Friday Night Photos: Fall Brings Changes to the Garden (2011 Garden Update #10)

Thanks to beautiful September weather, the garden is still hanging on for a few more weeks!

This year Utah has had one of those gorgeous Septembers, hot weather with just a slight crisp feel to the air.  I love this time of year, especially when it stays mild enough that the garden keeps producing vegetables and herbs.  A few of my garden plants are gone and some are only producing at half-speed, but I'm always happy for whatever fall produce I can get.  This is the time of year when I start evaluating what I grew and thinking about what I'll change for next year's garden, so here are a few of the things I noticed when I went out and wandered around last night.

Recipe for Chicken Adobo (Chicken Cooked in Soy Sauce and Vinegar)

Authentic Chicken Adobo would use bone-in chicken thighs, but this version was still very tasty.

(Updated September 2011)  Chicken Adobo is the national dish of the Philipines, and it's traditionally made with a whole chicken or bone-in chicken legs and thighs.  The chicken is simmered in the Adobo mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, water, garlic, bay leaves, onions, and pepper, and then usually broiled or pan-fried. Back in 2005 I tried my hand at making Chicken Adobo, using the recipe from Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World and some advice I'd gotten from other food bloggers. That recipe was long overdue for a photo make-over, and I wanted to see if I could make this dish a little more diet legal for South Beach Dieters, so I tried making it with skinless, boneless chicken breasts. If you make this with chicken breasts, definitely you need to be careful not to cook it too long or use heat that's too high, but the new version was really quite tasty.

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Adams 100% Natural Peanut Butter

Adams 100% Natural Peanut Butter has been my favorite for years!

I never have liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I also wasn't excited about peanut butter and honey, which was my mom's version of the famous American sandwich for kids.  In those days no one had ever heard of "natural" peanut butter, and with ten kids to feed my mom bought the "in store" brand that was loaded with sugar.   In 2004 when I went on the South Beach Diet, I cleaned out my cupboards and gave away foods with white flour, sugar, or other processed carbs, and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever bought a natural type of peanut butter without added sugar.  Maybe it's because I'd never been a big consumer of high-sugar peanut butters, but I loved this Adams 100% Natural Peanut Butter from the first time I tried it.  Now the chunky and smooth varieties are something I always have in my fridge. 

Recipe for Amazing Asian Green Salad with Soy-Sesame Dressing and Sesame Seeds

This Amazing Asian Salad with Soy-Sesame Dressing is a new favorite at my house!

I'm pretty infatuated with salads.  Many days I'll eat a big salad for lunch and then have another small salad as part of my dinner.  I like salads of every kind, and years ago the Salads category on the blog got so crowded I had to subdivide it to make the page more manageable. With all the salad love going on around here, every so often a salad comes along that really knocks my socks off, and for more than a week now I've been eating this amazing Asian green salad with Soy-Sesame Dressing and sesame seeds.

Salute to Swiss Chard and Favorite Swiss Chard Recipes (2011 Garden Update #9)

Rainbow Swiss chard can produce three gorgeous colors from one package of seeds!

Have you grown or eaten Swiss chard?  Lately I've been surprised to discover how many people aren't well acquainted with this hearty and tasty type of garden greens, so I thought I'd share a little of what I've learned about growing chard and some of my favorite recipes using it.  Swiss chard (also called chard, silverbeet, and perpetual spinach) is an easy-to-grow type of greens that are highly nutritious.  Both the stems and leaves are good to eat.  Small, tender leaves make a nice addition to salads or are good for making chard pesto, while larger leaves should be cut away from the ribs so stems and leaves can be cooked separately.  Chard has a pleasant flavor that's a little stronger than spinach, but not as strong as kale or mustard greens.

Recipe for Swiss Chard and Goat Cheese Custard Bake

This tasty Swiss Chard and Goat Cheese Custard Bake will help you eat your greens.

Many of my food preferences have changed since I've been writing this blog, and one good change is the way I've developed such an appreciation for greens.  I confess that before I started growing them in my garden, I never cooked much with Red Russian Kale, dark green curly kale, or Swiss chard.  Now these uber-healthful greens have turned into something I love experimenting with every year when the garden is producing them like crazy.   I've made a few different breakfast dishes with greens baked into the eggs, but this Swiss Chard and Goat Cheese Custard Bake is a bit different, with a generous amount of goat cheese (the soft type that comes in a log) combined with milk and then mixed into just enough eggs to bind it together into a barely-firm custard.  I loved the flavor combination with the Swiss chard, goat cheese, and other cheeses, and although you could certainly eat this for breakfast I've been eating it for a light dinner for the last couple of days.

Recipe for Easy Roasted Tomatoes and Shrimp with Feta, Oregano, and Fennel

Make this easy recipe for Roasted Tomatoes and Shrimp while you can still get fresh garden tomatoes!

The recipes I find myself making over and over again are the ones with super-easy preparation methods but plenty of complex flavors, and this recipe for Roasted Tomatoes and Shrimp with Feta, Oregano, and Fennel definitely falls into that category.  I admit, it was the lovely garden tomatoes that I have in abundance right now that pushed me into making this, but because roasting intensifies the flavor of the tomatoes, I think you could make this with good quality store-bought tomatoes as well. 

Friday Favorites: Ten Favorite Salads with Beans for Indian Summer Picnics (or lunches at work)

When it's Indian Summer weather, pack some White Bean and Tuna Salad and go on a picnic!

I'm crazy enough over bean salads that I had a hard time narrowing down my list to just ten favorites to spotlight here.  Seriously I can eat bean salads all year long, but I think they're especially good for the summer-into-fall type of days when it's a bit too hot to cook, but just cool enough that you'd like something a little substantial for lunch.  For the last few weeks Utah has been having that kind of gorgeous Indian Summer weather that makes everyone want to be outside, and any of these favorite bean salads would be great to pack up for a picnic or to take with you on a hike.  And if the weather is not cooperating where you are, all these salads would make a great option for a brown lunch for work as well.

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Stevia In The Raw Zero Calorie Granulated Sweetener

I've loved this new Stevia Granulated Sweetener in every recipe I've tried it in.

Since I'm trying to avoid sugar in my recipes, when I spotted Stevia Extract in the Raw Zero Calorie Granulated Sweetener in the grocery store, it definitely caught my eye.  For years I've used Splenda in baked goods, sauces, or dressings, and I've always been happy with it.  I've never considered Splenda to be harmful, and still don't (despite the occasional comments I get from the "food police" lecturing me for using it.)  But I respect the right of everyone to make their own food choices (which is why I never publish those "food police" type comments).  I know some people don't want to use Splenda, and if you're one of those people, this new product might be a nice option for you.

Recipe for Butter Bean Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives, Feta, and Basil Vinaigrette

This Butter Bean Salad would make a great lunch salad to take to work.

When it's September and garden tomatoes and basil are are still plentiful, something you'll always find in my fridge is Basil Vinaigrette.  This combination of chopped basil and vinaigrette dressing is my favorite thing for drizzling over sliced tomatoes.  The basil vinaigrette has endless uses, and this time a touch of it was the perfect flavor to add some pizazz to this simple salad of butter beans, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and cubes of Feta cheese.  Whether you use it as a side salad with something cooked on the grill or pack it in a plastic container to take for lunch, this unique bean salad has all the flavors of summer (just in case you'd like to keep them around a bit longer!)

Recipe for Easy Penne Pasta with Zucchini and Basil Pesto

This quick pasta dish is a tasty and comforting way to use zucchini.

Zucchini production is starting to slow down in my garden, but I'm still getting a few zucchinis or yellow straightneck squash every couple of days.  The other thing that's abundant this time of year is basil, so I've been freezing basil and last weekend I made a huge amount of Basil Pesto with Lemon.  I guess it was that basil pesto that inspired this recipe because when I told my nephew Jake what were going to make he asked me where the recipe was and I tapped the side of my forehead.  This was one of those spontaneous cooking ideas that just appear in my brain:  why wouldn't a little zucchini sauteed with garlic taste great mixed into pasta with basil pesto?  This is so easy you don't really need a recipe, but we wrote it down in case anyone wants the particulars!

Friday Night Photos: Introducing Jake

My handsome, highly talented, and food-savvy nephew, Jake!

For a couple of months there's been a fun development here (in Kalyn's actual and virtual kitchens) and I thought it was time to let readers know about it.  I'd like you to meet my nephew Jake, the older brother of the cute kids I take to Hires every summer, and another one of the good cooks in our family.  For years now Jake has had a strong interest in exploring the world of food, which may have started in high school when he never missed The Splendid Table on NPR.   Now he lives not far from me in Salt Lake, so for the last few months Jake has been coming now and then to spend a day cooking with me as a blogging intern.  Jake does have a full-time job, so he can't come every week, but lately some tasty dishes have been appearing on the blog that we've cooked together.

Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Spice World Ground Ginger Root

This ground ginger is always in my fridge!

Some purists are probably going to jump all over me for recommending this Spice World Ground Ginger in a jar, so let me start by saying that I do think there are recipes where nothing but fresh ginger root will work.  But when you're making something like a stir-fry sauce, salad dressing, or marinade where you just need a little bit of ginger flavor, I often use this type of pureed ginger root from a jar.  It's a little milder than the flavor of fresh ginger, but it still delivers quite a bit of that distinctive ginger flavor.  For using in liquids, this bottled ginger root is finely ground enough that it will mix in easily.  For dishes where you might not want chunks of ginger or where you just need a tiny bit of ginger, I think this ground ginger root in a jar is perfect.

Recipe for Green Zebra Gazpacho with Cucumber and Avocado

This gazpacho may be my new favorite thing to make with Green Zebra Tomatoes!

Oh how I wish the weather gods in Utah had cooperated so I could have been sharing this fantastic recipe for Green Zebra Gazpacho with Cucumber and Avocado during the hottest part of the summer!  But Utah had a cold rainy spring this year which made the tomatoes very slow to start ripening, and it's only the last couple of weeks I've had enough of a surplus of my beloved Green Zebra Tomatoes that I thought of doing anything besides just eating them immediately when I picked one!   I enjoyed this recipe so much that now I'm hoping for a nice hot September and lots more Green Zebra tomatoes so I can make it a few times before it's really fall.  If you have green or yellow tomatoes and warm weather where you are, I hope you'll try it too.

Kalyn's Favorite Tips for Freezing Garden Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs, and Vegetables (2011 Garden Update #8)

I'm a big fan of freezing garden tomatoes, fresh herbs, and vegetables to keep the garden a bit longer!

Everyone who's thought about preserving tomatoes, herbs, or vegetables from the garden will love the timeliness of my colorful September header with a row of canning jars.  (Thanks to my brother Rand and Jennette from Make My Blog Pretty who change the header every month!)  Of course, those canning jars are mostly symbolic; my favorite way to preserve garden goodness is by freezing things like tomato sauce, fresh herbs, pesto, and other garden sauces to use during the winter.  I've written a lot of posts about freezing things from the garden, and since it's a big holiday weekend when folks have extra time I'm collecting them all here hoping folks with gardens might find them useful.  Then I'm taking the rest of the weekend off to have fun!

South Beach Diet Phase One Recipes Round-Up for August 2011

Kalyn's favorite Phase One Recipe from August 2011 was Spicy Sichuan Style Green Beans.

Right now I'm feeling very pleased about the number of really fantastic Phase One recipes I found on other blogs during the month of August.  When I reached three years of doing these round-ups and decided to start limiting them to recipe ideas that hadn't been previously featured, I wasn't sure how many new ones I'd find every month, but in August there were tasty Phase One recipes everywhere I looked.  Some of you are going to laugh when I say this, but maybe it was partly because for the entire month of August I felt guilty that I should have been doing Phase One and I wasn't!  All summer I've been a little too focused on traveling, family parties, and restaurant dinners and my weight was starting to creep up a bit.  But this Monday I started Phase One for real, and I've already lost a couple of pounds.  (And that's one of the reasons why I love the South Beach Diet!)