Chef Patti Anastasia
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Serving Southern New Hampshire &
the Merrimack Valley since 2003
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Great meals & the time to enjoy them!
Chef Patti Anastasia Serving Southern New Hampshire & |
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Table Talk » July 2007 Archives« June 2007 | Table Talk Home | April 2008 » July 28, 2007First Garden HarvestMy small kitchen garden is planted with tomatoes and cucumbers. I planted just before a long cold, rainy spell, so my garden took a beating and it's been slow to recover from all the rain and cold weather. Earlier this week I noticed that beautiful orange tinge on a few tomatoes on one of my Oregon Cherry plants. The cucumber plants are covered with flowers and loaded with tiny cucumbers. Last night ,just as we were just about to sit down to dinner (lamb burgers), I decided to go out and see if I could find a cucumber and a few tomatoes to add to our meal. Bingo, I found a 6-inch cucumber and 3 large cherry tomatoes ready for picking. The first veggies from the garden are always the best. Cucumbers that are young and tender and don't need to be peeled! Tomatoes, still warm from the sun. It doesn't get any better than that. I didn't get a picture of the harvest because the lamb burgers were ready and we were too hungry to take the time for a picture. The veggies tasted heavenly. The cuke was crisp and refreshing. The tomatoes were sweet and juicy. Hopefully they were just the beginning of a bountiful harvest. July 24, 2007Update on Miss FiggyMiss Figgy arrived in May as a two foot tall stick in a small pot. By the end of May, she was a two foot tall stick with a few leaves. Now she's a small tree with lots of branches and leaves. Back on May 23rd, I reported that she had two tiny figs, but one of them fell off shortly after that, so she has just one good-sized fig. But she had lots of branches and giant leaves and lots of buds for new branches and leaves. She seems to grow more every day and is now 33 inches tall.
July 15, 2007Local BlueberriesWhen I was a kid, every summer included a family outing to pick blueberries. We even had one of those enormous wood-sided station wagon, which was perfect for our family outings. My grandmother joined us and sat in the shade with a cooler of drinks and snacks for us kids when we got tired of picking. Our goal for the day was to fill a 20 quart blue enameled pot. Armed with coffee cans with string loops around our necks so we could use both hands to pick, we'd venture off into the blueberry fields. To this day, one of my favorite sounds is the plunk plunk plunk that blueberries make when they land at the bottom of any empty picking container. The picking containers at Sunnycrest Farm are plastic. But the blueberries still make a wonderful sound when they hit the empty container. And since the farm is just a few miles from my house, you'll find me there almost every week until the blueberry season is over. Their blueberry bushes are tall and easy to pick from, and for me, it's relaxing to be among the blueberry bushes filling my bucket. During July and August, we eat a lot of blueberries. There's always a bowl of blueberries in the refrigerator to snack on. This morning I made one of my favorite blueberry coffeecakes.
Continue reading "Local Blueberries" » July 13, 2007Spicy Basque-Style ChickenAnother weeknight winner from Cooking Light. The Spicy Basque-Style Chicken from the June 2007 issue was my test kitchen recipe this week. It's quick, easy, and full of flavor. In the time it takes to cook the rice to accompany it, you'll have dinner on the table.
Spicy Basque-Style Chicken, Saffron Rice, Roasted Asparagus I forgot to buy green olives, so I used capers. I really liked the dish with capers and will keep that change. The bottled minced garlic was replaced with fresh minced garlic. When I made this, I added the prosciutto, but I thought the prosciutto got lost in the dish so I omitted it from the final recipe. I get my smoked Spanish paprika from Penzeys. I've been buying herbs and spices from Penzeys for over 20 years. When I first started ordering from them, their catalog was a newsprint catalog; it was long before they had a web site and retail stores. Smoked Spanish paprika adds a smoky spicy flavor. Try it, you'll love it. Good paprika is nothing like grocery store paprika. When you buy Penzeys' Smoked Spanish Paprika, add some Hungarian sweet paprika and Hungarian half-sharp paprika to your order. You'll never buy grocery store paprika again. Continue reading "Spicy Basque-Style Chicken" » July 8, 2007Salmon for SupperThis super speedy recipe is perfect for a weeknight meal. It's based on Cooking Light's Broiled Tilapia with Thai Coconut Curry Sauce. I don't care for the texture of tilapia, so I made it with salmon. Red curry paste can be quite hot, so I add 1/2 teaspoon at a time until the heat level of the dish is right for us. In this dish, 1 teaspoon of red curry paste gave us the perfect heat level. We love ginger and garlic, so I used more than the original recipe called for. Adding more brown sugar can temper the heat of this dish if you unwittingly add too much curry paste. I also made just two portions of salmon, but the full amount of sauce. I served this with Brown Basmati Rice with Edamame. I use the pasta method to cook brown rice, then toss in the edamame for a minute once the rice is cooked to the desired tenderness, about 25 minutes. The extra sauce was much hotter the next day when I had it for lunch served over the leftover brown rice with edamame.
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