Garden Update #1

What would a food and wine adventure be without our summer garden!  This year, we planted cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, and three varieties of tomatoes.  We planted on April 27, and nearly two months later we just harvested our first few cucumbers.  We will continue to update you as we pick more and prepare some yummy dishes!!

Here a few progressive images over the last few weeks:

Right after planting - you can barely see the plants!

June 1st 

Our first few cucumbers

Chicken and Tomato Skewers

The prepared skewers ready for the grill

On Friday evening, we made Chicken and Tomato Skewers.  This is a recipe Mark's mom made often when he was growing up.  The recipe is in some old Chicken recipe book that Mark's mom has long since thrown out.  The recipe calls for chicken and tomatoes only.  However, we "dress" them up with both bell peppers and onions (Vidalia onions on this night!).  The dish is extremely easy.  The chicken marinade sauce is only 3 ingredients:  tomato sauce, honey, and Worcestershire sauce .  You mix the three ingredients and throw the chicken in (after cutting it into squares).  Then, thread skewers with chicken and veggies.  The recipe suggests cooking the skewers under the broiler, but we feel that they are tastier on the grill.  Friday was less humid here in NC, so we fired up the charcoal and threw them on the grill.  They are a great summer dish.


Perfectly grilled and ready to eat!

Garlic Chicken and Potatoes

@FoodNetwork #FNMag  We are back to the blog!  Now, we realize it has been an extended hiatus from our blog, but it is not that we lost track or interest.  Rather, we have committed ourselves to an exciting (not really) regiment of healthy salads and really how exciting is a blog about the different ways to prepare lettuce :=) 

In our venture away from greens, we decided to prepare this healthy chicken and potatoes dish, Garlic Chicken and Potatoes.  A dish from a recent issue of Food Network Mag, this dish takes ordinary chicken and potatoes to a tasty level - with flavors of garlic, herbs, and fresh lemon juice.  We kicked up the recipe with a few extra herbs from our garden (rosemary, thyme).  The potatoes were fresh from the Piedmont Farmers Market and still freshly covered in dirt -- straight from the field. 

Quick, simple, garlicy, juicy -- YUM!  Ahhhhh, what a nice return to a good wholesome meal!!