Recipe: Garden Fresh Bruschetta

This is an amazingly easy and fast recipe that brings out the best this time of year has to offer!

Ingredients

• 1 fresh baguette, sliced into rounds


• 1-2 fresh whole tomatoes, diced


• 1-2 cloves of garlic sliced paper thin


• 1 spring of fresh oregano, chopped


• 1 spring parsley, chopped


• 2T olive oil plus some for brushing


• 2T fresh grated Parmesan


• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. This is super easy - cut up the tomato and add it, chopped oregano, chopped parsley, olive oil, salt and pepper to a mixing bowl and stir.


2. On a medium grill place the lightly oiled slices of baguette, oiled side down.


3. Brush the top with oiled as well and cook until they just start to brown (2 minutes).


4. Flip the baguette slices, place the garlic slices on them, top with a spoonful of the tomato mixture and sprinkle with the cheese.


5. Close the grill lid and let cook for 2 minutes (until bottom just turns brown)


6. Remove and serve HOT!

Quick Notes

You may find it easier to oil both sides before you place them on the grill - that's fine just don't overdo it!

Microformatting by hRecipe.

"Not average" meat and potatoes

The last post was about the "raw materials" for this amazing dinner.  Not your typical meat and potatoes - that's for sure.

We started with the tenderloin from the deer and simply applied cracked black pepper and some coarse salt to the outside.  The loin was then seared on the REALLY hot hickory grill for about 2 minutes each side.  So tender you can cut it with a fork.  Really amazing flavors!

The potatoes were the last of the poor spud harvest from our garden this year (silly blight).  They were boiled until tender then tossed and skillet browned with our gardens fresh garlic and dried herbs.

The small onions you see are actually shallots from my parents garden.  Almost sugary sweet when sauteed with some organic butter.

All three dishes are very simple in preparation but also all make their central ingredient, which were all local, shine with their unique flavors.  That's what makes meals like this so satisfying!

Chicken Cookin

It's dinner time and you have several farm fresh chickens left right - well maybe not as many as you hoped for, but a few...  Now with a few months behind us from the big chicken day...  and sporadic emails coming back from customers telling us that the chicken is "the best they have ever had" I thought it might make sense to share OUR top three methods or recipes for making chickens - as of right now (our top three favorites change over time):

#3 - parts the bird and reserve the spine for stock. Heat about 1/2" of oil in pressure cooker. Dredge breasts and thighs and legs in herb flour (dry herb and spices that you like). Fry the dredged parts in oil for about 6 minutes, turning chicken to evenly brown. Pour off some to all the oil - add the chicken back in and then add about 1 cup water.  From there add some carrots and potatoes and whatever else you want. Put the top on the pressure cooker and cook at temperature for about 15 minutes. VERY YUMMY! (make stock with the spine as illustrated here)

#2 - CAREFULLY split the chicken down the breast and flatten it wide open, put your favorite herbs and rubs and whatever on each half (thyme and lime are my favorites) put on grill LOW - bone side down, turn over and place over indirect heat (or else the flareups will ruin the bird) and finish off. Very very good this way when you toss some wood chips on the grill at the beginning.  We learned this one in the Cayman Islands.

#1 - This has been done once and that's what we took the picture of.  We just did this on Sunday when the smoker was running to make some jerky and preserve some peppers.  To make the chicken - split the breast carefully with a big knife from neck to stomach, pull the bird open and place bones up in the smoker.  We used no rubs, flavors, salts - nothing goes on the bird.  Using only one batch of wood - 200 degrees - one tray of water. Let the wood finish and the water dry out - let go for a total of 6-7 hours.  No messing with nature on this one.  The water keeps things moist as the skin toughens up - then when the water tray in the smoker is dry the bird is sitting in a skins worth of juices taking it's time to slow cook.  Honestly - most succulent and moist chicken we have EVER had.  The taste was no less than Kelli's words "Amazing".  Kelli won't stop raving about it.  A very simple low involvement chicken that simply lets the meat, the natural Omega 3 rich fats and the smokes shine through.

Egging Us On

As a lot of the garden is either winding down, puttering out or wasting away from Late Blight...  the small Asian Eggplant plants are doing very well.  To the tune of a lot.  This is just a single days harvest and Kelli has been pulling this number in ever couple of days for the last week.  Apparently - they are ready to fruit now - and there is no stopping these purple critters.

The good news is Kelli has come up with several creative battering, breading, roasting and grilling techniques to preserve these guys for late (LATE) season snacking and consuming.  With the garden under all that rain back in early June and then the cold summer this year we thought these plants were not going to yield much - instead - we are getting EGG-sactly what we love to see!

(no - that is NOT a yellow eggplant in there - it's one of the few summer squashes that are still coming off the plants)

A better bacon

Bacon.  Mmmm, bacon.  What's better than bacon?

Well - fresh - local raised - see the pink smoke ring in it pepper bacon to start.

Now - I'm not a fan on pictures of partly cooked food (some foodies are) - but as this stuff was sputtering on the grill for the last of the BLT's this year - the smell of the fresh tasty, local, hormone, and antibiotic free pork bacon was just too much - there needed to be a picture to commemorate the event.

I know there's not much to this post - but I swear - the pink smoke ring you can see and the cracked black pepper along the edges made the flavors more remarkable than a package from the grocery store (not even friggin close).

There you have it - a salute to swine!  The perfect pig.  Happiness in a hog.

I said it - bacon.