Minty Chicken-Zucchini Kebobs

Since it is grilling season, I thought it would be fitting to offer an easy, crowd-pleasing recipe for these sultry summer evenings. Our garden is overflowing with fresh mint and zucchini right now and I'm imagining that these ingredients are readily available for you too right now. Of course most fresh garden veggies would do well here. Think cherry tomatoes, peppers, and chunks of red onions.

Although I don't use an exact recipe when making the marinade for these, you can use my recipe for Pepper-Mint Dressing and Marinade. I use all of the same ingredients, just without measuring. Cooking is much more fun this way. ;-)

How to Make Honey-Sweetened Jam

Homemade jam is usually so full of sugar, but it doesn't have to be! Using Pomona's Pectin, one can make a low-sugar, honey-sweetened, or fruit juice-sweetened homemade jam. This particular pectin comes from citrus peel. The jelling is activated by calcium water (mono calcium phosphate) which comes with the pectin. It is so easy to make jam from all of your freshly picked fruit of the season. Making and canning jam is one of the great ways to preserve the harvest!

Last year I experimented quite a bit with some of the hundreds of pounds of fruit we harvested. I made an awesome Vanilla-Plum Jam sweetened with coconut sugar, a Honey-Sweetened Blueberry Jam, Spiced Peach Jam made without pectin and with sugar, Blueberry-Lemon Jam made with a small amount of pureed unripe, immature apples as the pectin source (unripe apples are high in pectin), a tart Italian Plum-Agave Jam, and Cherry-Peach Jam sweetened with grape juice concentrate. Let me tell you, homemade jam makes for many wonderful Christmas gifts!

Strawberry-Hazelnut Shortcakes (gluten-free, vegan)

It is still strawberry season here in the Pacific Northwest. The other day I picked about five pounds of those tasty, sweet early summer morsels right from our backyard patch. If you have extra berries I suggest hulling them and freezing them on a cookie sheet to use for smoothies or strawberry lemonade throughout the summer. If you have a surplus of strawberries then making jam might be a good thing. A honey-sweetened strawberry jam recipe will be up on the blog soon!

I've added a finely ground hazelnut meal to these shortcakes to boost their nutritional value. As a bonus, they're also rice-free. I use the hazelnut meal from Bob's Red Mill. You can find it on amazon.com if you would like to get it in bulk. If you can't find it, a good substitution would be to use a finely ground almond meal.

Lemon-Walnut Green Bean Salad

Today was the first really warm day we have had this year! Beautiful and sunny. A perfect day for a light vegetable salad. Blanched green beans, lemon zest, a dash of olive oil, and roasted walnuts create this refreshing summer salad, perfect for picnics in the park or summer barbecues.

My good friend Pavlina Ortiz stopped over today with her two boys. She is an amazing photographer specializing in babies, children, and families. I've been working with her to improve my photography. Plus, she is letting me try out some of her lenses! Today's photos were shot with her 50mm f/1.4D lens. Such fun! And still so much more to learn.

This green bean salad would pair well with barbecued chicken made with my Homemade Chipotle Barbecue Sauce, a Cold Spaghetti Salad, a fresh, baby green salad dressed with my Pepper-Mint Dressing, and quite possibly Watermelon Sorbet for dessert!

Avocado Fudgesicles

Well, it finally feels like summer here today in the Pacific Northwest. We actually turned the heat on a few days ago because it was so chilly and rainy here! School is out, the sun is out and it is time for frozen treats....popsicles and fudgesicles!

I really like to make my own blended fruit popsicles for the kids. Homemade popsicles can be made in a snap using fresh or frozen fruit, nut milks, water, or coconut milk. Plus, by using reusable popsicle molds, we cut down on unnecessary packaging and waste. Check your local co-op or just about any store at this time of year for popsicle molds. If you don't want to use plastic, then check out these stainless steel popsicle molds!

Fresh Vegetable Curry

We love curries around here. Our children have had the opportunity to enjoy a variety of curried dishes from a young age. Their taste buds know the flavors well. I made this recipe for dinner tonight and there was very little conversation during mealtime. A sign of a good meal!

I've been very busy lately with my garden projects. I'll post photos to my blog soon! I also recently took a solo trip for six days to Breitenbush Hot Springs and the Oregon Coast. It was so lovely to get away and relax for a while!

When making a stovetop vegetable stew, it is important to cut your vegetables into certain sizes and know how long each takes to cook. It is not very appetizing to have crunchy potatoes and over-cooked cauliflower! For example, potatoes and carrots take quite a while to cook so I always add them in the beginning. Green beans take a moderate amount of time, and cauliflower cooks up quite fast. Think about the size you cut your vegetables. If you dice the potatoes too small they may become very mushy by the time everything else is done. If they are too large, they won't ever cook thoroughly. Cooking is a dance with your ingredients.

A word on spices: make sure yours are fresh! Old spices lack flavor and are often bitter. they can drastically change the outcome of your finished dish. If they are older than 6 months it is best to compost them and start with fresh spices. You'll love the difference.