The Garden is Planted! (2012 Garden Update #3)

It's hard to get your garden planted when you're off driving around the West, but the garden is finally planted!

When I'm on a trip, I work hard before I leave so that recipes can still appear on the blog, so readers might not realize that I've been off on a long road trip to visit my brother, visit a nephew and his family, see my friend Cheryl, and most of all to speak at Camp Blogaway (which I highly recommend, especially for relatively new bloggers.)  The weather in Utah got warm very early this year, so I did plant most of my garden before I left.  Since I've been back I managed to finish the planting and had good intentions of getting the garden nicely weeded before I took photos for the blog, but the rain gods made short work of that plan.  The garden loved the rain though, so here's what I'm growing in my garden this year, weeds and all!  Above is an early morning shot of the garden space just as the sun is peeking over the trees that are on the east side in my neighbor's yard.

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Grilled Chicken Recipe with Tarragon-Mustard Marinade

Chicken breasts are marinated in a flavorful mustard-tarragon marinade and then grilled.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Right now the tarragon in my garden is in overdrive, and this favorite grilled chicken from 2007 sounds great for dinner!)

Recently I realized it had been a while since I've had a new grilled chicken recipe. It was one of those thoughts that just flitted through my mind, not seeming to lead anywhere, and then a few days later I thought of grilling and tarragon in the same moment and this recipe was born.  If you haven't tried the distinctive flavor of tarragon, give this a try!

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Recipe for Baby Kale, Mozzarella, and Egg Bake (and Ten More Ideas for Starting Your Day with Kale!)

I loved this combination so much I made it several times in a row for a heat-and-eat breakfast!

A couple of months ago I came up with a recipe for Spinach and Mozzarella Egg Bake, which turned out to be one of my personal favorite breakfasts.  Then I discovered the fantastic Earthbound Farm Mixed Baby Kales at the store near my house, so of course I had to try the recipe using kale.  I loved that version as well, and at first I just thought about adding a note to the spinach recipe saying that I liked it with kale.  But I really wanted all my fellow kale fans to find this recipe, and knowing how the internet works, I decided this version deserves a recipe post of its own.  How much did I love this cheesy egg bake with baby kale?  When I tested the recipe I ate this for breakfast three weeks in a row before I finally switched to something else!

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Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Three Crabs Fish Sauce

Thanks to my friend Lydia for introducing me to this premium brand of fish sauce! 

I'm not an expert on Asian ingredients, so years ago when I ran across a post touting Three Crabs Fish Sauce on a blog called The Perfect Pantry, I was more than happy to listen to Lydia's fish sauce recommendations.  Shortly after that my step-sister Karyn asked me what I wanted from San Francisco and I requested a bottle of Three Crabs Fish Sauce.  Then I discovered I could buy it at several Asian markets in Salt Lake,  and now it's the only brand of fish sauce I buy.  The fun side note to this fish sauce success story is that I also became good friends with Lydia from The Perfect Pantry and now we e-mail often to discuss all things blogging.

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Spicy Stir-Fried Broccoli Stems Recipe

This recipe is for everyone who likes to nibble the broccoli stems when they're cutting up the broccoli!

Broccoli stems are one of those under-appreciated vegetable parts that don't get much respect, yet when I'm cutting up stalks of broccoli, they're my favorite part to nibble on.  After I realized how much I liked them, a few years ago I started to save the stems in the vegetable crisper.  I've mostly used my broccoli stem bounty in salads, but this idea for cooking the stems with a spicy sauce is something I came up with when I had a whole pound of stems saved up.  I cooked them in a wok, but a large frying pan will work, and if you've never eaten the broccoli stems, this recipe just might turn you into a fan.

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Mother's Day 2012 and Missing My Mom

A Mother's Day Message for every day of the year.

When you're a kid you never imagine growing up and having your mother (and father) be gone.  When that time comes it brings a pain that takes a long time to settle into the dull everyday ache of missing someone who was a big part of your life.  My mother died in 1998, and every Mother's Day since then I have given thanks for how blessed I was to have her for a mother.  I hope she's proud of what fine adults all her children have grown into and how much we love each other, and on this day and every day my heart is always full when I think of her.

(The Mother's Day graphic was created by my brother Rand as part of this shareable Facebook campaign for Manduka Yoga.)

 

Spicy Grilled Eggplant Recipe with Red Pepper, Parsley, and Mint

This spicy grilled eggplant is a favorite of my brother Rand, who does the fun headers for Kalyn's Kitchen

 
(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I'm on the road driving home from Los Angeles, where I've been visiting my brother Rand and attending Camp Blogaway.  This Spicy Grilled Eggplant is Rand's very favorite recipe on Kalyn's Kitchen, and I'm glad I have my eggplant planted this year so I can make it later in the summer.  Meanwhile, if you have eggplant from the supermarket or Farmer's Market, I highly recommend this recipe.)

If you saw my last garden update, then you know I'm growing eggplant this year, and my first one was ready to harvest recently. I've grilled eggplant before, but I'm certainly not what you'd call an expert at cooking it, so I consulted a couple of cookbooks and settled on a recipe from Williams Sonoma Complete Grilling Cookbook, one of my favorite cookbooks, which I return to every summer for more grilling recipes. I followed their recommendation for salting the eggplant to remove some of the water before grilling. I sliced my eggplant about 1/2 inch thick, but next time I might slice it even thicker.

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