Gardening 2014 - Almost Ready!

About $50 from Lowe's

This year we upgraded our grow light to a four tube unit. It's made a solid difference in how our seedlings look.

Just potted up March 22

and moved to the porch today to start hardening off a bit:

April 13

There are 4 varieties in there: Cuore di Bue, Scipio Ibrido, and red and yellow currant tomatoes. The currant tomatoes will go into containers and the other two will be planted in the usual way.

Tomatillo - 1 or 4

We've also got tomatillos and Brussels Sprouts. The sprouts will go out Tuesday as long as it doesn't rain too much.

Soon my sweeties, soon...

The soil is still pretty wet but we've got the three main beds cleaned up and the drip system set up for the Bussels Sprouts:

4 drip lines for 4 Brussels Sprout plants. That part that looks dry is about 1/4" thick.

I'm not sure what will go in front of them yet. Maybe a few little rows of beets.

Last Year's Zucchini

The little area where the zucchini grew last year is being re-conditioned by a landscape company in a couple weeks. There was just too much bamboo root residue in there to make it practical for this old gardener to dig out on his own. That area will get the non-container tomatoes. They're also re-arranging things on the north, very shady, side of the house and adding a little herb garden area by the front door.

Zucchini will go in the front yard - it faces south west and with the layout of the street and houses it gets plenty of sun. We've also got several winter squash varieties and a couple types of peppers to find space for. Of course the lettuce rail we made out of a rain gutter will be filled again.

Stuffed Chicken Puttanesca

Stuffed Chicken "Puttanesca"

Recipe by William Colsher

In this recipe I've turned the ingredients used in "puttanesca" sauce into a stuffing for an otherwise bland piece of supermarket chicken.

Prep time: 20 minutes plus up to 24 hours idle
Cook time: 2 hours
Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

• 1 Large (about 350 grams) Chicken Breast Half
• 90 grams Black Olive Puree
• 15 grams Capers, rinsed and chopped
• 5 grams Garlic, minced
• 5 grams Parsley, chopped
• To Taste Hot Pepper Flakes
• Transglutaminase-RM 

For the Polenta


• 1/2 Cup Corn Meal
• 2 cups Chicken broth or water
• 1/4 cup Freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Cooking Directions

1. Cut the chicken breast in half horizontally. Lightly flatten the pieces.
2. Combine the black olive puree, capers, garlic, parsley, and pepper flakes and mix well.

3. Place the olive mixture in a line down the center of one of the chicken breast halves.
4. Sprinkle Transglutaminase-RM around the edges of both breast halves and press them together gently.
5. Transfer the breast halves to a sheet of plastic wrap and roll then tightly together to form a neat cylinder.

6. Tie off the ends and wrap & tie as tightly as possible a second time.
7. Place the chicken package in the refrigerator overnight.
8. Preheat a water bath to 140F.
9. Place the chicken package in a ziplock bag and remove as much air is possible using the displacement method.
10. Cook the chicken in the water bath for at least 2 hours. 
11. While the chicken is cooking prepare a batch of polenta using the corn meal, broth, and cheese. Pour the cooked polenta into a 9x9 pan lined with plastic wrap. Give it a good bang on the counter to settle the polenta into the corners and set aside to cool and firm up.

12. When ready to serve, lift the polenta sheet out of the pan and cut 6 disks slightly larger than the diameter of the chicken roll. Brown them on both sides in a little olive oil and keep warm. Be patient. The polenta disks will be very soft. Let the cheese do it's thing and crisp up.
13. Warm a small pan of basic tomato sauce.
14. Remove the chicken from the water bath and carefully unwrap it. Trim the ends and carefully cut it into 6 slices.


15. Spoon three pools of tomato sauce onto a large plate, top each with a polenta disk and a piece of the chicken.

16. Drizzle on a little more tomato sauce and repeat for the second serving.

An elBulli Snack: 1107 Black Olive Oreo with Double Cream

Even the "easy" recipes in the new elBulli 2005-2011 volumes come with challenges. Most of the time those challenges involve one (or both) of two factors:

• Sourcing Ingredients
• Time

The Black Olive Oreo snack involves both. The ingredients I had trouble with were the 220 gram jar of black olive puree and double cream. Living in a major city you wouldn't think either would be much of an issue, but it turns out that while quite a few places sometimes stock double cream, it's availability can be pretty spotty. Black olive puree? Should be easy in a town with the Italian roots of Philly, but no. Lots of places have small jars of olive puree but they all seem to to be some version of tapenade with capers, anchovies and whatnot added. The recipe and more below...