Grilled Asparagus with Lemon and Garlic (and lemon chicken!)

I REALLY want it to be spring. Our temperatures are starting to warm up. Now, if only the wind would stop blowing and the rain would stop raining, we'd be set. But, it's March (the end of March even!) and so that means I'm itchin' to get grillin.' How about you?

So tomorrow night, rain or shine, here is what I'll be cookin' up outside on the grill. Join me, won't you?

Grilled Asparagus with Lemon and Garlic

recipe courtesy Paula Deen 

Ingredients

• 1 pound asparagus
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Trim asparagus. In a small bowl, combine oil, garlic, zest and paprika and stir with a fork. Lay asparagus side by side and pierce on 2 wooden skewers to form a raft. Place rafts on the grill and brush with oil mixture. Cook to desired tenderness and season with salt and pepper.

**Along with the grilled asparagus, I'll be cooking up my favorite lemon chicken recipe.**

Lemon Pepper Marinade for Chicken

Melanie McDonald

2/3 cup lemon juice (from a bottle is great, but fresh is always better!)

6 tbsp. water

2 tsp. chicken bouillon

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tsp. pepper

chicken

1.In a shallow dish or ziplock bag, combine all ingredients. 

2. Stir. 

3. Add chicken. 

4. Cover and marinade in the fridge for at least 4 hours or over night.

5. Remove chicken from marinade.

6. Grill or broil.

7. Discard leftover marinade

* I love to make these using chicken tenders and skewer them on bamboo skewers. It makes turning them as you grill easy and my kids LOVE to eat them this way.

Cleaning out the Fridge

I love recipes that help me to clean out my fridge. You know the ones that leave room for improvisation and the ability to use a little of this and a little of that. Just the other day I found a recipe that let me do just that. It is for a great Pot Pie recipe.

 image from The Baker Chick blog

Check out all the veggies I threw into mine:

carrots

green beans

peas

corn

onions

cauliflower

broccoli

yukon gold potatoes

squash

Head on over to The Baker Chick's blog and try out this great Pot Pie recipe. Just try not to be too distracted by her amazing dessert recipes while you're there.

*If you have your own pie crust recipe I'd go ahead and make that. Stick to what you're familiar with. Even if that means store bought!

Post Edit: Kim asked:  "i am making these one day this week. do you think they would work in regular muffin tins? and if I freeze them, did you cook them first, then freeze? and how long would i reheat them for?!?"


My response: "I froze mine BEFORE cooking them. I found several other similar recipes online that had done that. Then they cooked them from anywhere from one hour to an hour and a half. You'll just have to mess around with the times and watch them close. If you think well enough ahead, you could also thaw them and then cook them, I suppose. As you can see, I've not cooked mine from frozen yet! We'll all have to learn together. Also, I think they'd work just great in regular size muffin tins. The extra large muffin tins make BIG ole pies and my kids will never be able to eat a whole one. But, if they were regular muffin size they could and my kids would think that was fun to get their own muffin pie.

CONFESSIONS...

We've been slacking. 

Oh, you noticed?  :) 

1)  I have to tell you that the past couple of weeks when I have picked up my bountiful basket on Saturday morning it's been filled with many of my favorite fruits and vegetables and I started craving some of my favorite recipes we've already posted.  I tried to get myself to investigate new recipes because I find that exciting and I know many of you like to see what we find, but sometimes there's nothing like the tried and true!  So while the posts have been lacking, the cooking hasn't, there just hasn't been anything new to report. (I do have 2 recipes you should try.  I will post those soon.) 

2)  We have been horrible at checking our email and I am embarrassed to admit that there were emails in the inbox from February none of us had seen.  Terrible, I know.  I apologize to those of you who have sent in recipes and suggestions as well as those of you who have asked, "What's this____?!"  We even had someone ask if we were still updating our blogspot?  We are, just not very consistently.  We will be better about this because there are some great things being shared and we need to and want to share them. 

3)  We love to hear your comments, and suggestions.  We love to know that you do try the recipes we post.  Keep letting us know that and we too will strive to be better at posting the happenings in our kitchens! 

Now to those of you who were able to get a basket today, enjoy it! (I was too slow.  can't waist a second around here! the baskets sell out in a matter of minutes and there are a lot of sites to choose from. crazy!  but it's a good kind of crazy!)  

We'll be back soon. Promise!

Ideas for all those turnips!

I don't think I've ever eaten a turnip in my entire life.  

Looks like that is going to change soooooon.

I did a little research this morning on turnips and found a few recipes I think I'll give a try.  I may not have enough turnips for all of the recipes, but one or two of them for sure!

I hope this is helpful to a few of you like me who have no recipes in your recipe binder/box for turnips.

Butternut Squash and Turnip Soup

I actually still have two butternut squashes in my vegetable basket on my counter from over a month ago.  I love making soup . . . maybe I'll give this one a try!

Turnip Fries

I am pretty sure my husband and I will love these.  We love to make sweet potato fries, parsnip fries, carrot fries, and potato fries just like this.  I am sure these will also be great!

Turnip and Potato Patties

My mom use to make potato patties for breakfast when we were growing up.  I think I just might have to make breakfast for dinner one of these nights!

Masala Turnips

My husband LOVES Indian food.  And I just found out one of my very best friends is moving home from England in a few weeks is loves and makes amazing Indian food.  I think I'll give this a trial run before she gets home so she has another Indian dish to add to her collection!  Or maybe I'll just have to make it for her when she gets home . . . I did read turnips stay fresh for up to 2 months if stored in a cool, dark place.

Let us know what you do with your turnips.  We'd love to hear

Spinach Love

I was thrilled to get more spinach in our basket on Saturday!  I would love it if we got spinach every week.  There are so many health benefits to spinach and so many yummy things to do with it.  

For breakfast this morning I made my husband and I a delicious mango-banana-strawberry green smoothie.  A green smoothie has been a delicious start to many of our days lately!

Here are a few other great ideas I'm looking forward to to use up all that spinach we've been getting . . .

Tuscan Garlic Chicken from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.

I actually made this one last week.  Overall, it was good.  My husband loved it.  I just didn't love the chicken . . . which really surprised me.  But the cheesy, creamy pasta was of course delicious!

Spinach Lasagna Roll-Ups from Just Cook Already.

This one is on this week's menu.  I'm thinking this will make my sweet husband very happy!

Gnocci with Tomatoes, Pine Nuts, and Spinach from Skip to my Lou.

I'm looking forward to this one one day soon.  Although, I am going to complicate it a bit by making my own gnocci.  I've seen a few recipes for it and it doesn't seem too hard.  I'm hoping it will cut down on the cost a bit also.

What great ideas have you guys come up with to use all of the spinach we've been getting?  We'd LOVE to hear your ideas!

Jerusalem Artichokes

I realize I am about two weeks too late for this post.

There are only two of us in our house . . . me and the husband . . . so we don't always get around to using all of our veggies for a couple of weeks.  If there is something that will stay 'fresh' for a few weeks like these root veggies, I'll hang onto them for a while.  Hopefully there are a few of you like me out there that this post will be helpful to!

Last week I finally cooked up the Jerusalem Artichokes we got two weeks ago.  WE LOVED THEM!  Next time I am at the grocery store, I'm going to see if I can find them.  I'm hoping they aren't too rare to find!

After doing a little research on the internet, I ended up just coating mine in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasting them on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 15 or so minutes.  I used websites like this, this, and this for ideas.  Sauteing them in a little oil and butter of course sounds delish, but I tend to love the flavor that is brought out in vegetables when roasted (not to mention the calories saved!).

What did YOU do with your Jerusalem Artichokes?

Tomato and Lemon Drizzle Chicken

{Do you still have some of those lemons left over from a couple of weeks ago like I did?  Well, hopefully you do because I've got a yummy idea for you!!!}

 I got a little adventurous tonight and made up my own little creation.  Well, not necessarily my very own creation . . .

A couple of months ago my husband and I went out to an amazing Italian restaurant in town with some of our best friends.  I got a delicious tomato/lemon/olive oil chicken.  A couple days later I thought, "I could totally make that myself.  Maybe not exactly the same, but similiar."  So I attempted it tonight and I think I did pretty darn good.

I started out by adapting this Parmesan Chicken recipe Kim posted a few months ago.  I dipped my chicken in some whipped egg and then in a mixture of a 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, and the zest of one whole lemon.  I then cooked the chicken in a Tablespoon of butter over medium heat for 5 or 6 minutes on each side.

Next, I sliced a tomato up, sprinkled some garlic salt, lemon pepper, and basil on it and broiled the slices for 5 minutes.  Then I topped the cooked chicken with the tomatoes and finished it off by drizzling it with a mixture of 5 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice and 2 Tablespoons olive oil. 

I served the chicken with whole wheat pasta and a homemade Italian Tomato Pasta Sauce (recipe found here).  

The whole meal was so yummy.  This will definitely become a regular in our house!