Peanut-Lemon Stir Fry

Peanut-Lemon Stir Fry

by | Jun 29, 2011 | Recipes

Last week and this week, our CSA share has included one of my favorite summer treats – sugar snap peas. Often, I stir fry them solo in olive oil, with a dash of crushed garlic and kosher salt added at the last minute.

But I also like to make them part of a main course, so last week I threw together this peanut-lemon dish using whatever was in the fridge. My, oh, my it was so tasty that we’re going to have it again tomorrow night. I’m already drooling at the thought. So give it a try and leave a comment about what you think.

Peanut-Lemon Stir Fry

1 chicken breast, cut in bite-sized pieces
2 cups sugar snap peas, with tops cut off
1 medium onion cut in wedges or 2 bunches green onions, cut in small pieces
1 sweet red pepper, cut into chunks
1/2 cup raw peanuts
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons Thai peanut sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine lemon juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and red pepper flakes in a bowl. Add chicken and marinate in refrigerator for 1/2 hour or longer.

Put peanuts in a small cake pan and roast in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes. Cool.

In a small bowl mix together the broth, peanut sauce and corn starch. Set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in skillet or wok, medium high. Add peas and stir fry for 1 minute. Add pepper and stir fry for another minute. Do the same with the onions. Pour all veggies into a bowl. Heat remaining olive oil and add chicken (but not the marinate). Stir fry until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

While chicken is cooking, add 1/2 cup of marinate to the broth mixture. Stir well. Add mixture to the skillet, stirring constantly, until it bubbles and turns clear. Add vegetables to the skillet, stirring until they are hot and coated with sauce. Sprinkle peanuts on top and serve over rice.

Healthy, Healthy, Healthy

Healthy, Healthy, Healthy

by | Jun 23, 2011 | Recipes

The eating’s been good around here since June 7 when we picked up our first weekly bag of produce at Wllber’s Northside Market. Since signing up for our first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share three years ago, Hiram and I have been eating healthy every summer.

For the past three weeks, each bag has contained a couple quarts of freshly picked strawberries. It’s not easy for two people to eat that many strawberries (Hiram froze half of last week’s berries since I was at a writers’ conference), but we’ve been doing our best. So far we’ve enjoyed strawberries with sugar and cream, strawberry-rhubarb crisp, and strawberry shortcake. If there are strawberries in next week’s share, strawberry-rhubarb pie is on the docket. Amazing how delicious farm fresh produce can be.

Not to mention healthy, healthy, healthy.

Of course, we’ve been getting veggies, too. Leaf lettuce is a favorite because we love to break out Grandma Fern’s Wilted Lettuce recipe. The combination of fresh lettuce and green onion, along with hot bacon/vinaigrette dressing and crunchy bacon bits is heavenly. We usually fry more bacon than the recipe requires, but the extra fat is no problem because of the fresh produce.

After all, it’s healthy, healthy, healthy.

Another favorite is sugar snap peas, also in this Tuesday’s bag. Last night I made chicken stir fry (it’ll be next week’s blog recipe) and threw in half the snow peas, along with onions, sweet red pepper, toasted peanuts, peanut sauce, and lemon juice. I kinda over-toasted the first batch of peanuts and had to make a second batch. But then, we decided the first batch wasn’t burned, just nicely browned, and sprinkled all the peanuts over the stir fry.

And we did it guilt free because stir fry is healthy, healthy.

This healthy cooking mentality is worming its way into my regular grocery shopping, too. Yesterday at the store, Georgia peaches were on sale, so fragrant and enticing I selected enough to make a fresh peach pie this weekend. With lard crust.

But that’s no problem because peaches are also healthy, healthy, healthy.

Today, I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the produce. Should I use Grandma Hess’s cream and vinegar dressing for the two fresh cucumbers or should I use the salty brine dressing? Do I stir fry the fresh green beans with garlic or steam them with water and bacon grease? Do I dip the kohlrabi slices in salt or put them in a sandwich with white bread and butter? I guess it really doesn’t matter, because whatever the fresh produce will taste divine, no matter how it’s fixed.

Not to mention healthy, healthy, healthy.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

by | Jun 22, 2011 | Recipes

Nestled at the bottom of today’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) bag were two quarts of beautiful, hand-picked strawberries. This is the third week of strawberries Hiram describes as “red all the way through.”

That red translates into flavor all the way through and means the berries have to be used quickly. So as soon as I got home today, I picked some rhubarb and threw together a strawberry-rhubarb crisp – quicker than a strawberry-rhubarb pie and just as delicious. So give this recipe a try. If you have rhubarb, but not strawberries, use twice as much rhubarb and a little more sugar.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

2 cups sliced rhubarb
2 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced
3/4 – 1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
2/3 cup softened butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put fruits in a 9 x 9 glass or ceramic pan and mix together.

Combine sugar, flour, oatmeal, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Cut in softened butter. Spread over fruit. Bake for 40 – 50 minutes until topping is brown and fruit is bubbling. Serve warm with ice cream, milk or cream.

Grilled Pizza

Grilled Pizza

by | Jun 14, 2011 | Recipes

Last week it was so hot that we decided to grill anything that required baking. So we grilled pizza for supper, and it was delicious. Above is a picture of our finished product, and below are the basics on how to grill it. But you can put together your own concoction using your favorite toppings and morph this summer treat into hundreds of variations.

First, purchase prepared pizza crust. Place the crust, top side down over a medium grill for 10-15 minutes, until the side facing the heat is golden brown. Then flip it over and add toppings. Here’s how we put ours together:

  • spread 1/3 cup basil pesto on the crust
  • sprinkled thin slices of sweet red pepper and sweet onion over pesto
  • ditto with kalamata olives, sliced
  • spread 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese over veggies
  • top with turkey pepperoni

Then, put pizza on grill and cover. Let bake until the cheese starts to melt. The smokiness adds a new layer of flavor to the pizza and the crust is crisp and delicious.

Greek Salad with Grilled Shrimp

Greek Salad with Grilled Shrimp

by | Jun 8, 2011 | Recipes

Today’s recipe is a hot summer day delight – healthy, pretty, easy to make, and packed with flavor. It’s my take on a recipe published in this weekend’s American Profile magazine. Which means instead of slavishly adhering to the fresh veggies listed in the recipe and going grocery shopping, I used what was in my fridge. And I halved the recipe since we’re living in the empty nest.

According to Hiram, the end result was one of the best meals ever. (Read that as he used his garlic bread to mop up every bit of dressing left on his plate.) Which means I’ll be using this recipe often, switching ingredients to match whatever is in our CSA share for the week. Here’s the recipe as it appeared on our table this week…and tag, you’re it. So leave a comment about how you adapted it to what’s in your refrigerator or garden.

Greek Salad with Grilled Shrimp

1 head romaine lettuce chopped (or an equal amount of other greens)
2 sweet peppers, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/3 cup kalamata olives, pitted
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

(The original recipe called for two chopped tomatoes and a chopped cuke)

Toss all together in bowl and put in refrigerator. Then prepare the shrimp as follows.
1 pound raw shrimp, shelled and with tails off
1 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cajun or creole seasoning

Toss shrimp with oil and seasoning. Thread on skewers and grill for 1 – 2 minutes per side, until shrimp is done. Put on a platter.

Mix together the juice from 1 lemon, 6 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Drizzle over lettuce mixture and toss well. Divide equally among 6 plates. Arrange shrimp on top and serve.

Grilled Turkey-Pesto Sandwich

Grilled Turkey-Pesto Sandwich

by | Jun 2, 2011 | Recipes

Today’s recipe is a winner on summer evenings when it’s too hot to cook. It requires some specific ingredients, which you can experiment with to get a taste you like. But the really secret ingredient is the 1950s era Sunbeam electric skillet picked up at a garage sale over 25 years ago.

My kids say perfect grilled sandwiches and pancakes require this specific skillet. My mother had a Sunbeam skillet, and her kids thought it was the best skillet ever – which explains why I snapped up my nearly identical one at that garage sale years ago. It also explains why Anne claimed her grandma’s old skillet when Mom broke up housekeeping a few years ago. (Sorry, you can’t borrow either one, but there’s hope for those who like eBay and garage sales.)

With all these disclaimers, you might be thinking about ignoring the recipe, but that would be a big mistake. Everybody who tastes these babies wants the recipe. It’s that good.

Grilled Turkey-Pesto Sandwiches

1 loaf Costco roasted garlic bread, sliced butter
1/4 – 1/3 cup basil pesto
sharp cheddar cheese, sliced
sliced smoked turkey, sliced (call Hiram if you need the recipe)

Heat the electric skillet. Cut the bread into thin slices. Butter one side of a slice. Spread the other side with pesto. Place the slice, buttered side down in the skillet. Layer cheese and turkey on the bread. Butter one side of another slice of bread. Layer it on top of the cheese and turkey, butter side up. Repeat the steps for more sandwiches. Grill until they’re golden brown on the bottom. Flip the sandwiches and grill until bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted.