Farmer’s Market Chicken & White Bean Soup

August 23, 2015August 24, 2015

I simply love this time of year. Harvest is starting to come in, we are nearing the end of the hot days and looking into Indian Summer. The farm stands are all stocked and Farmer’s Markets are booming! I had the occasion to visit a local Farmer’s Market today and I feel like I struck gold with the beautiful vegetables that made their way to my kitchen..

I love going to a Farmer’s Market with nothing in mind at all. I let the freshness of the produce sweep me into a frenzy of creativity. Today, I left the house with a fresh chicken stock cooling on the stove, so I did have a little bit of direction… cooked chicken and wonderful stock. When I returned home, I found that I had some gorgeous native carrots some almost red in color, others purple! I got some cool crisp green beans and a few other things that will be heading onto my dinner plate later this week.

As for today, both my son and my daughter each have a little case of the sniffles. So, I thought it appropriate to come up with a sort of chicken soup. They are both big fans of chicken, carrots and green beans and with a few more ingredients to include cannelloni beans for a little extra protein, yummy egg noodles for their velvety heartiness along with some onions, celery and some fresh and dried herbs and we were good to go. Let me show you what I did…

Aren’t they beautiful? Orange, purple and a deep orangey red… all of them are super fresh and super sweet.

A fresh basket of green beans, yum.

Look how gorgeous these are.

Saute in a little touch of olive oil.

Add in a diced onion.

Chop up some celery.

Add your celery into the saute.

Cut a few sprigs of thyme.

Add your stock to the pot along with a few of these sprigs of thyme.

Here are my farm fresh green beans.

Chop them up... I do a pretty small chip for my kids, you can cerainly chop to whatever size suits you.

Chop them up… I do a pretty small chip for my kids, you can certainly chop to whatever size suits you.

These egg noodles are considered a nice smooth starch.

Add in a pinch of salt, crack some fresh black pepper and add in your Herbs de Provence.

Add in your white beans.

Then cover.

I like to chop and then shred the chicken a bit.

Allow to simmer for a few minutes so all the flavors can really marry.

Recipe for Farmer’s Market Chicken & White Bean Soup:

(serves 6-8)

1 cooked chicken breast

2 native carrots, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 cup green beans, chopped

3 cups dry extra wide egg noodles

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed 8 cups prepared chicken stock

.1/2 tsp Herbs de Provence

3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil for sauteing

Directions:

Saute onions, carrots and celery in olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add in a pinch of kosher salt. Once tender, add in chicken stock. Bring to a boil over high heat. Then add in green beans, beans, egg noodles, salt, pepper, thyme and Herbs de Provence, cover and reduce to med/low heat. After about 10 minutes add in the chicken. Continue to cook until noodles are tender and chicken is heated through. Taste for salt and pepper.

Portuguese Onion Medley (Cebolada)

August 19, 2015August 19, 20157 Comments

My father attended a Portuguese Catholic Elementary school when he was a boy after he and his family moved to Fall River, Massachusetts from St. Michael, Azores in Portugal. He recalled for me that every day he and his siblings (he had 8) would return home for lunch and Cebolada was almost always on the menu. My Vavó would serve it along with chouriço and a fresh Portuguese pop-sec (bread roll).

Although my mother’s family came from a totally opposite side St. Michael, she told me that her mother would make this quite often as well… She said that her favorite time of year to make Cebolada was in the summer when she had lots of fresh tomatoes coming out of the garden. My mother said she remembers her mother either eating Cebolada as is or over a left over piece of fried fish.

Cebolada is a quintessential Portuguese staple. All the flavors that you will find in almost any Portuguese dish is concentrated right here in this recipe. Many, like my grandmother will eat Cebolada just as is and it’s a great vegetarian dish just so. I personally love Cebolada over some velvety soft, boiled yams and make it each and every year as a side on my Thanksgiving table. A cousin of mine says that her mother always pairs Cebolada with crabs. But, more often than not, Cebolada is used to stretch food, either left overs or if only a little protein is had. And of course I can’t be certain, but my guess is that this was the original intention of the dish.

I start off with 3 large onions.

Peel the onions leaving them whole.

Then slice up some fairly thick slices.

You will want to cover the bottom of a large skillet with olive oil.

Place your onions in the skillet over medium heat…

Add in a pinch of kosher salt.

Slow cooking is key here, this is not something that can be rushed.

While the onions are cooking… prep your remaining ingredients…

I am using two fresh from the garden, ripe tomatoes. Any type of tomato will do here. Whatever you have on hand is fine.

Today I have decided to dice them up pretty largely. You can go smaller or you could slice in rounds, it’s totally up to you… In the winter when tomatoes aren’t fresh I use either a diced can tomato or a whole Roma tomato that i break up by hand… or sometimes I will just use a tomato sauce… so just do what you like best!

Three cloves of garlic… please use fresh here, it makes a difference as there are only 4 ingredients and two seasonings.

I dice/mince the garlic.

When the onions start to get soft, you know you are ready for the next step.

Add in your garlic.

I put in only about a half a tsp. of Portuguese Allspice.

Once you have given the garlic a minute to play with the onions, add in your tomatoes.

Then drop in two heaping Tbs. of wet ground red pepper. You want to be careful here though, you really need to know your ingredients… I put in two Tbs. because I like the flavor and my pepper is not particularly spicy, if yours is be conscious of that… Also, be aware of the salt content.

Stir it right in and lower your heat to about a medium/low.

Keep at it, stirring every few minutes so that nothing sticks to the pan and the flavors will really start to meld. Once everything starts to mush together a bit and the onions are starting to break down and melt, you are done… Check for salt and serve.

Recipe for Cebolada:

(serves 4-6)

3 large onions, sliced

2 medium tomatoes, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 heaping Tbs. mild wet ground red pepper

1/8 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp. Portuguese Allspice

1/2 tsp. salt, plus more to taste as needed

Directions:

Saute onions (add salt to onions) in olive oil over medium heat until softened and pliable. Add in garlic, saute for another minute. Add in Allspice and pepper. Add in tomatoes. Turn down heat to medium/low. Continue to saute, stirring every few minutes until onions appear to be breaking down and tomatoes are soft. Taste for salt, add if needed. Serve.

Enjoy!

My favorite way to eat:

As I mentioned, I love to serve mine over yams… not sweet potatoes, yams. I boil them in salted water, then toss them in the emptied skillet I just used to make the Cebolada and fry them in olive oil for about two minutes and serve.

Add on the Cebolada and Yum!!!

Planting Peas – Part 1

April 11, 2015May 21, 2015

My kids love peas! They especially love Sugar Snap Peas. For a regular week night dinner, I am not opposed to popping a frozen bag of steamed veggi’s in the microwave. We probably have steam in the bag veggi’s 3x per week in the winter. But, when spring comes, I can’t help but get the gardening bug! I am so tired of the dreary weather that winter brings and living in the Northeast, this year is a prime example of how nasty winter weather can be. But, I digress.

Spring is a happy time. A time of green! This year, I decided to get my kids involved. My son is loving this gardening project. We planted a whole garden full of veggi’s in our front bay window. (Our dog’s favorite spot to lounge out… Sorry Rocky!)

Peas are a GREAT starter vegetable if you’ve never planted a garden before. And an especially great one if you’re getting your kids involved. They germinate quickly and give you lots and lots of yummy veggi goodness in not such a long time. And if you are in the northern part of the country, they are one of the first plantable plants outside. They are actually considered a spring veggi as they don’t do so well in the extreme heat of summer. Peas are a wonderful source of Vitamin K, fiber, manganese, B-1 (all the B’s really) and Vitamin C to name a few!

Today, I will show you a little of how we have started our garden. Disclaimer… Peas normally get planted right outside, but we wanted to start early and inside when it was much too cold, so I’ll show you how we will remedy that at the end.

We started with some ‘starter soil’ that is good for seeding your own vegetation. Placed that in a recyclable paper pot.

Sugar Snap Peas

We put two little peas in the dirt. My son loved this part!

It took about a week before we saw a little green coming up through the dirt. And about 5 weeks later we saw this.

A week later we saw this! Peas are vine growers, and these are ready to start grabbing on to something!

My son reminds me every day that we need to water the plants. (No, that is not actual spring water he is watering with… we recycled the bottle and it gives him a lot of control over where the water ends up)