms CSA, we had received some greens from Julie Clifford and had some bacon from her farm that we bought last summer and froze, we substituted frozen corn from last summer for the green beans, used fresh local bread from Harmon's that uses local wheat, chicken from the McDowell's, mint and parsley we grow ourselves and garlic from Utah Farms CSA so that the only thing not local was the mustard! 

Everyone enjoyed it and I am sure we will be making it again.

Ingredients:

4 lb. free range chicken (McDowell Family Farm)
olive oil or butter
Redmond Sea Salt and freshly ground pepper
few sprigs of thyme (from our garden)
1 lemon
2 cups cherry tomatoes (Utah Farms CSA)
1 bulb garlic
1 country loaf of bread, torn into one inch cubes (we love Harmans)
6 pieces of country bacon (Clifford Family Farm)
2 cups frozen corn kernels (from the summer), thawed
1 tablespoonful whole grain mustard
2 tablespoonfuls honey vinegar (Slide Ridge Honey Vinegar)
a bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
a bunch of fresh mint, chopped
some chives

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place chicken on medium to large roasting pan. Drizzle olive oil all over the chicken, or if using butter, place pats of butter under the skin of the chicken and the rub a little on the outside of the skin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Take thyme leaves and rub all over the skin of the chicken. Cut the lemon in half and place it, along with the thyme sprigs, into the chicken cavity. Place in the oven and set the timer for one hour. Meanwhile, half the cherry tomatoes and then smash the garlic bulb, discarding the skins. After about 30 minutes, put the tomatoes and garlic into the bottom of the roasting pan and stir to make sure the tomatoes are coated with the juices. Cook for additional 30 minutes or until done.
2. Transfer the roasted chicken to a plate and cover with foil. Let cool.
3. Toss the bread cubes into the roasting pan and toss them until they are coated with the juices. Spread the cubes of bread out in the tray and place the strips of bacon on top. Put the pan back into the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the bread and bacon are crispy and golden.
4. Once the chicken has cooled, remove all the chicken skin and set aside. Strip all the meat off of the bone (don't forget to save the carcass and skin to make some chicken broth).  Add the thawed corn, about 5-6 tbls. of extra-virgin olive oil, the wholegrain mustard and the vinegar. Add the parsley, mint and chives and stir well.
5. Add the croutons to the chicken mixture and toss well right before serving.

Vegetable Barley Soup

I believe there is a soup season, a time when the weather is just right for a bowl of nice warm soup. Over this winter I know my mom and I have been having a lot soup.  I like soup a lot, especially after a soccer practice that ended up being in the snow.  So, when we got barley in our winter CSA, we were excited to make this delicious barley soup. Barley has a ton of fiber, as you might have guessed, which is great for your body. This soup is flavored with garam masala, which is a blend of ground spices common in North India and other South Asian cuisines.  This mixture of spices adds just the right amount of flavor and kick to the barley. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did and are getting ready for the farmers market!

Ingredients:

1 tbl. olive oil
2-3 onions, chopped
3 big carrots, peeled and chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
3 garlic cloves, split, germ removed and chopped
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
3/4 tsp. garam masala or curry powder
1/2 tsp. turmeric
6 cups homemade chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup pearl barley

1.  Heat the oil in a soup pot or Dutch oven.  Add the next 5 ingredients and stir them in the pot until they glisten with oil. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook for 5 minutes over low heat. Stir in the spices,  then cover and cook additional 15 minutes, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft but not browned.
2. Add the broth and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the barley. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until the barley is tender and puffed, about 20-40 minutes so you need to check it often. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

Recipe for homemade garam masala:

4 tbls. coriander seeds
1 tbl. cumin seeds
1 tbl. black peppercorns
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 & 1/2 tsp ground ginger
3-4 pods cardamon
3/4 tsp. whole cloves
2- 1" pieces of cinnamon
3/4 tsp. crushed bay leaves

1. Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat and gently roast all ingredients, except for the ground ginger, until they turn a few shades darker. Stir occasionally and be patient. Do not turn heat to high or you can easily burn the spices and ruin the overall taste.
2. Once roasted, turn off the heat and allow to cool.
3. Once cool, remove the cardammon seeds from their pods and mix them back in with the other spices. Add the ground ginger and nutmeg.
4. Grind them all together either in a mortar and pestle or clean, dry coffee grinder to a fine powder.
5. Store in an air-tight container in a cool, dark place.

Meyer Lemon and Pepper Barley Risotto

My mom has always made risotto and I have always loved it.  Risotto is usually a dish of arborio rice slow-cooked in broth to a creamy consistency and mostly combined with parmesan, butter, and onions. You have to be willing to stand by the stovetop and slowly stir in the broth in small additions to make sure you have a nice and creamy risotto. If fact, if you order it in a restaurant in Italy, they will warn you how long it will take since the chef makes each dish individually.  This recipe uses barley instead of rice, which is not something I knew you could do.  Even so, this barley risotto is just as delicious as any rice risotto. I like this recipe without the mushrooms, since I am not a big fan of fungi, but I would assume that even with mushrooms this recipe would be delicious! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!! 

Ingredients:

2 tbl. butter (Winder Farms)
1 cup diced onion (Utah Farms CSA)
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped (Utah Farms CSA)
2 red or yellow peppers, seeded and diced (Utah Farms CSA)
1 & 1/2 cups pearl barley (West Mountain Wheat)
1 cup white wine
4-6 cups hot chicken or vegetable broth (homemade)
Grated zest of 4 Meyer lemons
1/2 cup grated parmesan or swiss cheese (Beehive Cheese)
2 tbl. sour cream (Meadow Gold)
sunflower sprouts (Sunbridge Growers)

1. Melt butter in large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook over medium, stirring constantly for approximately 5 minutes. Add diced peppers and cook for additional 5 minutes.
2. Add barley to the pan and stir until pearls are covered well with butter and are shiny. Add the wine and simmer until all the wine is absorbed. Stir often.
3. Add one cup of broth to pan. Simmer and stir mixture until most of the broth is absorbed. Add additional broth one cup at a time, allowing each addition to be fully absorbed before adding the next cup of broth. Continue this step when the barley has reached the degree of tenderness or chewiness desired.
4. Remove pan from heat and add in the lemon zest and cheese. After addition of cheese, season with additional salt if desired and ground pepper to taste.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Greens over Pasta

Hi, this is Bianca's mom again. My girlfriends and I got together this past week for one of our monthly birthday parties. I usually make the dessert but was assigned a vegetable dish this go round. As Bianca has stated previously in her blog, I usually don't like to go out to the store to buy ingredients but try to find  recipes that match the ingredients that I already have on hand. This saves me a lot of running around, gives me some fun time to research recipes, and usually leads to some interesting meals. I had just gotten Lynne Rossetta Kasper's cookbook The Splendid Tables How to Eat Supper from the library thinking it would be my turn to pick our next cookbook for our cooking club but looks like my turn won't come until June for that club so I started combing through the book to see what I could make for the birthday dinner. This recipe looked interesting since it called for roasting spring greens along with the onions, garlic and butternut squash. I was a little skeptical since I have never roasted salad greens before but the worse that could happen would be that I wouldn't like it and then have to come up with a different recipe for the birthday bash. Utah Farms CSA has delivered fresh spring greens from Julie Clifford for the past 2 weeks so I had some on-hand along with a butternut squash, onions and garlic that I had in storage. For the pasta, I had some bow-tie pasta that I received as a gift (imported from Italy) but you can get local pasta from either Chidester Farms (at Dan's supermarkets) or Nu Nooz pasta at Harman's. We always have cheese on-hand from the multitude of our local providers so that wasn't a problem.

It is amazing how easy this dish is to prepare. I usually hate peeling, seeding and dicing a butternut squash but his cookbook gave a great tip on an easier way to do it. First, half the squash lengthwise and then place it cut side down on your cutting board. Cut it crosswise into 1-inch-thick slices. This makes it easier to trim away the peel and seeds from each slice. Wish I had known about this years ago.

All together, this dish took about 35-40 minutes to prepare with only about 5-10 minutes of prep time. Easy enough to handle for a quick, weekday meal.

Ingredients:

3 to 3 1/2 pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 medium to large onion, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 big handfuls of spring greens (Utah Farms CSA)
1/3 cup basil, torn (www.farmersdaughterherbs.com)
16 large, fresh sage leaves (fresh from my garden)
5 large garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbl. tightly packed brown sugar
salt and pepper
1 pound bow-tie pasta or wide noodles
1/c cup half-and-half (Winder Farms)
1 to 1-1/2 cup shredded Asiago or Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Place one large shallow sheet pan in the oven to heat it up.
2. Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot.
3. In a big bowl, toss together the first 8 ingredients and generously season with salt and pepper. Being careful not to burn yourself, pull out the oven rack containing the cookie sheet and spread the vegetables evenly on the cookie sheet. Return rack to oven and bake for approximately 25-30 minutes, or until the squash is tender. Turn the vegetables one to two times during roasting.
4. Meanwhile, cook pasta in the salted, boiling water until al dente, which is tender but still firm. Drain.
5. When the squash is tender, turn the oven to broil to help roast and caramelize the vegetables. Watch the oven closely to prevent burning and turn often to roast all vegetables evenly. The greens will almost become crispy and the squash should brown a bit around the edges, about 5 minutes total broiling time. Remove for the oven.
6. Place all the vegetables in a large serving bowl. Add the hot pasta, half-and-half and one cup of the cheese. Toss well. Add more cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
adapted from The Splendid Tables How to Eat Supper by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift

Crème Brûlée

Crème Brûlée has always been delicious, but when it is local it is even better. Recently, my mom and her friends have been having cookbook parties where each of them cooks one recipe from the same cookbook.  With all these great meals we are having, we are getting introduced to all these new great cookbooks. This recipe is from one of those cookbooks and it is great! We personally had a little trouble with our culinary torch to solidify the sugar, but other than that, it was a great recipe. The jams and jellies at the bottom perfectly round off this delicious dish!! I hope you enjoy this!

Note: these need to chill at least 3 hours in the refrigerator before serving so, if you are planning these for a dinner party, it is best to make them the night before.

Ingredients:

 2 tbl. jam or jelly
1 & 1/4 cups heavy cream (Winder Farms)
1/2 cup whole milk (Winder Farms)
3 large egg yolks (Clifford Family Farm)
1/3 cups sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
brownulated or strained brown sugar for topping

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Center rack in the oven.
2. Place six ramekins on a baking sheet lined with silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Spoon 1 tsp. of jam or jelly in bottom of each ramekin and spread out as evenly as possible.
3.  Using a medium sized bowl or 4 cup glass measuring cup, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together and set aside.
4. Mix the cream and milk together and bring just to a boil in microwave or on stovetop.
5. Place the bowl with egg yolk mixture on a silicone baking mat or dish towel to keep it from sliding around. Whisking constantly, add about one quarter of the hot cream mixture to the egg yolks slowly in a small stream to avoid cooking the eggs. If you add the hot liquid to quickly to the egg yolks, you risk cooking the eggs so be very patient. The slower you go, the creamier the mixture and the less likely that you will need to strain the final mixture. Continue to whisk in the remaining hot cream in a slow but steady stream. Stir in the vanilla.
6. Rap the bowl to remove any air bubbles. If there is a lot of foam on the top of the mixture, skim it off. Pour approximately 1/2 cup of the cream into each individual ramekin. You may need to strain the cream if you notice any lumps. Again, tap each ramekin to remove bubbles and skim any foam off the top.
7. Carefully place the baking sheet with prepared ramekins in the center rack of the oven and bake for 50-60 minutes or until the centers are just set.  You can test this by tapping the side of the ramekins. The custard should jiggle just a little but should appear firm and set.
8. Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature. Cover each ramekin with plastic rap and place in refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.
9. You can serve these without caramelized sugar on top but if you have a kitchen torch, working with one creme at a time, sprinkle one tablespoonful of brown sugar on top of the chilled creme and then caramelize with your torch until the sugars bubbles and browns. We have tried using less than one tbl. of sugar to save calories but it doesn't really work and you just end up heating up the creme itself so if you are going to caramelize the creme, I think you are stuck using that additional tablespoonful of sugar.
from Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan

Garlic and Lemon Chicken in a Pot

I was thinking that my poor friend Leslie would never get her cookbook back from me! Every evening we would come home and just leaf through Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan and then 'localize' the recipes and plan out our week. I just wasn't ready to move to the next cookbook for February! This recipe is pictured on the cover of her cookbook and, of course, looks better than the picture here but I am sure it didn't taste any better than ours. The seal from the dough almost makes the pot act like a pressure cooker making the chicken so tender and juicy. The vegetables and broth just give the entire dish a great flavor. The only ingredients you can't get locally are the preserved lemons, olive oil and sugar. Everything else we get from Utah Farms CSA except for the chicken which I buy from the McDowells about 5-6 chickens at a time and then place in my freezer. You can even make your own preserved lemons with just some salt and Meyer lemons.  Liberty Heights fresh has some really fresh and well prized lemons.

My only issue is that I am not sure if you are supposed to actually EAT the bread around the pot rim. There isn't any salt in the dough so, when cooked, it tends to be fairly hard and not too tasteful by itself but gets nice and flavorful and moist if you just break off some pieces and let them soak in the broth, which is what I did.  

You need to pry the pot lid off with either a screwdriver or strong knife so try not to scratch your Dutch oven in the process. It makes a beautiful presentation and we just carved the chicken in the oven itself at the table.

Ingredients:

1/2 perserved lemon, peel only, cut into small squares
1 cup water
1/4 cups sugar
5 tbls. extra-virgin olive oil
2 large potatoes (russet or sweet),  peeled and each cut into 8 pieces
2 onions, peeled, each cut into 8 pieces
8 carrots, peeled, trimmed and quartered Utah Farms CSA
4 celery stalks, peeled, trimmed and quartered
4 garlic heads, cloves separated but not peeled
3 thyme sprigs (still alive in my herb garden)
3 parsley sprigs (frozen from my friend Sue's summer garden)
2 rosemary sprigs (still alive in my herb garden)
1 chicken, about 4 pounds
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 & 1/2 cups freshly milled flour
3/4 cup hot water

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Center a rack in the oven.
2. Bring water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan, drop in the lemon peel and boil for one minute; turn off heat; drain and save the lemon peel.
3. Heat 2 tbl. of olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the vegetables and garlic, season with salt and pepper and cook until the vegetables are brown on all sides. Spoon the vegetables into a large Dutch oven or other large pot with a lid. Stir in the herbs and the preserved lemon.
4. Return the skillet to the heat, add additional tbl. of olive oil and brown the chicken on all sides. Place the browned chicken into the Dutch oven, surrounding it with the vegetables. Mix together the chicken broth, wine and remaining 2 tbls. of olive oil and pour over the chicken and vegetables.
5. Mix the 1 & 1/2 cups flour with the hot water in a medium bowl. With hands dusted with flour, roll the dough out into a long rope. Place the long rope of dough on the rim of the pot. Piece it together if it breaks apart but cover the entire rim. Press the lid onto the dough to seal the pot.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 55 minutes.
7. Remove from oven. Now you will need to pry the top off the pot either using a heavy spatula or screwdriver.
8. I just carved the chicken while it was in the pot and then you can dip some of the cooked dough in he broth to soften and eat.
adapted from Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan

Potato, Onion and Leek Soup

This is just another recipe out of Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table cookbook that my Mom's cookbook group had in January. Her friend Barb made this recipe but choose to add some brussels sprouts with the leeks and potatoes although I think you could add almost any vegetable to this soup and it would give it a different flavor. I love it just the way it is but my Mom said she would love to try it with some sautéed red peppers, spinach, or corn but she is very reluctant to use up any more of our winter store of vegetables. Barb served this as the first course of the meal, but as with the stuffed squash recipe posted previously, it is a full meal in itself.

It is a really quick meal to make and you should have most ingredients in your larder. We did have to go out and buy whole milk since we usually only have 2% milk in the house and we didn't know if that would work. We made this right before I had to go off to a viola lesson and then come back to a girl scout meeting. Things then got a little crazy when I accidentally left my viola at home and so we had to turn around and come back home to get it for my lesson. Of course, now we were running really late and had girl scouts waiting on our front stoop when we got home. We couldn't eat in front of them but still hadn't eaten dinner so we offered all the girl scouts a bowl of this soup. They all loved it so I guess it isn't true that kids don't like healthy-homemade food!

Ingredients:

2 tbl.  butter
2 onions, peeled and chopped
4 small cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large leek, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
2 cups peeled and cubed russet potato
6 thyme sprigs (still alive in our herb garden)
2 fresh, large sage leaves (still alive in our herb garden)
4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth (homemade)
3 cups whole milk (Winder Farms)
Redmond Sea Salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot over low heat. Add the onion and garlic and stir until well coated with butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cover pot and let cook over low heat for about 10 minutes to sweat the onions. Cook until onions are soft but not colored.
2. Add the remaining ingredients, raise heat to medium and bring to a boil. Once the soup boils, reduce heat to low, cover the pot and simmer gently for another 30-40 minutes. Stir pot often, and add salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook until the vegetables are soft and can be mashed.
3. Season again with salt and pepper if needed.
4. Once vegetables are soft, you can puree some or all of it or serve chunky. My preference is to slightly puree the soup with my immersion blender.
adapted from Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan
Options:
---our friend Barb added some brussels sprouts in step #2. Now, I am a BIG lover of brussels sprouts but other "non-lovers" still thought this soup was delicious
---Barb also added homemade croutons to each bowl. We make these all the time by taking some stale bread, cutting it into cubes, spraying with olive oil and then baking in a 350 degree oven until a golden brown.
--- I would love to try this recipe with a little added corn but I am reluctant to use up my stored, frozen kernels in a dish that is delicious already. It being February, I am starting to hoard some of my stored food to last until spring and summer come around!