green beans

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Our CSA continues to fill each week with a little bit of excitement and lots of healthy local produce. The last couple of weeks have simply been bursting with summery delights like heirloom tomatoes, peaches, and corn, possibly the best foods in the world (paired with a lovely Rosé, of course)

 

Heirloom Tomato BLT

As is often the case in the warmer months, simple was really our goal in highlighting the beautiful food provided by our local farmers. Big, juicy heirloom tomatoes and crisp local lettuce lent themselves to quick and easy, yet completely heavenly BLTs while green beans were perfect sautéed in a little olive oil, chopped garlic, and black pepper.

green beans

Each week brings its own share of greens, and I imagine that will continue once summer ends. Rainbow chard is yummy chopped and cooked down with a little olive oil, a great balsamic vinegar, and some salt and pepper. This would be a great side dish for a good cut of beef and your favorite red wine.

rainbow chard

We drooled over the fresh peaches we received, super juicy and sweet. They were more often than not eaten on their own, but once warm night called for a peach and tomato salad topped with goat cheese and a little fig balsamic. Simple and perfect.

peach and tomato salad

Finally, while we did eat plenty of corn from our CSA, the below dish is actually from my beloved Steel and Rye. Their soups are always phenomenal, and this chilled corn soup was one of my favorite dishes of the summer.

chilled corn soup

What seasonal dishes are you loving right now?

Tags: cooking at home, corn, corn soup, CSA, farm, green beans, healthy, peaches, produce, summer, tomatoes, vegetables

As I mentioned earlier in the week, one of the things I love about visiting Ireland is the discovery of new shows. Between Ireland and the UK, they have some pretty good and some delightfully bad shows. One quality discovery I made while visiting was Catherine’s Italian Kitchen

Catherine’s Italian Kitchen features Catherine Fulvio, an Irish native with a Sicilian husband, and the show is filmed between Ireland and Sicily making for some gorgeous scenery as well as some great recipes. Catherine is a graduate of Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School, a place I will take cooking classes at some point in my life.

After seeing the show on television while in Ireland, I was delighted to find an episode being shown on the entertainment system on our Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Boston.

In the episode I saw, Catherine made a pork saltimbocca, wrapping pork fillets with prosciutto and quickly pan frying them for a flavorful main course. 

prosciutto

Saltimbocca literally means “jumps in the mouth”, and the simple flavors in this dish definitely do excite the palate. I decided this weekend that I would make a quick variation on Catherine’s saltimbocca using chicken instead of pork. I started by dividing two chicken breasts in half and cleaning off the icky parts.

chicken breast

Then I placed the chicken between two cutting boards (only used for chicken, then rinsed and put in the dishwasher!) and pounded them down with my fists until they were very thin.

chicken breast

The thin fillets mean that the cooking time is minimal. Once the chicken was thin enough, I wrapped each piece with a layer of prosciutto so that the entire half of a chicken breast was in contact with it.

chicken saltimbocca

I heated a mix of butter and olive oil in a skillet then gently placed the chicken pieces in.

chicken saltimbocca

For most of the chicken pieces, a few minutes on either side was just enough to make sure they were done. This guy up front was a little thicker, so I ended up placing the pan into the oven for a few minutes to cook through, and we ate the done chicken first.

chicken saltimbocca

I served the chicken with a top secret recipe that I tested for a cookbook that is not yet released. A post on recipe testing will be up later today!

My chicken did not turn out as pretty as Catherine’s pork saltimbocca did, but it was certainly an enjoyable dinner and something I would make again in a heartbeat. Chicken can get kind of dull, and the prosciutto was just the thing to jazz it up!

What was the last cooking show inspired meal you made? Do you have any fun ways of making chicken to make this common protein a little more exciting?

Tags: chicken, chicken saltimbocca, cooking show, dinner, Food, green beans, recipe, vegetables

Box wine makes another appearance! You may remember a post a few weeks ago where we tried our first wine in a box, Duca Del Frassino Garganega Pinot Grigio from Bin Ends. Well, close to a month later, it still tastes pretty good.

Duca Italian Wine in a Box

I was whipping up a cod recipe last night, and I decided to make the sauce using the Duca. It was a good idea. 😉

I started with some cod filets that I picked up at Trader Joe’s. I prefer to buy fresh fish, but with our schedules it often ends up going uneaten. So once in awhile we keep some frozen fish on hand. I thawed 2 cod filets over night, and they were ready for roasting when I got home from my run.

cod filets

I rubbed them with a bit of olive oil and ground black pepper, then popped them in the oven at 405 degrees until they were flaky. Sorry, I was doing too many things to pay attention to the actual amount of time! Cod is one of those fishes that you just have to test.

While the fish was cooking, I started browning some of my beloved Kerrygold butter. When that started to look a little brown, I tossed in very thin slivers of garlic, about 2 cloves’ worth.

browned butter, Pinot Grigio, garlic

Then I VERY CAREFULLY added 1/2 cup of the Duca del Frassino. It really bubbles up so I added it one tablespoon at a time. It was a little scary.

green beans

Off to the side some green beans were blanching. I boiled some water in our electric tea kettle (best invention EVER!) and poured it over the green beans. They cooked for maybe a minute before I drained them. I like my veggies crunchy!

roasted cod with brown butter, garlic, and wine

When the fish was flaky and the butter browned, I plated the beans and topped them with cod, butter and wine sauce, and then some lemons.

image

Total prep and cooking time, under 30 minutes. This was another easy, mostly healthy meal that tasted awesome. We paired it with a glass of the Duca. I must say it was a good introduction to box wine! Next time I would brown the butter much more as I did for the scallops I made last week, but other than that it was perfection. Butter is SO good.

How is your week going so far? Halfway to the weekend!

Tags: box wine, butter, cod, Food, green beans, Pinot Grigio, recipe

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