Chicken With Fennel, Herbs & Bok Choi In Tomato Broth

1 1/2 lbs boneless chicken

Canola oil

3 cloves fresh garlic, crushed or minced

1 sprig each of fresh rosemary, thyme & oregano, leaves finely chopped

5-6 fresh basil leaves, chopped

3 green onions, chopped

1 young bulb of fennel, thinly sliced

1-2 heads of baby bok choi, coarsely chopped

1 can whole tomatoes (15 oz)

About 2 cups of chicken broth

Salt & pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese for garnish

Place chicken, a few tablespoons of canola oil, garlic, herbs, green onion, and fennel in a bowl. Stir well and tenderize the chicken with a fork, allowing the flavors to penetrate the chicken. Meanwhile, heat a large, thick-bottomed skillet on medium-high heat. When it is good and hot, place the chicken, plus herbs & fennel in the pan and sear the chicken on both sides. Let cook until the ingredients brown and begin to stick on the bottom. Add the bok choi and cook a minute longer. Add the tomatoes one at a time, crushing with your hands to break them up and release the juice. Stir well and cook another couple of minutes. Add the chicken broth and season to taste with the salt & pepper. Reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes. Serve over rice or pasta in a bowl and garnish with sliced green onion, fresh basil and Parmesan cheese.

Oven Roasted Kohlrabi

This is one of my favorite vegetables. It can be eaten many ways, but I love it most when it's roasted in the oven until crispy and tender. It's nice as a side vegetable, but roasted Kohlrabi can also be added to salads, soups or pasta dishes.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

First, remove the leaves and stems. See "Leafy Greens 101" for cooking the leaves. Next, peel the bulb and cut into wedges or large cubes. The young tender ones don't have to be peeled, but the larger bulbs can have a woody or fibrous peel, so I tend to remove them before roasting. Place the wedges in a glass oven-proof baking dish. Drizzle olive or canola oil over the kohlrabi and toss to coat well. Season with coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roast in the oven for about an hour, or until the tips begin to turn dark brown. Serve hot.

How to Cook Your CSA: Leafy Greens 101

This is the first installment of recipes featuring vegetables from our weekly farm share from Signal Mountain Farm (http://signalmountainfarm.com/). Having a CSA share is a fantastic value for people who like to cook and eat fresh vegetables. Nonetheless, many are sometimes hesitant to commit to a relationship with a farm that might involve weeks of cooking large quantities of broad leafy greens, or receiving vegetables that may be unfamiliar. A common question is, "What do I do with Kohlrabi, fennel and eggplant?" So for the next several months, I will be posting the favorites enjoyed by my family and friends.

This week and last we have received an abundance of gorgeous greens such as kale, collards, chard, bok choi. The kohlrabi has also arrived with leaves attached, so we have had plenty of some of the worlds most nutrient rich foods. For greens, we usually wash, remove the thick stems, and then roll the leaves into a "log" and slice thinly across the log. We like them sort of crunchy so my preference is to sautee the greens in a little oil, then flavor with salt and balsamic vinegar once they turn bright green and are wilted and tender. For a more complex flavor, you can try the following recipe with any of the leafy greens:

Beer Braised Greens With Ginger

1-2 Bunches of broad leafy greens like kale or collards, stems removed and sliced thinly

Canola oil

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or minced

1 Tbs fresh ginger root, peeled & minced

Worcestershire sauce

Marmite or soy sauce

1 dark amber beer or ale like Highland Gaelic Ale

Salt & pepper to taste

Heat a little oil in a large skillet and add greens and garlic. Sautee until they wilt and turn bright green. Add a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce, a teaspoon of Marmite (or a dash or two of soy sauce). Stir in well and cook until the greens begin to brown a little. Add the ginger root and one half of the ale. Stir, and simmer a few minutes more, or until they reach your desired tenderness. ( The other half of the beer is for drinking while you wait for the greens to cook.) Salt and pepper to taste & serve.

Pumkin Bread for my little Pumpkin

Today was the last day of Kindergarten. Where did this year go? I knew it would fly by. Everyone said it would, and they were right. My oldest has just finished her first year of school, and before I know it I'll be watching the baby packing boxes for his own adventures. Hmmmm....let us contemplate that thought for a moment. I realize that there is no stopping these sweet moments with my little ones, as smiles turn to memories and cascade through each passing minute of life.

Speaking of sweet moments...she's standing here wondering why I'm at the computer instead of playing with her. So before I let this moment pass, I'll end in brevity. But first, I'll leave you with myPumpkin Bread recipe. It's the special treat she requested for the kindergarten family picnic that celebrated the end of the school year:

Buttermilk Pumpkin Bread With Walnuts

Recipe for 2 loaves...one to keep and one to give away :-)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oat flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups sucanat or sugar

1 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon coriander

1/2 whole nutmeg, grated

2 cups pumkin puree (from whole pumpkin that was roasted in oven, pureed and frozen)

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup canola oil

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Method:

Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. In a large pyrex jug, mix the remaining ingredients except walnuts. Gently mix the wet ingredients with the dry until they just become moist. Do not over-mix. Fold in one cup of the walnuts, leaving some for garnishing the tops. Pour batter into two greased loaf pans. Sprinkle remaining walnuts on the tops. Baking times can vary. It should take approximately 50 minutes, but a skewer placed in the center should come out clean before removing from the oven.

Lamb Hotpot

Ok, so Lamb is a spring menu item, and it's almost November. But it's spring in New Zealand... and I have some happy memories with this recipe, going all the way back to my first weeks of marriage. Twelve years ago, when I was a new bride living with my husband's family in England. I had the job of being the family cook for a house of eight. I didn't really know anything useful about cooking when I was 24, and suddenly having to produce large meals for people in a culture that was still foreign to me was...educational.

Lesson number one: If you are making dinner in England in the fall or winter, or any other season for that matter, you must make gravy. If you don't, they will likely head to the kitchen to make it for themselves. This is reasonable, but also mildly entertaining for me, being from California where gravy is not so common at the table.

Lesson number two: The request, "please will you prepare a joint of meat?" is really one that will strike fear in the best of young, naive, newlywed novice cooks. So get a good cookbook and hope for the best.

Lesson number three: Don't forget the gravy.

Fortunately, one of our wedding gifts was a charity cookbook called "More Than a Meal: A Cookbook in Support of the Homeless." The irony of it all was not lost on us. So in this book I began...and there I found many useful recipes from Margaret Thatcher's stuffy and complicated "Calvados Phesants" to Mr. Bean's...what else..."Beans on Toast." There is enough tongue-in-cheek to keep one looking through the pages, and enough yummy stuff to keep me using it a dozen years later.

Which brings me back to my original point...Lamb Hotpot. Mike Picken, listed as the Executive Chef at Gleneagles Hotel, Scotland, saved me from humiliation that cold winter's night in England. I didn't even know what a 'joint of meat' was, much less where to find it and how to cook it. Turns out it is found wrapped in white paper and stored in a freezer...and when it comes to leg of lamb...well, I think this is the best way to have it. I have made a few changes over the years, like more wine and fennel. But who wouldn't want more wine and fennel anyway? So we'll call this the USA adapted version of an already superb recipe.

(...and it's a hodgepodge of weights and measures, so I do apologize for thoroughly confusing everyone)

Lamb:

3 lb diced leg of lamb

1 stick of butter, divided

1 lb chopped carrots

1 large onion, diced

2-3 bulbs of fennel, chopped or diced

3 oz tomato paste

2 oz flour, plus extra for dusting lamb

650 ml lamb stock

16 oz red wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Season and lightly flour the cubes of lamb. Melt 1/2 stick of butter in a large cast iron dutch oven, and fry the lamb in two batches over high heat until they are browned. Remove from the dutch oven. Sweat the vegetables in the dutch oven with the other 1/2 stick of butter. Add the tomato paste and cook a few minutes longer until the mixture deepens in color. Mix in the flour and cook a few minute more.

Add the lamb, wine and lamb stock to the pan. Bring to a boil, then cover and bake in the oven at 325 degrees for two hours.

Dill Soda Scones:

5 oz plain flour

4 oz whole wheat flour

1/2 oz baking powder

Salt and pepper to taste

1 small bunch fresh dill, chopped

1 heaping spoon of crisco

1/2 stick of butter

Buttermilk

When the hotpot has been in the oven for nearly two hours, mix together the plain flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, pepper and chopped fresh dill. Rub in the butter and shortening, then add enough buttermilk to make a light dough...not too dry and not runny. (Sorry about not having specific quantities...I make them like southern biscuits, and my mamaw never measured.)

Remove the hotpot from the oven and give it a stir to dislodge anything stuck to the bottom. Drop large spoonfuls of the batter onto the top of the lamb. Place the hotpot back in the oven without the lid, and increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Cook until the scones begin to brown a little. It takes about 30 minutes in my oven. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Please Can I Have That Cookie Recipe?

That's what I said the first time I tasted these cookies, and that's what I hear every time they are served. Quite possibly, these are some of the best cookies on the planet. I played with the recipe I was given and tried to make them nutritious enough to serve as a guiltless treat for my kids...and the grownups too.

Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies:

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 cup of sucanat

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups oat flour (or whole wheat)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp kosher or sea salt

3 cups rolled oats

2 cups finely chopped walnuts

2 cups Nestle's milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt and nuts. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sucanat with electric hand mixer.

Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.

Add flour mixture and stir together until wet.

Add oats and chocolate chips and combine with a wooden spoon until evenly mixed together.

With a cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing from baking sheet.

Variation:

Omit the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Add 1 tsp cinnamon, 2 cups finely chopped pecans, 1 cup craisins, 1 cup chopped dried apples.

A Good Egg

One can't underestimate the importance of a good egg.

I have heard the egg be used as a symbol for life, health, friends, and even an example of the holy trinity. But let's stay simple here. In cooking, it's a good place to start and it's a critical ingredient in many delicious recipes. But there is no replacement for the good ones. On the other hand, having bad one might leave a memory you wish you could forget. So when choosing an egg it is important to remember a few details: 1)Don't buy the recalled ones. 2)Find a local farmer or friend who raises pasture hens. 3)If you must buy eggs from the store, look for eggs that are fresh, all-natural, grain-fed. I like the Farmhouse eggs at wal-mart for best bang for your buck. Compared to the ones sold at local specialty shops, they are half the price and have a nice rich yolk.

There are many ways to have eggs. At our house they are eaten any time of day. I'm going to share a method for a soft-boiled egg. It's one of the favorites for the kids because they love to dip strips of toast in the creamy yolk.

Leave eggs out of the refrigerator so they come to room temperature. Boil water in a small sauce pan. Once the water is at a good boil, place the egg in the water with a spoon. Set timer for one minute. Once you hear the timer, turn off the heat and place a lid on the saucepan. Set timer for another 6 minutes. At the end of the time, remove the egg from the pan immediately and place in an egg cup. Swiftly tap the side of the egg with the edge of a spoon, then remove the top of the shell with a scoop of the spoon. This will reveal an egg with firm whites and a creamy yolk. Serve with slices of toast. Removing the remaining whites of the egg can be done by simply by gently scooping out with the spoon.