This is one of our classic Tuesday night suppers. One of those meals that you almost always have the ingredients on hand for that becomes a VIP in the meal rotation. We eat it a whole lot around here.

I only came up with it because I needed another way to use my beloved Balsamic vinegar and because I was sick of eating regular Mexican food. As native Californians, Bear’s family would happily eat Mexican food for every meal. I tend to get tastebud fatigue. So like many of my recipe creations, this represented a compromise between my desire for fancy food, and Bear’s desire for the traditional food of his youth.

Balsamic Burrito
4 T olive oil
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 T Balsamic vinegar
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 onion
2 chicken breasts

tortillas
rice
sour cream
cheddar cheese
other assorted burrito fixings

Chop the peppers, onions, and chicken into bite sized pieces. Toss the chicken in a skillet with the oil, vinegar and Worcestershire. When nearly cooked through, add the vegetables and cook until translucent but not mushy.

It’s that simple.

I prefer to serve this with salted white rice, shredded cheddar cheese and an enormous dollop of sour cream, but you could experiment with any of your favorite additions. It’s one of the easiest things I know how to make, but really yummy and best of all, unique enough to fight that tastebud fatigue.

I haven’t eaten much chutney over the course of my life, but I’ve made up for that now that I’ve started canning. Chutneys are a combination of fruit, vinegar, and sugar, so they’re perfect high acid foods for canning. And they are a delicious sweet and sour topping to meats like pork, fish or chicken, or just used as a dip for chips or served with cheese and crackers.

Nectarine Chutney and pork

4 C chopped nectarines
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 C brown sugar
3/4 C red wine vinegar
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1/2 C chopped onions
1/3 C lime juice
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 jalapeno, seeds removed, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
4 pork chops

In a large saucepan, combine sugar, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a boil and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add remaining ingredients, reduce heat, and boil gently until nectarines and onions are translucent, and sauce thickens.

In a dry skillet, sear the pork chops on high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and pour the chutney on top. Cover. Cook until the pork is cooked through and tender, keeping the heat low enough so that the sugar in the chutney doesn’t scorch.

To can the chutney, double the recipe and pour into hot jars, processing in the normal procedure for 15 minutes.

Since last we talked about my canning adventures, I’ve continued in a couple of different batches to can:

3 qts sweet pickled green tomatoes
4 qts sour pickled green tomatoes
9 pints green tomato chutney
9 pints green tomato salsa
4 pints green tomato jelly
4 pints green tomato butter
9 pints blackberries in light syrup
3 pints blackberry jam
3 1/2 pints blackberry chipotle jam

My pantry is brimming, and most of it is with food I won’t exactly turn to every single day, but it’s all been a really fabulous learning experience.

My whole goal in taking on this canning project was to make heaps and heaps of homemade marinara sauce. I haven’t had a spare second to get back out to the community garden and see if the tomatoes are ripe, but I fear I may have missed my window for free tomatoes.

The week before my big conference, I got a message that the tomatoes were going to be plowed under. So I dropped everything and raced out there to claim what I could, only to discover that all the tomatoes were green. Since I was already out there, I picked a basket of green tomatoes and got to work on them. Green tomatoes aren’t exactly easy to find in the grocery store, so I had no idea how many great things you could make with them. Including a salsa that substitutes them for tomatillos, and a sweet jelly with just a hint of basil aftertaste. Pickled tomatoes are also not something I ever would have tried on my own, but they are really yummy.

A few weeks before that I went out to a spot in town where there are some blackberry bushes along the road. I was hoping to pick gallons and gallons of them, but my helpers weren’t exactly helpful. The power went out to the car’s cigarette lighter, so Atti was left without an Elmo DVD to entertain him, and Bear was scared off by enormous spider webs. I spent a couple of hours getting torn up by blackberry brambles and grumbling about being the Little Red Hen, before going home for frozen lemonade.

Blackberries are my very favorite and they remind me of my childhood in Washington where blackberries grow wild and we would walk down the hill to collect bowls full of sun-warmed berries to turn into pie. I’m really excited about the blackberry chipotle jam – which ended up kind of being my own recipe – and I plan on pouring it over ham or pork to use as a glaze.

Hopefully I’ll come across a great deal on ripe tomatoes in the next few weeks and I can put all my practicing to work filling my shelves with homemade marinara sauce so I can always have an easy go-to meal on hand.

I have been meaning to share this recipe for over two years now. I first came up with it when we had a party to celebrate Atti’s baby blessing, and I wanted a slightly fancier option for the sandwich spread we were putting out. On my first attempt I just cooked the apples and onion in butter and drizzled vinegar on the sandwich, but now that I’ve gotten so hooked on canning and found myself with a big box full of onions, I needed to change the recipe to make it friendly to can. It is so much better for it.

Apple Onion Slaw

2 C granny smith apple, peeled, cored, and shredded
1 1/2 C onion, shredded
1/3 C apple cider vinegar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/2 C water
1/2 T salt
1 tsp dried marjoram

Add all the ingredients to a big pot and cook until the apples are tempted to fall apart and the onions are translucent.

The sandwich itself couldn’t be simpler. A big loaf of bread (ciabatta is my favorite for this), creamy chevre goat cheese spread on both sides, and grilled chicken breast sliced for easy eating. Topped with a generous helping of the apple onion slaw. Oh my it’s good. The saltiness of the cheese with the sweet and sour flavors of the vinegar infused apples? Super yummy.

Edited to add:
Sorry I forgot to add canning instructions. I totally missed this. It’s super easy. I just filled warm jars leaving around 1/4″ of headspace, adding water as necessary to remove any air bubbles, and processed for 20 minutes. You might be able to process for less, but the heat doesn’t hurt it and I’m a little obsessed with safety.

We’ve reached a point in the summer when trying to come up with dinner is my most detested chore. I don’t want to do anything that would bring heat in my general direction. Salads are a great solution to this, but judging by what you see on restaurant menus, it seems like there are only four or five salads ever made. Let’s see, you’ve got your Chinese Chicken Salad, a Caesar, a Cobb, something based around BBQ, and maybe a taco salad. And if it’s a place that specializes in salads, you can find something with fruit and a stinky cheese. I love every one of those things, but variation is nice.

This one came from my favorite restaurant ever: Rutabegorz. It’s a place that specializes in fresh ingredients, particularly fruits and vegetables, and so there are very few people who will eat there with me because they think it’s a place for vegetarians. Oh the bounty they are missing out on.

Sweet and Crunchy Chicken Salad

2 chicken breasts
1/2 C olive oil
salt and pepper
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 C walnuts, diced
2 T butter
2 T honey
1/2 tsp sugar
1 head lettuce or 3 C mixed greens, washed and torn
1 tomato, diced
1 cucumber, sliced
3 carrots, shredded
1 avocado, diced
1 C feta cheese, crumbled
1 C crispy chow mein noodles

For the dressing:
1/2 C olive oil
Juice from 1 lemon
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard

Marinate the chicken breasts in the olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper. Grill, then chop into bite sized pieces.

In a nonstick skillet, melt the butter and honey together. Add the nuts and toss until well coated and the liquid is nearly evaporated. Sprinkle the sugar on top. Spread the nuts onto a tinfoil covered cookie sheet, and bake at 350 for ten minutes. Allow to cool and then brake apart into small pieces.

Combine the chicken and walnuts with the remaining ingredients and toss.

In a blender, combine the lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard. While blending, slowly add the oil to allow it to emulsify.

I like to make up big batches of sugared nuts and keep them in airtight containers. If I do that, and make Bear man the grill, I can make up this salad with not a bit of heat getting into my kitchen. Wonderful.

Whenever I get together with my cousin Karen, we often end up devouring our weight in artichokes. She is maybe the one person on the planet who loves them as much as I do.

A couple of years ago we drove to LA to try and catch a taping of American Idol, but didn’t make it inside. To salvage the evening we drove around West Hollywood admiring boutiques and found an adorable little restaurant to eat at. Since artichokes were on the menu, we had to have some, and this place served it with this wonderful sauce they called Remoulade.

After a bit of research, I discovered that Remoulade is a cajun mayonnaise based sauce commonly served with seafood. It is absolute perfection with an artichoke. You could just add the seasonings to prepared mayonnaise, but I figured why not go all the way homemade.

Remoulade sauce

2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 C vegetable oil
1/2 C olive oil
Juice from 1 lemon
8 cornichons (or sweet gherkins) diced
1 clove garlic, diced

In a mixer or blender, whisk together the eggs and salt. While still mixing, slowly add the vegetable oil in a steady stream, allowing it to emulsify. Add the lemon juice, then the olive oil, again in a steady stream. Stir in the cornichons and garlic pieces. Refrigerate before use, overnight is best.

My favorite way to cook artichokes is to boil them until nearly done. Then chop them in half and scrape out the fuzzy choke, drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette, and roast in a hot oven until the choke is soft. You can even sprinkle a touch of sugar on top if you want a little burnt sugar taste.

For once I’m actually on top of things, and in time for all your 4th of July celebrations, I wanted to share my recipe for my favorite cold treat.

A granita is a little bit like a shaved ice, but the ice is flaky instead of smoothly ground. It gets its texture from the way we disrupt the forming of crystals as it’s freezing. It’s a million times easier than ice cream, more gourmet than a popsicle, and can be ready to eat in as few as three hours depending on your freezer and the dish you use.

Basic Granita Recipe

5 C juice
1/2 C sugar
1 C water
flavorings of choice

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and water and allow to melt together. If you are using herbs or whole spices to flavor your granita, add them to the sugar syrup and let steep for ten minutes with the heat on low.

Strain the sugar syrup and add to the juice in a large shallow dish. A casserole dish works well, but if you can fit a jelly roll pan in your freezer your granita will be done in a wink. Allow to freeze until partially set, and then rake the mixture with a fork to break up the ice crystals into flakes. Return to the freezer and repeat every hour or so until the mixture is thoroughly frozen.

To make my Strawberry Balsamic version, I used 5 Cups of strawberry balsamic juice. In a saucepan I added 1 lb of frozen strawberries, 5 C of water, 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, and 1/2 C of sugar. Add more sugar if necessary to make the juice sweet enough to taste. Strain out the soggy strawberries, and add to the sugar syrup.

This is a really great recipe to experiment with using whatever fruits and herbs are in season. My other favorite version is a lemon rosemary granita. That one is just perfection on the hottest day of the year. I don’t know that I’ve ever had anything so refreshing.

Bear has been like a kid in a candy store with all this fresh fruit around, and the thing he keeps coming back to is fresh blueberry muffins. It’s easy to see why. Talk about the biggest reward for the smallest effort. It takes no more time than mixing up a Betty Crocker cake, but the difference between a storebought muffin and a homemade one is just incalculable. My goodness, when you bite into a blueberry and the whole thing just explodes in your mouth? That’s worth a whole lot more trouble than this.

After trying a couple of variations, Bear decided that his dream muffin would have some cream cheese involved. We thought about adding it to the batter and debated over whether or not a muffin could have frosting. But then in a bit of what I can only describe as inspiration, we thought of adding it as a filling. That was a very very good idea.

Bear’s Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins

For the muffins:
12 1/2 ounces all purpose or bread flour
teaspoon baking soda
teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup yogurt
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

For the filling:
8 oz cream cheese
1 C powdered sugar
1 Tbs milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Sift together all the dry ingredients except the sugar. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the mixture, and stir. Add blueberries and fold in gently. Set aside.

Using a hand blender or mixer, beat together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and milk. Add more sugar if necessary to make it as sweet as you prefer.

Fill greased muffin tins a little less than halfway full with the blueberry mixture. Add a dollop of cream cheese, and then top with more muffin mix until the muffin tin is just below full.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. Remove from oven and remove the muffins from the tin to cool.