Chicken and tomatoes over rice

My tomatoes are finally ready and ripening faster than Nick and I can eat. I would say I have about 20 tomato plants in my garden. Most of them are plum tomatoes, which contain less seeds and are good for making sauce. Plus, I find there's less of a chance of bugs and other problems happening with the smaller variety. My mother is growing some tomatoes on her patio, but they're huge and before she can even pick them they are spoiling. What a bummer! I did buy a few other tomato varieties (not sure what kind, sorry!) and they are a little bigger than the plum tomatores, but they're not the huge beefsteak variety.

With all the tomatoes on hand, I'm always trying to figure out how to incorporate them into dinner. For this dish, I also used some onions from my garden, as well as some of my herbs.  The taste of summer!

Ingredients:

12 chicken thighs, skin removed

About 15 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped

One small onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 c. white wine or chicken broth

Vegetable oil to coat pan

Flour to dredge the chicken
1 tbsp butter
Parsley, basil and oregano, chopped

Heat the vegetable oil in a deep saute pan. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, dredge in flour and cook until brown on each side. Remove the chicken from the pan, add a pat of butter with the garlic and onions. Saute for a few minutes and add the wine or chicken broth. Let that simmer for about 2 minutes and then add the tomatoes. Simmer for another minute or two and then add the chicken back into the pan. Cover and simmer on low for about 20 minutes. Remove the cover and let cook for another 10 minutes. Mix in the herbs in the last minute. Serve over a bed of rice.

Summer pasta

Every time I wander into the garden, I am pleasantly surprised by all the progress. Whether it is the small fruit of the melon starting to take shape, or the weight of the tomatoes pulling the vines to the ground, I love taking it all in.

Today, I plucked another bushful of beans into my basket, twisted off some zucchini, squash and cucumber and then dug up a few onions.

In the past, root vegetables like onions have not done well in my garden, or so I thought. And then I realized that I did it wrong in the past. The key is to make sure you have a nice mound of soil for the onions, potatoes, or carrots to grow into. Then, as they grow, you want to keep pushing up the soil around the vegetable. The tops usually start to die off when they're ready, but you can always just dig carefully around the vegetable before you pull it up to ensure that it is ready.

Once I had all my veggies, the eternal question arised: What's for dinner? I decided to make a quick pasta dish that has tons of flavor and is pretty good for you, too.

Summer pasta
1 lb pasta
enough olive oil to coat a large saute pan
1 small onion, diced
5 garlic cloves
1 c. diced zucchini
1 c. diced squash
a few hot cherry peppers, to taste
a few roasted red peppers
handful of fresh herbs (oregano, thyme, basil)
1 tbsp butter
Grated cheese

While the pasta cooks, heat olive oil in pan. Add onions and garlic then squash, zucchini, cherry peppers, and red peppers. Cook until desired tenderness.

Before you drain the pasta, add about a cup of the pasta water to the pan. Add butter, pasta, herbs and grated cheese. Toss and serve.