Cucumber Archives

Natural, Roasted Chicken. It’s What’s for Dinner.

August 21, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 7 Comments

It’s hard to believe that it really is late August.

School has started and is in full swing.

The sun is down before nine.

The corn is tall.

And the garden is full of produce.

Like these peppers.

And tomatoes.

Tomatoes.

Tomatoes!

With so much naturally raised produce in the kitchen I decided to cook the naturally raised chicken from my Farmer’s Market trip in July for dinner on Monday night.

I had never cooked a whole chicken and used the website 100 Days of Real Food as a stepping stone. I visit this site often as it is a great resource for cutting out over processed food from your diet. The author takes a realistic and relatable approach as she has (precious) kids and she doesn’t want to “worry” about food, but rather be confident in her family’s food choices.

On the website there is a post about roasting a whole chicken: http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/05/14/recipe-how-to-roast-whole-chicken-safely-defrost-meat/

Perfect.

A chicken seasoned with lemons, garlic and rosemary.

Even more perfect. Some of my favorite flavors and I already had local rosemary and garlic in the house.

The post begins with how to properly defrost a chicken. She mentions that even though she has lived to tell about defrosting meat on the counter, the USDA recommends that meat should be defrosted slowly in the refrigerator.

… Something that made this ServSafe certified, hospitality professional proud.

Once defrosted, I mixed the herbs, seasonings, and oils together in a small bowl.

The next order of business was to remove the “giblets or bag of ‘parts’ that may be stored inside the chicken.”

The chicken man at the market had mentioned the “giblet bag” was in there. I remember thinking when I made the purchase, “Oh wow. That’s nice. He bagged those up and put them back in. I bet there are people who want to keep those.”

I looked in my defrosted chicken’s butt. I didn’t see any evidence of a ziplock baggie or saran wrap like I was expecting.

Weird.

I opened the rear end more. A sleek brown, jelly-ish mass was in plain sight.

I had just read the chapter in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” where Michael Pollan processes free range chickens on Joel Salatin’s Virginia farm. Pollan wrote about removing the chicken’s insides after the bird bleeds out.

I knew what I was looking at… it was the bird’s liver.

There was no actual “bag.”

I had been lied to…? Maybe he just forgot to bag up this one…?

Or, it’s an expression. Slang, if you will.

… For chicken organs.

I also remembered from my read that removing these organs needs to be done carefully. Pollan warned that a ruptured gall bladder can be a big mess.

“What the heck am I supposed to do?” I thought, desperately wishing Adam was home. He could handle this.

I looked at the clock. Adam wouldn’t be home for about an hour. And the bird would take that long in the oven. I couldn’t wait.

So, I did what every girl who didn’t know what 4-H was until she was eighteen would do: I Googled it.

The first page I saw said to “Gently reach in and simply remove the giblets.”

Seriously? That’s all you got, Google?!

After many other failed searches and confusing youtube videos, I decided to suck it up.

“Like a band aid,” I told myself, sticking my hand in the bird’s rear end. I wrapped my fingers around the bundle in the cavity of the chicken, wincing, eye’s shut and gave it a pull.

“Ohhhhmyyyygodddd,” I squealed out loud as my hand emerged.

Browns, pinks, yellows and blues made up the still slightly frozen mass. (Thank God. Had that been any squishier we would have had issues.)

Just be glad I didn’t take a picture.

Once I recovered (and threw the giblets away), I brushed the bird with the herbed oil marinade, stuffed the lemon peels in the chest cavity, and placed him in the oven for about an hour.

Right around the time Adam got home from work the chicken had reached 170 degrees. I let it rest on the stove top while I chopped up some tomatoes and cucumbers to serve as a side with a splash of red wine vinegar. Light and easy.

The aroma of the rosemary, garlic, and lemon married well with the chicken, filled the kitchen and demolished any traumatizing mental images of giblets.

By the time I plated everything I couldn’t wait to give it a try.

It seems crazy, but the natural, free range bird did taste different than the chicken breasts from the grocery store that I am used to. It was moist, flavorful, and felt as though I could really taste the chicken.

I am looking forward to having more natural birds from our own backyard this winter.

… And having someone else do the processing.

It’s 95 Degree’s Out and I am Freezing…

July 17, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 3 Comments

For the last week or so we have had HUGE takes from the garden every day. While this is exciting, it’s also a tad overwhelming. I finally had the feeling of, “Oh, geez… How are we ever going to eat all this food?”

The baby shower was great timing last weekend because I was able to use plenty of produce from the garden. I made a big salad with the mixed greens and just had different toppings and dressings so people could make it their own. I also prepared this great cucumber salad we have already made multiple times this summer. It’s really simple to make and only requires a few ingredients. That’s always a win for me.

Recipe: http://www.takingonmagazines.com/cucumber-salad-from-all-you/

Another recipe that we made for the party is also a go to in the summer is this sautéed zucchini side dish. We have been making this recipe for two years now; I pretty much know it by heart. The flavors go together so well and compliment any meal.

… Sorry no awesome iPhone picture. But, there is one at this link to the recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Garden-Zucchini—Corn-Saute

Thanks to the bounty of produce accumulating on my counter top, I decided it was time to do some freezing. Freezing is a great way to preserve fruits and vegetables and is much simpler than canning. Frozen veggies are good for about twelve months.

Or, so I read.

I, of course, had never done this before, but it really didn’t seem too bad.

I started with snap beans because ours were towering and full of peas. I have been picking them for about two weeks. They make great additions to salads and even serve as a great snack with some hummus or without. The flavor of these peas has been incredible.

After work I spent about thirty minutes picking as many of the larger beans that I could find (…in the massive heat wave that is hitting the Midwest currently) I headed in to get to work in the kitchen.

I cleaned and snipped the end of the beans with a knife.

Next, I got everything set up to blanch the beans.

Blanching is when you heat up veggies and then quickly cool them to lock in flavor and nutrients. I actually had not blanched anything since lab courses in college, but it is, fortunately, really easy.

I set a pot on the stove top to bring to a boil, a big bowl full of ice and cold water, and a cookie sheet lined with paper towels. The beans were put in boiling water for two minutes. I then lifted them with a large straining spoon and dunked them into the ice water.

The instant they hit the water they turned a bight, beautiful green, just like I remembered would happen from that early morning lab. The beans were in the ice water for two minutes as well. I then strained them out and placed them on the cookie sheets. The paper towels quickly absorbed their moisture.

I repeated the process until my many snap beans were blanched and drying on the cookie sheets. I took another paper towel and pressed it on top of them to pick up any remaining water.

Next, you can put them directly into a ziplock bag to freeze or you can freeze them on the cookie sheets, then put them in ziplock bags after they had frozen. I choose the put them in the freezer on cookie sheets because it will prevent the beans from freezing stuck together.

I am so looking forward to using a handful of these summer beans throughout the winter in side dishes or stir fry’s.

Next, it was onto the zucchini. I thought I was in the clear with zucchini after the shower. I had sliced the nine zucchini’s I had in my kitchen to serve the crowd. After all that I was certain I wouldn’t have to worry about zucchini for little while.

Silly me…

Today- two days later- there were already six on my counter top.

You can blanch sliced or diced zucchini and it is great for stews and casseroles, but my poor little refrigerator ice maker needed to play catch up after the ice bath for all the snap beans. Maybe some other day.

Instead, I grated two zucchini’s and portioned them into ½ cup servings.

I wrapped each portion in saran wrap, put them into a zip lock bag, and placed them in the freezer. (Helpful Tip: Be sure to date and label whatever you freeze. This will help you out nine months from now when you cannot remember what you did today!)

This grated zucchini will be great for all sorts of baked goods, like zucchini cakes or muffins. I put them in half cup portions to make it easy to add to any batter. I was able to get eight cups out of two zucchini’s.

All in all, not bad and it really didn’t take too long. Now I can combat that feeling of panic that we will never be able to eat everything by knowing we will be eating from this garden all year long.

I already cannot wait to use these frozen items on a day in December, when I am feeling frozen myself, and remember how HOT it was today.

I got a Pickle…!

July 15, 2013 by theblogbloom.com 1 Comment

Last night we hosted a baby shower for a wife of one of Adam’s fraternity brothers. With the help of three of the other wives, it was a great party. It was our first time doing an actual, full meal for thirty people. And FOUR children.

Yep, we are there… I learned that I need to invest in some coloring books and maybe even a little table.

Yeah. So, two milestones this weekend: Big Dinner Party and Entertaining Kids. Thirty really is getting closer and closer.

This morning the dust settled and everyone, including Adam, was gone. He had to run up to Michigan. I had to get dishes done and things to pick up, so I flipped on the TV hoping for a good Real Housewives marathon to serve as background noise.

Turns out it was, apparently, amazing childhood movies of the nineties day. I “watched” a little bit of Home Alone 2, Liar Liar, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Little Rascals.

Man. I love, love, loved Little Rascals as a kid. I HAD to have the pink, Princess Jasmine style PJ’s that the Olsen twins wore in the girl’s sleepover scene. My sister and I wore them proud. At the same time, of course. I even remember a family friend comparing me to Darla. Maybe? A little? Not so sure.

And even at seven, I thought Porky and Buckwheat were so adorable. I mean, come on. They are precious.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJp5dCrRmb0]

It was funny timing because I actually had that “I Got a Pickle” song stuck in my head this week. I took my first stab at canning, with the help of my Mother-In-Law and Sister-In-Law, and started with pickles.

We planted pickling cucumbers in the spring and had been picking them for a couple weeks. Pickling cucumbers are similar to regular cucumbers. They grow on a vine, but are much shorter, a bit fatter and a much lighter shade of green.

We finally had about thirty so we were ready for pickles.

I have never canned before so it was a slight investment to get started. I bought pint sized mason jars, a water bath pot, and a canning kit (… I actually got this at Crate and Barrel on MAJOR sale last Fall) that includes things like a funnel, tongs and a jar lifter. I also picked up pickle canning seasoning packets because a few family friends recommend them and I was trying to make life easy for my first time canning. I chose a dill mix and bread and butter mix.

Nancy, my mother-in-law, and Amanda, my sister-in-law came over after work last Thursday and we got busy. After slicing all the pickles on the mandolin, (Which, I, of course, did not escape without injury. I sliced my thumb. So, be sure to use that safety thing if you use one…) we had to wash the jars then heat them up with boiling water. You can do this two different ways. You can heat them in the water bath pot or you can pour in boiling water and then pour it out. We poured in boiling water.

When I do this again, I will heat up the jars in the water bath so there are not as many things on the stove, I don’t have another thing to wash, and you have to get the water bath boiling for a later step anyways.

Then we stuffed the jars with the sliced cucumbers and filled them with the seasoning that we mixed and heated up with vinegar for the dills and sugar for the bread and butter pickles. We filled the jars until they had a half inch left until the top. We were sure to wipe the rims and make sure there were not any air pockets in the jars before we put on the heated lids and screw bands.

The BIG water bath pot.

The full jars then went into the water bath. Both recipes called for the jars to be submerged in the boiling water for five minutes. When they were done we put them on a cooling rack so they could cool down and seal. We read that you should leave the jars alone for twelve hours.

This was the fun part.

When the jars seal, they make a “pop.” Every pop, the three of us cheered as if we just found out the shoes we loved were on sale.

Dill pickles cooling.

A “Little Victory” as Amanda called it each time we heard a pop.

Later that night, I found we had a BIG Victory. Every single one of our jars sealed.

Bread and Butter Pickles

I finally gave a jar of dill pickles a try tonight. Dinner for me was a smorgasbord of left overs, so pickles fit in really well with the random things that made up my meal. I will admit; I was a little hesitant. I really didn’t know what to expect, so I smelled the open jar before I tasted them. They smelled just like dill pickles. I grabbed a couple slices and, sure enough, they tasted just like dill pickles!

The one difference was that they didn’t have that crispy, crunchy texture that pickles from the store have. I love that about pickles, so I reached out and read a few blogs. Sounds like I let my cucumbers get to ripe. A lot of what I read said you need to start with very freshly picked pickles. I had mine saved up so I could do one big canning day.

Lesson learned. Next time I will do the pickles in smaller batches and try to get that crispy, crunch.

Do you have any tips or tricks to get crunchy canned pickles?