In honor of my new reader!

I haven't tried this yet, but I think it's a wonderful fall recipe. I'm tired of keeping it up on my browser window, really I'm not going to make it this week.
Serve with veggies. I'm thinking Spinach....

Apricot Chicken Recipe

If you don't have fresh apricots, you can use a combo of dried pitted apricots and apricot jam. Chop up about a dozen dried apricots and add them, with a half cup of apricot jam, to the stock in step 4 (skipping steps 1 and 5).

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds apricots, roughly chopped, pits removed and discarded
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp cider vinegar
• 2 pounds skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 to 2-inch pieces
• Salt
• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter (can sub olive oil)
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cups chicken stock or broth (use gluten-free stock if you are cooking gluten-free)
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons Tabasco or other hot sauce (you can add more if you like)
• Black pepper

Method

1 Place the chopped apricots in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and the vinegar. Let sit while you brown the chicken in the next step.

2 In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches, place chicken pieces in the pan, without crowding the pan, and brown them on each side. As the chicken cooks, sprinkle salt over it. Once the chicken is browned, remove the pieces from the pan to a bowl and set aside.

3 Add the remaining oil to the pan and sauté the onion until it begins to brown. As the onion cooks and releases moisture, use a flat edged spatula or wooden spoon to scrape off the browned bits from the chicken (called fond) from the bottom of the pan.

4 Once the onions have browned a bit, add the chicken stock and lower the heat to medium.

5 Put about 2/3 of the apricots, along with any juice they have given up, into a blender and blend into a purée. Pour the purée into the pan with the chicken stock and onions.

6 Add the cinnamon, rosemary and Tabasco and taste. You may need to add some salt. Bring to a simmer, then lower the heat and gently simmer for 10-20 minutes.

7 When you are ready to serve, put the chicken and the remaining apricot pieces into the pan and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Peaches!

So a few weeks ago now we made our (now) annual trip to Kingsbury Orchards. We had a great time with our friends and our visit to their animals (a bunch of cows, this year with some baby cows, and a donkey and a goat).

I restrained myself and only bought a 1/4 peck of yellow and a 1/4 peck of white peaches. I should probably have written down the variety since the orchard has about twenty but I forgot. Next time. I also bought a half peck of donut peaches, and although not as perfectly ripe as other years, they are still my favorite.

Although I did use the word restrain in the last paragraph, I did have a lot of extra peaches, so for the first time, I canned something that was not jam!! * It was pretty easy. I canned about 4 quarts of peaches using this recipe. So I'm pretty excited about that. I won't know how it went till the winter, but the idea of yummy peaches in winter was pretty exciting. And I think the girls will love opening up a jar in the middle of winter and remembering our trip to the farm.

* OK, so in writing that it was my first time canning, I realized that I recently made some rhubarb mustard that I canned. And by the time I had finished writing the paragraph I remembered about the cherries I canned in syrup, so I guess I'm starting to can on a regular basis. But it feels like a new experience every time!!!

Recipes

So I'm struggling with the idea of a Paleo diet. A lot of my friends do it. They seem real happy with it. I have mixed feelings about it. There are some things I am very unanxious to give up.

Challah
The occasional homemade cookies with my husband
Ice Cream
Rice with asian food.

But on the other hand, when I think about it. I never really have found local sources for grains. Sugar is obviously not available. So maybe Paleo is a good way to continue my quest for local food.

I love reading cooking blogs, and on the one hand, that is definitely part of the problem. On the other, I think I'll start using this blog to collect Paleo recipes, and let's see how I do.

There are some items that I am not sure are paleo or not, and I'm still struggling with the idea of milk not being paleo, b/c I really, really like dairy. But, ... we'll see.

The first find:

Straccetti con Rucola e Funghi
serves two

1 pound steak, cut crosswise into thin slices (I used New York strip, but you could use skirt or sirloin as well. Ask your butcher to slice it crosswise as thinly as he can.)
2 cloves of garlic
4 rosemary leaves
1 shallot
2 tablespoons olive oil, or more as needed
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms, preferably porcini, trumpet, or chantarelles
1 tablespoon good balsamic vinegar, plus more for garnish
2 ounces baby arugula, washed well

Garnish: shaved parmesan (optional)
salt and pepper

Trim steak slices and pound until very thin. Cut into "tatters", about 1 inch by 2 inches. Salt well.

Smash and slice garlic. Slice shallot into thin ribbons and mince rosemary. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large cast iron skillet. Add garlic, rosemary, and shallot and cook over low heat until transparent. Add mushrooms and saute until cooked through, about five minutes, then remove to a bowl and set aside.

Turn heat up to medium and add additional tablespoon olive oil if needed. Add steak, spreading out the pieces so there's no overlap. Cook on medium heat, turning once, just until there's no visible red, about 3 minutes total. Return mushroom mixture to the pan, add balsamic vinegar, and toss to coat. Remove pan from heat. Add arugula, tossing to wilt slightly. Serve immediately, garnishing with salt, pepper, shaved parmesan, and additional balsamic vinegar if desired.

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So, what about balsamic vinegar. Not sure if it's paleo, or if I could make it...

Jamberry!

It was a long cold winter.

I was thrilled to celebrate the beginning of summer this weekend with my family and SIL at Butlers Orchard! We picked 20lbs of strawberries! It was fun and perfect weather and we ran into some friends and it only took a couple of hours at the most.

Sunday evening my SIL and I made Jam. Serious Jam.

When I was little, every few years, my mom's best friend would visit with her family. And we would go strawberry picking. And make Jam. (and daiquiris, and strawberries with cream, and chocolate dipped strawberries). One year the eight of us picked 63 lbs of strawberries. IT was a little ridiculous. But so much fun! And such fabulous memories.

So we started with a box of 12, 4oz jars, and then decided that we needed some 8 oz jars when I bought the pectin and sugar, and then decided that for 10lbs of jam, we should probably have one more box, so my husband went out and bought us a box of 16 oz jars, and then we decided to add in some rhubarb that I just bought from the farmers market, and it would be nice to give that away so we went to target after two batches and bought some more 8 oz jars. And as we were finishing up last night, my SIL suggested, 'why don't we make two more batches before I leave tomorrow. You have a LOT of berries still in the fridge'. So we did. In total we made 2.5 gallons of jam.

Things we learned:
Follow the directions on the box of Pectin.
Powdered Pectin seems better then the gel kind.

What happens if you do it wrong:
Not enough sugar, it doesn't set. (we weren't trying to save sugar, I just left the last cup on the counter)
If you put the sugar in before the powdered pectin, it doesn't set.
If you don't cook it with the pectin and sugar together for a full minute, it doesn't set.
If you cook it for too long, it gets very, very thick.

No matter what, it still tastes fabulous!

Guest Post

I had my first guest post here! I guess I should have posted this when it was published last week. I'm sort of slow. About a lot of things I guess. Having been snowed in for the last week, one would imagine I might have gotten around to the couple of posts I've been thinking of. But no. Maybe next week.

Chipotle

So when we lived in CA, my husband and I eschewed Chipotle for two reasons. 1) There were so many better burrito shops. 2) It was owned by McDonald's.

So, we moved to the East Coast in 2004, and we quickly found that 1) There are very few burrito shops, and 2) Everyone went to Chipotle (see 1). So we got out of the burrito habit. I won't say we never go, but we've tended to avoid it over other options.

About a month ago my SIL suggested we go for lunch when we were at the local mall, and given the other options, I said sure. I was surprised at how good it was, better than I remembered.

Yesterday my mom tells me that Michale Pollan was on Oprah. And so was the guy who owns Chipotle and he was talking about how they use as much local ingredients as they can and all organic meats. And I said, they are owned by McDonald's. And she was like, 'no, I don't think so, the owner was on the show'.

So, I went to Wikipedia, and low and behold, " In 1998, McDonald's made an initial minority investment in the company. By 2001, the company had grown to be Chipotle's largest investor" and in addition "In October 2006, McDonald's fully divested from Chipotle.^[16] This was part of a larger initiative for McDonald's to divest all of its non-core business restaurants".

SO. I'm very excited. Happy Eating!

A Year Later

OK, really, it's more than a year, but close enough. I really enjoyed this experience and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. The challenge of choosing local has reaped some wonderful experiences, conversations, and food.

Here are my successes:
South Mountain Creamery
Salt River Lobster
Garrett Park Farmers Market

Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other
Grosvenor Market
MOMS Organic Market
Polyface Farm


The past week or two I gave up on choosing local products as a lifestyle choice over convenience. I will still choose local sources as a first option, but sometimes it's just too much of a pain in the ass to shop, prepare and cook, a healthy, variety of foods year round.

I am so thrilled to find a fish and seafood source. They are lovely. Their prices can be slightly high as there are no discounted sale prices ever, but they are reasonably competitive, and you can't beat their quality or service.

Really, I could probably keep scouting for local veggies, but, particularly as my red meat consumption has decreased, my need for iron has gone up. And broccoli is all well and good, but I like spinach too. And it is easier to send my daughter to lunch at school with peppers, and cucumbers and hummos than most anything else. And she likes it. And eats it, and for a toddler, that is important. And since I've been working out, I have been trying to eat more protein and what they call good fats in every meal. which often means almonds, which are not local, or olives, which are also not local.

But I am much more aware of where my food comes from, how I can get it, and concessions I make regarding ideal and reality.

I'll keep writing as I find other options, try new things, etc. I would like to review certain things I tried last year, (comparison between two local egg nogs) and maybe some restaurants that have expressed that they try to source their food locally.