Harvest Chicken & Rice

 Today was relatively cool at. We barely broke 70 degrees out. I had harvested quite a few of my Walla Walla Sweet onions a few days ago and we had a pretty decent picking of green beans. I also harvested my garlic so that I could get ready for the new seed garlic that I have coming in.

I came up with a new recipe for dinner tonight.

Bob had taken out a package of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs to thaw a few days ago and I needed to get them used up. We also picked a pretty decent sized mess of beans.

These are a mixture of my Tongues of Fire, Dragon Tongue, Tanya's Pink Pod, Cherokee Wax, Blue Lake and Contender beans.

The Harvest Chicken & Rice recipe starts out with a chopped sweet onion. You could use a Vidalia if you don't have Walla Walla Sweets available. I also chopped up one of my small heads of garlic. It doesn't get much more fresh than this.

I melted butter with olive oil. This is what I used to saute the onions and garlic.

Once the onion gets translucent, add in the rice and orzo mixture.

Saute this until the orzo starts to smell toasty and gets lightly golden brown. I cooked this in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, so I did this low and slow.

I removed the skin from 4 chicken thighs. Then I sprinkled them, both sides, with a blend of spices.

Those get set upon the rice mixture once it has been browned.

Then I poured in chicken broth and water. I put the cover on the Dutch oven and let it cook in a moderate oven for 45 minutes.

This is a simple and delicious recipe. It hit all the right spots for us.

I served this with simple boiled beans. I cooked these in part chicken broth and part water. I didn't get a photo of the end result because we all know what boiled beans look like.

Harvest Chicken & Rice

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 small chopped sweet onion (like a Walla Walla Sweet or Vidalia)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil (or avocado)
1-1/2 cups long grain white rice
1/3 cup orzo
1-3/4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water

Spice Rub for Chicken:

1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pull skin off of chicken thighs and rub with spice rub on both sides. Set aside.

Saute onion and garlic in butter and olive oil over medium heat until onion is soft and translucent. Add in rice and orzo. Stir to coat with oil/butter. Cook until the orzo begins to smell nutty and gets lightly golden brown.
Place seasoned chicken thighs on top of the rice, add broth and water. Remove from heat. Cover tightly. Place in preheated oven and cook for 45 minutes or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees on a meat thermometer.

Fluff rice and serve.

Enjoy!

Beginning of August Garden Update 2022

 I haven't posted a beginning of August garden update yet. By no means am I proud of every aspect of my garden. Quite to the contrary. There are parts of it that I'd rather just be done with, but the plants are alive and we will continue to care for them. I had some zucchini going, but the deer got them. I have a few little cucumbers. These are things that will be going into my new greenhouse next year. We just purchased a 20 foot long one. I'm more than doubling my greenhouse space. I have to. The critters got my cucurbits, my peppers, my corn and they would have my pole beans stripped if it weren't for Bob covering them with bird netting.
So this is what's going on now.

We have all sorts of tomatoes on the plants. None have ripened yet. I also included a photo of that volunteer er..tomato, too.

These are my rhubarb plants and my tomato bin.

The rhubarb are shaping up nicely. I've gotten around a quart or so from the 2 plants.

These are Scarlet Runner beans on the trellis. They are just starting to bloom.

Another shot of my rhubarb bushes. I want to add around 5 or so more.

This is a Cannellini bean. I'm growing these out for someone although I don't think I'm going to be able to send back the agreed amount of beans to that person this year. I may have to just save these and try again next year. That soil sure put me behind the 8-ball.

This is another bean variety that I'm growing for someone. These are called Senate Navy Soup beans. Again, horrible soil. 

My eggplant look completely and utterly pathetic. I bought these all as starter plants and planted them over where the carrots didn't come up. I have 4 plants and I have 3 eggplant between all 4. This is the Ichiban variety.

This is the Casper variety. I've never eaten a white eggplant before.

This is an eggplant bloom. This is on my Black Beauty eggplant.

We harvested the biggest cabbage. We're letting these go for a bit longer. These will get harvested soon. We are going to be going through our freezers and making up a care package of raw meat for a dog, so I'll have room to freeze these. One of them is going to my sister.

I'm letting a few of the Walla Walla Sweet onions go to seed. I don't know if any of you have priced seeds for this variety, but they are holy cow expensive, if you can even find them!

The broccoli is about done. I will be growing some more this fall, along with cauliflower.

 I bought 3 clematis bushes. 2 have survived.

I harvested all of the garlic. All of that poor, traumatized garlic that got uprooted and moved up here and replanted. I'm surprised that I even got any at all, if the truth be told.

I'm curing it in the greenhouse. It's a good place for it to do that. I ordered another half pound of seed garlic. It should arrive next month some time.

Baby cucamelons!! I think I just may see a little bit of a harvest on these!

These are my Tigger melon vines. They are loaded with blooms, but I don't know if I will be able to get them to fruit.

This is the row of pots that I have growing in the greenhouse. I can't wait to get that other one up here and put together. We're thinking about how we can really stabilize this one so that I can grow through the winter.

Another baby cucamelon. I really enjoyed the 4 I got last year when I grew them.

Baby okra starting out. I've harvest a dozen or so pods already. Okra will always have a place in my greenhouse from now on.
I ordered a couple of new varieties to try next year.

These Jing Orange okra are stunning looking plants.

This is an Okinawa Pink okra. I contemplated ordering these seeds from Baker Creek, but I ultimately decided not to. The Jing Orange had many more positive reviews and they weren't anywhere near as expensive.

This is my Siamese bitter melon. I ordered seeds so that I could grow this again next year. I obtained the seeds I planted this year from a trade.

I left the cups in the pots because they help me to keep the vines separated.

I hope you enjoyed the garden tour!

Grow Bag Potato Harvest

 We had planted out 9 grow bags of potatoes last year. We wound up not harvesting 3 of them. They were the ones that I planted out with Yukon Golds. I can't remember exactly why we didn't, I just know that we didn't. Those potatoes went through quite a bit. Floods, rains, snow, being moved, etc. We figured we'd leave them alone and just see what they would do this year. We didn't feed them or anything. All I did was put a bit of straw on the top to cover up the green leaves.

Today, we decided to harvest.

I grow potatoes in a very loose medium. It consists mostly of junk I got from under trees out in the woods. I've been using the same medium for the past 3 years or so. I get decent results. I wasn't expecting much from these bags, but they did surprise me.

When I went outside, Bob had already dumped the first bag. This was the result. Keep in mind that these were not fed and were leftover from last year.

Then he emptied the second bag. We are saving the growing medium to use again next year. It works quite well. I'll actually feed them next year.

I don't know what it is about digging the potatoes but it's like digging for buried treasure.

Here's more of the second grow bag results.

And even more. Bob has a great system in place for growing through and gleaning the potatoes.

Once he's completely gone through the growing medium and he's put the potatoes in the box, he funnels the growing medium back into the grow bags.

Results. That's all I can say. I'm impressed with the results.

The final grow bag is revealing it's Yukon Gold treasures.

Unearthing the final grow bag's results.

Come out, little potatoes! We know you're hiding in there!

I think we got the highest number of potatoes from the third bag.

More little Yukon Gold treasures.

Rose wanted to help. She's a good farm helper.
Once everything was said and done, we wound up with about 4-5 pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes that we don't have to buy from the store at 99 cents per pound.
Not too shabby.