Meaty Monday: Grilled Chicken Paillards with Corn, Green Beans & Basil Drizzle

Certain foods, I think, are etched into our national psyche as symbols of things near and dear to our heart. If you are eating cotton candy, chances are there's a Ferris wheel not far away,  and if you're munching a corn dog on a stick, there is probably a heifer wearing a blue ribbon in her halter within spitting distance. Corn, tomatoes, basil and green beans scream "Summer!" to me in a not so subtle way. If there is ever a time of year when these foods have reached their pinnacle of perfection, it is now.

Chuck likes grilled chicken. Actually he loves grilled chicken. Really loves grilled chicken. Really thin grilled chicken. If I was willing to serve it at least once a week on a regular day (have I told you about our Tuesday burger night....?), he'd be thrilled. Me, I like change. Especially different dinners.

Since I do like to make dinners that will make us both happy, I came up with this combo that even I could eat once a week...at least during the Summer. The chicken is a simple as can be, "paillards" is just a way to describe very thin pounded slices of meat -- and the drizzle is somewhere between a pesto and a vinaigrette. This can become one of your favorite do-ahead meals. Add the two, to the corn, fresh beans and tomato, and the whole thing just sings. If you need a vegan or vegetarian (or if you are doing a Meatless Monday side dish), just replace the butter in the corn dish with evoo.

Yes, it's every bit as good as it looks. Yes, I did lick the plate.

Grilled Chicken Paillards with Corn, Green Beans & Basil Drizzle
Serves 4

For the chicken:

1/4 cup low sodium gluten free tamari soy sauce
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 garlic cloves, crushed (jarred equivalent is fine)
2T olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin (paillards)

For the drizzle:

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
3 garlic cloves, (jarred equivalent is fine)
1/2 cup evoo
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt

For the vegetables:

1 tablespoon butter or organic corn oil
4 ears of fresh corn, shucked and kernels cut off the cob
1/2 lb. fresh green beans, trimmed and broken in half
1 small fresh tomato, diced
a few basil sprigs for garnish


Instructions:

1. Early in the day, mix the first 4 ingredients and pour into a zip top bag. Add the chicken and chill until dinner.

2. Place all the ingredients for the drizzle in a blender or a mini processor and puree. Place in a covered container in the fridge until dinner time.

3. At mealtime, heat the butter or oil in a medium saucepan, over medium heat, and add the corn and the green beans to the butter. Stir to coat and sauté for a few minutes. Add 1/3 cup of water to the pan, cover and let steam for about 3-4 minutes until the beans are tender. Remove the lid and cook away all the water. Turn off the heat and stir in 3 Tablespoons of the drizzle. Cover and set aside.

4. Heat your grill to medium high, remove the chicken from the marinade (discard the marinade) and grill the chicken about 3-4 minutes per side depending on how thick it is. Place on a platter and drizzle lightly with a bit of the basil drizzle to serve. Pass the extra basil drizzle on the side.

5. Turn the vegetables into a bowl. Sprinkle the tomato over the top and garnish with a basil sprig.

Delicious corn, green beans with basil drizzle and chopped tomatoes,
easily made vegan...

Fee, Fie, Foe, Friday: First Day & I'm Late

Here it is, the very first day of summer, and I'm STILL running late with all the garden chores. Putting in all the raised beds, and moving all the extra soil and compost off the driveway and into a temporary straw bale raised bed have eaten up so much of my time. Vegetable planting was way late this year because of all that. I usually have everything mulched, the cold frame cleaned out,  and all the patio pots planted. Not this year. Usually by now, it's almost "Hammock Time." Instead, I feel like the Mad Hatter.

Summertime! The livin' is easy if you're a tomato plant.

At the rate I'm going, I'll still be doing spring chores by the 4th of July. Not that it matters, but the entire family comes over  for a barbecue at some point over that weekend and I hate having outdoor works-in-progress. Guess I'll have to get over it. And let some of it go. Summer is the time to relax, isn't it? If you are a gardener, the livin' is NOT easy; fun, but not easy.

Even though I may be behindhand, and whipping myself into a froth, Mother Nature is right on schedule. The tomato plants ate tomatoing, and the beans plants are beaning. Swiss chard is ready to pick, and we've already eaten all the radishes and arugula. Second plantings are already IN. Soon we'll be up to our eyeballs in tomatoes and basil. It's all good, isn't it?  Soon I'll be canning and freezing, and too soon, it'll be fall. Here I am already ahead of myself. Worrying.

A tomato plant, tomatoing.

I know, I know, I should let some of it go. And I will. What gets done, gets done, because pfffft! It's a metaphor for life. If you worry too much about the past and the future, you'll miss now. Because I don't want to be late for a date, a very important date...with the hammock this afternoon. Life goes too fast to get caught up in the To Do list. Enjoy. It's Summer.

Kitchen Magician Trick #1: Blanching

It's hard to follow a healthy diet every day when those darn $5 foot-long hoagies (subs to all you non-Philly folks) look so good. Making a meal from scratch seems so daunting when it's late, you're tired and there are still things like baths and bedtime stories, or a lawn to mow before dark. Or, there's a hammock and a glass of wine with your name on it.

It's easy enough to pop a chicken breast or a steak on the grill, but if the thought of having one more bagged salad combo on the side makes you want to dial Dominos, I have a good trick for you. The big TV food gurus always tell you to wash and prep your vegetables and fruit as soon as you bring them home, but I want you to take it one step further. Blanch your vegetables in bulk in advance. Blanching partially cooks your vegetables, and usually brightens the color. If you like them on the firm side, you can even use the blanched vegetables in salads or quick pickles.

So if your family will eat green beans twice in a week,  buy 2 pounds, trim and blanch them in boiling, well salted water for about 4-5 minutes, until just on the verge of being cooked, and then immediately shock them in ice water to stop the cooking. Now you are ready to go. This technique works for most harder, crispy vegetables like broccoli, green beans, carrots and cauliflower, though you may want to blanch sliced carrots or cauliflower a minute or two longer than beans. Tougher greens like kale and collards are great stored blanched, ready to use. You probably only think of blanching when you want to freeze vegetables, but blanched vegetables will keep well in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.  This week I did a batch of green beans and a big bunch of kale.

When mealtime rolls around, and your chicken is on the grill, or the tuna is in the broiler, all you have to do is heat some of your favorite fat in a saucepan, add some aromatics--onion, garlic or pepper, cook for a minute or two, and then add a meal's worth of your blanched vegetable. Toss it in the hot oil until heated through and as tender as you like. Less than 5 minutes to the table. There are innumerable combos to try with your vegetables. Bacon is always a favorite, it goes with virtually everything, and if you save bacon fat like I do, you already have the start of a tasty side dish.

I'm not going to tell you how to blanch your vegetables, you can Google for plenty of info on that; I am telling you to partially gook your vegetables ahead to speed getting a delectable, nutritious dinner on the table in no time flat.

Here's a favorite recipe of ours that uses blanched green beans; in our house the green beans are usually haricots verts, because I grow them and we prefer them. Feel free to use whatever bean is fresh and beautiful in your market.

Just about everything is better with bacon.

Green Beans with Bacon, Fried Onions & Tomato
Serves 4

1 lb. green beans or haricots verts, trimmed and blanched
4 slices of bacon, minced or 4 slices of cooked bacon crumbled, and 2T of saved bacon fat
1 small red onion, quartered and sliced thin
1 medium tomato, seeded and diced small
salt ,and black pepper to taste

In a 12" non-stick frying pan,  cook the bacon over medium high heat until beginning to crisp, about 2 minutes. Lower the heat and cook about a minute longer, until there is a little more than a tablespoon of rendered fat in the pan. Remove the cooked bacon and set aside. Add the onion to the bacon fat, and cook until beginning to soften. If you already have the bacon cooked, just heat the bacon fat and cook the onion. When the onion is beginning to turn golden, add the green beans and toss in the bacon fat. Cook a minute or two until heated through, then add the tomato. Toss well, season with salt and pepper to taste, and place in serving bowl. Sprinkle the reserved bacon over the top.

From the Garden: Haricots Verts and Fresh garlic

This time of year all I do is trim, blanch, freeze, trim, blanch, freeze.
Haricots Verts.

Hmm, that title make it sound as if I've got a recipe for green beans with fresh garlic. I don't. I do have a nice non-recipe for haricots verts, which are delicious, skinny green beans with a French name. I was just announcing that on Sunday, my garlic was more than ready to dig up and cure. It really should have been a few days sooner, but the intense heat wave kept me from the job, even though it was only about 50 plants to fork up. When it's around 100°F, the only thing I'm forking up is fruit salad.

I was a little excited since last years wasn't nearly as good!

Anyway, the garlic's been dug up; 50 or so nice fat heads of German Porcelain Garlic, from Jung's Seeds. I ordered them late in October last year and had to hustle to get them planted before the ground froze. It was worth all the trouble, they look fabulous. I have them spread out in my garage to dry, and will store them in my "cold cellar," which was actually a room-sized area dug into the ground next to our basement that once held a heating oil tank. Stays just below 55°F most of the time, so it's a great place to store stuff. Like garlic, root vegetables or crocks of pickles. You can certainly use garlic fresh, (and I will) but I like to age most of it as the flavor will mellow and be less biting.

The beans have been coming on for a solid couple of weeks now, but the high heat and lack of rainfall are slowing them down. Even if I water them enough to boost my water bill by $100, it still isn't enough to make up for no rain. I can't even imagine how expensive and difficult it must be for the farmers in our region to irrigate. I really like haricots verts with their  fresh, grassy bean taste, and they are just as easy to grow as regular green beans. This variety you see in the picture getting prepped is called Maxibel, a bush variety. The pole beans should be starting soon, too. Bean City.

Haricots Vert, or Green Beans with Orange Oil
 in my favorite Sophie Conran bowl .

The non-recipe:

Haricots Verts with Orange Oil

My favorite way to treat any kind of green bean, French or not, is to blanch in very highly salted water for about 3 minutes if they are going to be drained and frozen, or 4 minutes if they will be eaten soon. Use a big pot of water so the water doesn't stop boiling when you add the beans. You only need to remove the end that was attached to the plant, the blossom end is a pretty curlicue and fine to eat. Put more salt than you think you need in the water. If you are using a gallon and a half of water, use at least 4 Tablespoons of kosher salt in the water. Have a big bowl of ice water ready to shock or chill the beans as soon as you remove them from the boiling salt water.

If you are going to freeze them, pack them in freezer bags in portion sizes, label and date, and freeze.

If you are going to eat them, heat some orange flavored olive oil, or some olive oil with some orange zest added in a medium saucepan. Use enough to coat the amount of beans you plan to eat. Toss in the beans, stir well to coat with the oil, and saute over medium heat until they are reheated through and are as tender as you and your family like them. Taste for salt; they may need none since they were blanched in salt water. Serve and swoon.