Monday Menu - Cilantro Chicken

I love Cilantro. Especially at this time of year when tomatoes are just getting ripe. So delicious in fresh salsa. My kids and hubby love it too, so it gets extra bonus points.

Anyway, this is my first year growing cilantro and I've learned a thing or two. I've been succession planting cilantro every three weeks, just to make sure we have a constant supply. But holey moley! It's been bolting faster than you can shake a stick at. At least the flowers are said to attract beneficial insects so I'm just going to let them do their thing.

I've since discovered that there are slow-bolt varieties available that don't flower as quickly. Slow-Bolt Cilantro from Renee's Gardens is a variety I'm going to try. I've had excellent luck with Renee's Gardens seeds so I'm hopeful that this will be an improvement over the cilantro I'm currently growing. (And Renee's seed packets are so pretty to look at, it makes me want to buy way more than I have room to plant.)

Here is a SUPER easy, SUPER delicious marinade I've come up with to use with that fast bolting cilantro:

Cilantro Chicken
Pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts to a uniform thickness. Place in large zip lock bag.

In a small bowl, mix together:
1/2 of chopped cilantro
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 Tbs honey
1 Tbs olive oil
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1/4 cup lime juice

Pour the marinade over the chicken and turn breasts to coat evenly. Chill for 1 hour or overnight.

BBQ them when you're ready. It's delicious and a great way to keep your kitchen cool on a hot day! Enjoy!

What is your favorite hot day recipe?

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First Harvest of the Season

Drumroll please.......

Presenting the first tomatoes and squash of the season:

San Marzano Plum Tomatoes and my mystery squash.

We haven't had much hot weather yet, so I'm feeling pretty lucky to even have these!

What have you harvested from your garden lately?

Sunset Magazine Celebration Weekend

If you live in the Western US, Sunset Magazine is a great source for regional information on travel, gardening, home improvement, decorating, food and wine. Last weekend I got a chance to attend Sunset Magazine’s Celebration Weekend at the magazine’s Menlo Park headquarters. One of my oldest friends invited me (Thanks C!), and we had a great time.

I particularly loved seeing their test gardens, test kitchen and sampling wonderful wines from the West. If you get a chance, you should definitely go some year. Here are a few shots of my day:

Joanne Weir on the Cooking Stage

Ornamental Edibles

Gorgeous Test Gardens


Super Cool Succulent Mural


Designer Dog House

Do you think Rosie needs a house like that? Naaa....she likes to be in the big house with her peeps.


If you could get inside any magazine, which one would you choose?

Where do I put that compost?

Okey Dokey! Now that you know what to compost, what the heck are you going to put it in?

The great thing about composting is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money. You can create great rich, dark crumbly compost on a shoestring. All you really need is a place to put your heap.


You can make super compost in an open pile, or use a bin to keep things tidier. There are lots of composting bins on the market. I have two kinds, a plastic bin, and a bin I made out of chicken wire.

This is my swanky bin:

It’s a Smith and Hawken Biostack. It’s rodent resistant and its stacking design makes it easy to turn my pile. Because it’s made of black plastic, it’s supposed to keep the heat in so your stuff composts faster. It’s a bit pricy, but I got a huge discount through my county’s waste department. If it wasn’t for the discount, I’m not sure I would have been tempted. Check with your county waste department to see if they offer any specials, you never know…

My other bin is homemade. For this kind of bin, you need some poultry netting (I got mine at Home Depot. It comes in a 3 ft x 10 ft roll.) and plastic tie wraps (The instructions call for wire, but plastic tie wraps are so much easier to use, and you don’t need tin snips.) This is what it looks like so you know what to ask for at your hardware store or home center:

Here are some great instructions from the University of Kentucky, Cooperative Extension. It's easy to make, cheap and totally does the job of keeping your compost heap tidy. If you don't feel like building your own, you can always buy a simple wire bin online.

I’ve also heard of people making compost bins from old wooden pallets. I always see wooden pallets outside by the dumpsters behind stores. I haven’t tried it, but Instructables.com has some great instructions.

My grandfather was a resourceful kind of guy. He came of age during the Great Depression and was never one to waste anything. He had a simple open pile compost heap. His took a little longer to turn waste into compost, but if you have patience, it works just as well.

So, get out there and build up that compost heap. You and your garden will be glad you did.

How do you compost? Do tell!

The Mystery of the Great Pumpkin,...err, Squash

Several weeks ago while at the garden center, I picked up what I thought was a "Spooktacular" pumpkin plant. Got him all planted up, and he's growing like gangbusters. He started blooming last week, so I thought we were going to have plenty of pumpkins come October.

Yesterday, my 10 year old was out picking berries and noticed that the "pumpkins" look just like little yellow zucchinis. Having never grown pumpkins before, I did think it was strange that the blooms were right at the base of the plant, not out on a vine.

I think I'm going to have to go find another pumpkin. What do you think?