There are few things I love more than lemon on chicken. The acid just imparts great flavor and tenderness to something that can end up bland. There are a lot of ways to make lemony chicken; remember Chicken Piccata? Sometimes when it comes to chicken, I just want something easy to throw together that I can reuse for various meals throughout the week.

One day I had some leftover salad dressing that I used as a marinade with some fresh herbs; it was surprisingly good and I decided to recreate it with the addition of some wine. This is seriously so easy and you can have it ready very quickly. Just a quick bath in the marinade and throw it on the grill, not to mention it is really healthy. This is a staple that I will be keeping around!

P.S. We have been buying the “thin sliced” chicken breasts because they are closer to a regular serving size than most of the chicken breasts you see in the market now. Organic seems to be better as well. You do have to be careful not to overcook the thin ones because they dry out. Just 2-3 minutes per side is good.

Kelly

Lemon Herb Chicken

1 Package Thin Sliced Chicken Breasts
Juice of 2 Lemons
¼ Cup White Wine
¼ Cup Olive Oil
½ T Dijon Mustard
2 Cloves Garlic, peeled and crushed
Handful of Fresh Herbs, roughly chopped (anything available that you like ie- rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley)
Salt & Pepper
1 T Butter

Add the lemon juice, wine and mustard to a bowl large enough to accommodate the chicken.

Pour the olive oil in a steady stream whisking continuously to emulsify.

Add the garlic, herbs, salt, and pepper; stir to combine. Add the chicken and marinate for 20 minutes to an hour.

Heat the grill to high heat while the chicken marinates. Cook about 2-3 minutes per side.

You can serve as is or take the leftover marinade and add it to a pan straining out any big pieces of garlic or herbs (adding a ¼ to ½ cup more wine if you need more volume) and bring to a boil.

Add butter and whisk until reduced and the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Season with salt, black pepper and crushed red pepper.

Top the chicken with the sauce and serve.

Pizza is one of those foods that everyone loves. You can top it with anything you, use creative sauces and really let your imagination run wild! But sometimes, it is just too hot to cook with a 500 degree oven during the summer!

When its 100 outside its time to take your hankering for good pizza outside. Pizza is been something we have worked on for a long time and have pretty much perfected our technique, but everything changes when you take it outdoors.

Grilled pizza has its benefits, starting with keeping your kitchen cool! You also get that lovely charred flavor that you just can’t get in the oven. And if you have some dough hanging out in the freezer, it saves on the mess! There are several ways that you can go about grilling pizza.

You can use a gas or charcoal grill, but the real key is having different heat zones. By giving yourself the flexibility of having different temperatures to work with, you can better control the final product. If you are using charcoal, mound  up the charcoal on one side of the grill. You could also multi-task by using both a charcoal and a gas grill. Start on the higher heat of the charcoal and then move to a low gas grill to melt the cheese and cook the toppings.

This time we let our multi-tasking get the better of us (by cooking Beer Can Chicken on the gas grill at the same time) and didn’t end up with a cool enough part of the grill for melting. The next day, I was feeling a bit impatient and just fired up the gas grill and probably could have let it go a little longer. Alas, practice makes perfect!

Oh, one other tip: try to use toppings that are on the lighter side (by weight) so as not to weigh down the dough. Toppings that are already cooked are the way to go. I tend to like fresh toppings on our regular pizza, but they get cooked better while in the oven. If you’re dairy free like Ali (tries to be), get some inspiration from out Dairy Free Pizza Night Post. This technique is absolutely worth a try!

Mary & Kelly

Grilled Pizza Dough

Courtesy of ‘American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza’ by Peter Reinhart

5 c Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1 T Sugar

2 t Table Salt

1 t Instant Yeast

3 ½ T Olive Oil

1 ¾ c Room Temperature Water

1. Combine together the flour, sugar, salt, yeast, 1 ½ T olive oil, and the water in the bowl of an electric stand mixer and fit it with the dough hook and mix on low speed for about four minutes, or until the dough forms a coarse ball and clears the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add more flour or water by the tablespoonful as needed. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes, then mix again on medium low speed for an additional 2-4 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, supple and tacky but not sticky. The dough should pass the windowpane test.
2. Immediately divide the dough into six equal pieces. Gently round each piece into a ball and brush or rub each ball with olive oil. Place each ball inside its own zippered freezer bag. Using the remaining 2 T of olive oil, drizzle 1 t of olive oil over each ball and seal the bags closed. Let the balls sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, then refrigerate the balls for at least 3 hours or preferably overnight.
3. Remove the dough balls from the refrigerator two hours before you plan to roll them out to take off the chill and to relax the gluten. At this point you can place any balls you don’t plan to use back in the refrigerator for up to three days or freeze for up to three months.

**This is only the machine version of the recipe, if you want the full version with manual instructions, buy the (Awesome) book! In fact, if you plan to make homemade pizza, it is a must read. The following is our own technique for grilling pizza, again if you want more detailed instructions, the book is an amazing resource.

Grilled Pizza

Heat your grill (or grills) for about 30 minutes allowing for a hot and a cool side.

Lay out all of your toppings and dough close at hand.

Oil the grill well (we use an onion cut in half, speared with a BBQ fork and dipped in vegetable oil).

Stretch your dough to the desired size and shape and gently place on the hot part of the grill.

Allow too cook until you see bubbles and you have good color on the bottom, about 2 minutes.

Flip the dough onto the cool side and top with desired toppings, being careful not to overload the dough.

Close the grill and allow to cook another 2-4 minutes depending on the heat of your grill. Once the cheese is melted, check the bottom of the pizza and return to the hot side to crisp if necessary. Allow to rest a few minutes. Cut and serve immediately.

During the winter we regularly roast chicken so that we have a healthy supply of homemade chicken stock and high-quality chicken to use during the week. Not to mention, it smells so good and homey with a chicken roasting. In the summertime, we can’t even think about heating up the kitchen like that. So what to do? Beer can chicken, of course! This is something new for us, but it will definitely become part of the repertoire. We did this on our gas grill, but I am looking forward to trying it over charcoal as well. Our grill doesn’t have a working temperature gauge so we just went with high heat since we were cooking two chickens at once. Another big bonus of cooking these outside is that the mess stays (mostly) outside. That means no cleaning of the oven. There are so many things you can do with this once it is cooked. The meat came out super flavorful, tender and moist. You can really put it in almost anything: salads, quesadillas, rice, pasta… By imparting the flavor through the steam from the beer, you get a ton of moisture! Plus, you can use whatever kind of beer you like. We used something we happened to have around, but there are so many good beers that would be great. Just like cooking with wine; use something you don’t mind drinking. I highly recommend trying this super easy technique!

Beer Can Chicken

1 Good Sized Chicken (Preferably a Roaster)

1 Can of Good Beer

2 Cloves of Garlic, Peeled

2 Sprigs Fresh Rosemary

3-5 Fresh Sage Leaves

1 t. Paprika

A Few Shakes of Hot Sauce

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

Pre-heat your grill for about 30 minutes. Remove the giblets and neck from the chicken (if necessary) and rinse inside and out. Pat dry with paper towels then rub with olive oil, salt and pepper. (We made some hot spicy olive oil that we will tell you about later!)

Pour about 1/3 of the can of beer into a glass for the chef.

Add garlic cloves, hot sauce, paprika, and herbs to the beer can (leaving the herbs sticking out of the top of the can.)

Gently place the chicken onto the can so the can is resting in the cavity and supporting the chicken.

Tuck the wings back toward the back bone so the chicken is sitting nice and pretty. Make sure to adjust the seasonings on the skin if necessary.

Place on a broiler pan then place on the grill. You can place directly on the grill, but I think the pan helped prevent flare-ups.

Close the lid and cook for 1 hour- 1 hour 30 minutes checking partway through.

The chicken is cooked when golden brown and the temperature reaches 165° in the thigh.

Turn off the grill and allow to rest. Carefully remove the chicken from the can when cool enough. Serve immediately or refrigerate for later!

Kelly & Mary

P.S. These guys produced more smoke than expected, so keep that in mind if you are planning to enjoy your outdoor space while cooking.

P.P.S. Yes, that is a garlic roaster in the background. Roasted garlic is one of the best things ever!

P.P.P.S. Play “Beer Can Chicken” by Kenny Chesney while eating!

You will probably see a theme in our food habits in the later part of summer: anything grilled. We grill chicken every week and keep it around to be used in other recipes. It is a great way to keep the kitchen cool and the cooking times down. This recipe was inspired by the ladies at Big Girls Small Kitchen. I was running out of ideas of things to make (not to mention I had limited resources to work with) when I came across their Barley Salad post. Of course, I had no barley, but I did have chipotle and salad stuff; success! This turned out great and I used the dressing on a more basic side salad later in the week and it was still awesome. You could even use it as a marinade…something to try later! In this case, we had some grilled chicken already prepared and mixed some of the salad dressing with some Greek yogurt and tossed the chicken in it. If you are grilling the chicken fresh, you can use any marinade you like and just chop it as is. Let me know what you think!!

Kelly

Grilled Chicken Salad with Chipotle Vinaigrette
Adapted from Big Girls Small Kitchen
Serves 4-6

Dressing Ingredients
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1-2 teaspoons adobo from a can of chipotles in adobo sauce, plus a little chopped chipotle
2 teaspoons honey
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon ground cumin

Salad Ingredients

2 chicken breasts

4-6 cups washed salad greens

1 tomato, diced
1 zucchini

1 cup corn kernels, cut from the cob or defrosted frozen

3 small carrots, sliced in rounds

½ avocado, diced
¼ cup shredded radishes
¼ cup fresh Basil and Mint leaves

Prepare the chicken breasts with salt and pepper, and some of your favorite marinade (we usually use BBQ or teriyaki sauce). Slice the zucchini and sprinkle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Husk the corn. Grill the corn, chicken and zucchini and set aside to cool while the preparing the salad. The corn will take the longest, followed by the chicken and the zucchini will go quickly. When the corn is cool enough, cut the kernels off the cob of 2 ears of corn.

In a bowl, whisk together the shallot, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, honey, and adobo. Drizzle in the olive oil, whisking as you go, until the dressing is emulsified. Stir in the cumin and remaining 1 teaspoon of salt.

Combine the salad greens, zucchini, corn, tomato, avocado, radishes, and herbs in a salad bowl and toss with the dressing to combine (you may have some leftover).

Chop the chicken and top each salad with a good amount.

Fish is full of all kinds of great nutrients and healthy fats, but sometimes it can be hard to find an interesting way to prepare and serve it. We tend to shop the sales for fish at Whole Foods, whatever seems fresh and is reasonable. This week, tuna steaks were on sale. We used Soy Vay teriyaki sauce to marinate the fish and then grilled it (4-6 minutes per side depending on the thickness and how you like it.) This salsa is a perfect accompaniment to fish. It adds a touch of sweetness and a huge amount of flavor. I think it is just the right amount of heat, but you can adjust the spices to your taste. Ali added lots of things that we just keep around our house and it came out perfect! Enjoy!!

Ali & Kelly

Ali and Kelly’s Mango Salsa

2 Ripe Mangos

1 ½ Ripe Avocados

2 Tomatoes

1 Serrano Chili

1 Green Onion

2 t Pickled Jalapeno Juice

2 t Vinegar

1 t Lime Juice

½ – 1 t Red Chili Flakes

Salt & Pepper

Cube the mango and avocado and add to a bowl. Finely chop the tomatoes, green onion, the chili (including the seeds) and add to the bowl. Gently combine all the ingredients and season to taste with salt and pepper. Can be made a day or two ahead and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Memorial Day seems to kick off the BBQ season. We grill, not so much BBQ, though I’m thinking about getting a smoker. Here in Boulder, we have a hugely athletic community and our Memorial Day tradition is the Bolder Boulder. My husband, Jack (mowing the lawn above), runs with a group of disabled athletes called Beyond Limits. We like to celebrate both the season and all the men and women who have fought for country and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

We never miss the Memorial Day Concert that airs every year on PBS from the steps of the Capitol. We stumbled upon it one year in D.C. and sat through a downpour to watch John Denver perform in one of his last performances. It is one of our favorite family memories. Thank you to all of those who serve our wonderful country!

Kicking off the “summer” season can mean a lot of things in Colorado, this year we had highs in the mid-fifties and snow in the mountains, but some years are HOT. We spent the weekend BBQ hopping and shopping for new plants to add to the garden. Check out our menu below. We will have more recipes and progress on the garden coming soon! How did you spend your holiday weekend?

Mary & Kelly

Menu

Burgers

Condiment Bar including Homemade BBQ Sauce

Homemade Hamburger buns

Onion Jam with Habenero

German Potato Salad

Baked Beans

Salad