Parsley in the Herb Garden: 2010 CSA Week 1

The day I've been waiting for is finally here! I got to pick up my first CSA (community supported agriculture) share this afternoon. Beautiful organic produce, with the promise of more each week!

We chose Borski Organic Farms in Kaysville, just to the north of Salt Lake City. My goal for this growing season is to share one recipe with you for each week of the CSA.

I decided I wanted to document the beauty of the harvest, so here you go:

In particular, these English peas are beautiful. The boy wants to plant the garlic, and I've got a salad in mind for tomorrow's lunch.

As for the parsley, it will get to hang out in the back with the other plants: 3 struggling tomatoes, 1 strong tomato, a basil plant, and an oregano plant. [Last year's tomatoes]

It might not be too late: sign up for your own CSA shares through LocalHarvest.

Tip: Warming Gluten Free Muffins

We just returned from our exhausting but truly delightful week as counselors at Camp Hodia. I had 11 Celiacs in my care, including me and the boy. I prepared the replacement portions of the meals for the Celiac crew, baking, stirring, broiling, browning and grilling. I shopped before we left at Harmons for all the tasty bars and snacks we would need, as well as some mixes to make my work easier.

On the breakfast menu twice were muffins. Gluten free muffins, that I prepared in my own kitchen, bagged up, and drove to camp. They were beautiful and pristine when I took them out of the oven at my house. Seriously - they could have been in a magazine. They were bagged in gallon freezer bags the same morning, and then layered on top of each other in a plastic bin for their multi-state road trip.

Have you ever seen a gluten free blueberry muffin after it's traveled 300 miles, and then been refrigerated for a week? It looks a little sad, I would say. But I came up with something perfect to make it possible to serve warm, delicious muffins that got rave reviews.

Turn the oven on to 350 degrees and allow it to preheat. On a baking sheet covered in foil (especially if you are not sure where the baking sheet has been, or belongs to someone else), set out the muffins, allowing space between each one. Put the tray of muffins in the oven for about 15 minutes. The time in the oven serves to warm the muffins, crisp them a little bit, and remove that glossy soggy look to the tops of them (from being in a freezer bag).

Last month: Dairy Free Mango Clove Ice Cream
Last year: Gluten Free Zucchini Muffins

Frustration with Easy Bake Ovens

My kitchen is handily equipped with a late 1950s Martha Washington wall-mounted oven. It's small, cute, and stainless steel, and in the last 5 years has served me very well.

Until last night, when I was planning on a furiously long baking session in preparation for camp. I baked a batch of baking powder biscuits, and set some beautiful baguettes on the stove to rise. We left the house for a little date night, and I returned home to preheat my oven, ready to bake the baguettes. I turned it on. I waited. Nothing.
The oven isn't heating up. I checked the breakers, all was well there. Frustrated and still needing to bake several batches of muffins, and the ever-rising gluten free baguettes, I went to the store.

This was my impulse buy.A Black and Decker Perfect Broil Convection Oven. This morning I am baking some blueberry sour cream muffins, conveyor belt style (and only 6 at a time!), in my little Easy Baker, which sits on the counter in front of my previous Easy Baker, which is no longer with us.

I'll share the baguette recipe with you soon :). I hope you enjoy your week. Mine is going to be filled with laughter and the Sawtooth Mountains.

Oven Roasted Garlic Recipe

My life has been moving at some sort of rocket pace in the last few days. I can't believe both how much I've accomplished, and how much there is left to do. To give you an idea, I've:

• Rented a car to drive while my own car is getting fixed
  
• Dropped off my own car
• Planned, booked, shopped for, and cooked for a 15-person family camping trip, including 4 people who eat gluten free. I am the most sensitive of the four, but nonetheless, we all love having gluten free graham crackers to sandwich those melty marshmallows and gooey chocolate.
• Planning, shopping and calling the families of children with celiac who will be attending Camp Hodia this summer. I heart summer camp.
• Baking and freezing a ridiculous number of calzones for the boy. He loves them.
• Moved offices (within the same job, just a different physical office), attended meetings, and consistently misplaced my security badge.
• Cleaned out my kitchen cupboards of foods that aren't gluten free enough to make room for new non-perishables. Sorry, Stagg chili, I don't feel that good after I eat you.

When life is moving fast like this, I want something slow cooked and full of love. (Oh, and sorry to dump my to-do list on you. It's been a busy week). I want something that smells delicious, and is one of those staple foods that make everything else taste better.

I'm talking about roasted garlic. We added it to some delicious homemade marinara sauce (sorry Hunt's pizza sauce, you and Stagg are on the naughty list), and it's great on pizza or in calzones. The house smells heavenly as it cooks too.

It's so simple. Grab a few heads of garlic from the store and roast away. It will slow life down a little for you.

Oven Roasted Garlic
instructions from here

several heads of garlic
olive oil

Cut the pointed ends of the garlic heads. Place the garlic heads inside a piece of foil that is large enough to close loosely around the garlic heads. Drizzle with olive oil, and close the foil into a little pouch. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, or until the garlic is soft.

Remove the packet from the oven. Open the pouch carefully and let the garlic heads cool. Once the garlic has cooled enough to touch, simply hold each head from the bottom, and squeeze around each garlic clove. It will pop out easily.

When you've removed all the garlic heads from their husks, they should be soft enough to mash with a fork, or even your chef's knife. This garlic paste is perfect to add to that homemade marinara.

Bacon Wrapped Mango Chicken with Balsamic Reduction Recipe

Peanut butter and jelly. For that matter, peanut butter and chocolate. Strawberries and cream. There are just those combinations of flavors that really sing. I've mentioned it before, but the delightful, sauce-stained book on my shelf The Flavor Bible is a compilation of so many of these beautiful combinations put together by some great chefs.

When I was preparing for mango week (oh yeah, mango week! I totally left you hanging, didn't I?), I flipped through The Flavor Bible to see what would really highlight the fresh and sweet mango flavor. All the typical flavors you would expect, like ginger, which we added to the Mango Teriyaki Pork, and bananas, which were part of the Mango-Banana Oatmeal Muffins. I remember seeing green onions on that list, but didn't have an application for them yet. I'll get to that in a minute.

So, mango week. I was all set to highlight Sherry's delicious Chicken with Green Mango. We didn't get it made. It was the beginning of a three-day weekend, and both the boy and I had Monday off for Memorial Day. I know that sounds typical, but this is a new thing for us. So, we whipped up a plan to enjoy ourselves. Mango week sat dustily on the kitchen counter until last night. I had a mango in the fridge and I was already putting together a bacon-wrapped chicken recipe for the boy, but it was full of dairy. I needed a dairy free option for me, so I grabbed the mango.

And let me tell you, those combinations I was talking about - this is a big winner. The layering of sweet mangoes with fresh and light green onions, wrapped in salty bacon, and drizzled with that complex balsamic reduction - this is not your everyday chicken! It's fresh and bright, but complex, and I think this could be on the table for company and leave you with some happy guests. Awwww yeah.

Don't worry, we'll be having Chicken with Green Mango soon though.

Bacon Wrapped Mango Chicken with Balsamic Reduction

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 mango, sliced
1/2 cup fresh green onions
fresh cracked black pepper
sea salt
dried onion flakes
4 slices pre-cooked bacon
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the mango away from the pit in long, thin slices. Each chicken breast will use one half of the mango. Set aside.

Laying the chicken breast flat, slice horizontally through the middle to create a pocket, leaving one side connected. Prop open the chicken breast. Stuff with mango slices and a portion of green onions.

Close the stuffed chicken breast, and wrap 2 pieces of bacon around each stuffed chicken breast. Set into a casserole dish with the ends of the bacon tucked under the chicken breasts, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dried onion. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

With about 15 minutes left on the baking time, put the balsamic vinegar on the stove. Simmer until the vinegar reduces and thickens slightly. When the chicken breasts come out of the oven, plate and drizzle with the balsamic reduction.


I'll leave you with a little bit of our weekend adventure. We went to the poignant work of art created by Robert Smithson in 1970: The Spiral Jetty. We loved it. The salty air, the dirt road, the huge rattlesnakes that got the boy a little jumpy on the hike back, and all the magic.