Berry Busy

The raspberries have really come on strong in the past couple of weeks. I can easily spend three hours in the cooler air of the early mornings picking them. Then they need to be rinsed, drained, and frozen. I’ll vacuum-seal them in pints the next day. Of course I keep a lot of them out to eat immediately. I know I’ve said this before, but even though I also eat a lot of them whilst picking, I never get tired of having more.

While a lot of my time each summer is spent on gardening chores, I still need to prep foods and cook meals. You probably need to eat, also. So that’s why I’m sharing a couple of the most recently used recipes now.

Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp each: pepper, cayenne, garlic powder, thyme, & diced parsley

1/8 tsp each: paprika and onion powder

4 chicken breasts

2 Tbl butter

1 Tbl EVOO

2 tsp garlic powder

3 Tbl lime juice

Mix the herbs and spices together. Sprinkle generously on the meat. Heat butter and oil over medium heat. Sauté breasts 6 minutes per side, until golden. Sprinkle with combined garlic powder and lime juice. Cook an additional 5 minutes, or until meat is cooked through.

While this calls for breast meat, I used chicken thighs, but only two of them. I did use all the other ingredients in full: it was a little spicy. For one of the sides I added a batch of wild rice pilaf (I buy this from the bulk bins at WinCo in Billings). I sautéed the rice with chopped green onion tops in a bit of ghee before adding water with a half-teaspoon of Better than Bouillon, vegetable base. The recipe for the other side follows.

Sugar Snap Peas with Mint & Lemon

1 pd fresh peas, trimmed

2 tsp EVOO

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 C loosely packed mint leaves, chopped

2 tsp freshly grated lemon zest

1/4 tsp salt

Juice of 1 lemon

Bring a pot of water to boil over medium-high heat. Add peas, cook until bright green but still a little crispy, 3-4 minutes. Drain and immediately plunge into ice water. Drain. Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Add the peas, mint, and zest. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until heated. Add salt and juice.

Since most of my fresh mint was flowering and trying to go to seed, I’d uprooted almost all of it. I used the mint I’d dried last summer instead of fresh, so I cut the amount in half. I also used dried zest and bottled juice. Sometimes you just need to use those shortcuts.

The beets are coming on strong now, as well. I’m still using the beet greens in salads, or boiled and sprinkled with vinegar. If you don’t have beet greens, you could use spinach or Swiss chard in the next recipe.

Beet Greens

2 bunches beet leaves, with stems

1 Tbl EVOO

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

2 lemons, quartered

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add greens, cook 2 minutes. Drain and chill. Chop coarsely. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and flakes. Cook about 1 minute. Stir in greens. Season. Cook just until hot. Serve with lemon.

For a variation on this, you could add the following to the hot oil before tossing in the greens: 1/4 tsp each cumin and paprika, and 1 Tbl each chopped cilantro and chopped parsley.