Ward and I have been talking lately about planting a kitchen garden this spring. We’ve been finding that fresh herbs make an incredible difference when it comes to cooking, so a kitchen garden this summer makes sense.

Luckily, we have a fair bit of land, and about a quarter of it is in full sun, so we have a lot of options.

We’re envisioning a raised garden just outside our kitchen:

Unfortunately, while this spot gets a lot of afternoon sun, it’s mostly shaded in the morning. Still, I’ve grown various herbs in containers on this deck in previous summers, and it’s nice to have herbs within easy clipping reach.

In our front garden, which has been in “landscape-stage” for a few years now, we’ll be able to grow quite a lot of herbs.

It’s been great fun sitting down with the gardening catalogues, dreaming about our new garden and picking out plants. We’ll be ordering most of our plants from Richters Herbs; they offer a wide variety, and many of their herbs are available as small plants or plugs.

So far, we’ve picked out the following herbs:

Basil: Genovese basil, Greek bush basil, and Thai basil
Chives
Garlic Chives
Mint: English Mint, Peppermint mint, and Spearmint mint
Rosemary

We already grow thyme, lemon thyme, oregano and sage in our front garden. They’re perennials, and make for a divine-smelling walkway in the summer. We’ll be uprooting our existing front garden this summer, though - but of course we’ll find a place for these herbs!

Richters also has a, smaller, vegetable selection, and we’ve been putting together a list from these, too. Our main criteria? It must be available as a plant or a plug! Given our short growing season, it doesn’t make sense to plant outdoors from seed, and we just don’t have the space to propagate seeds indoors (I wish we did!)

Our list of vegetables for our kitchen garden, so far:

Calabrese broccoli
Japanese eggplant
Gai Lohn
Kale
Leek
Walla Walla onion
Pak-Choi
Sweet Chocolate Pepper
Golden Cal Wonder Pepper
Cayenne Chile pepper
Jalapeno chile pepper
Thai Chile pepper

We haven’t decided on a tomato yet; there are a couple of heirloom varieties that look interesting.

And the exceptions we’ll make to planting seeds are carrots, lettuces, and of course, cilantro. There are many varieties of each that have a shorter growing season. And I’ve never been able to resist growing my own cilantro!

In the middle of a cold winter day, planning out a kitchen garden is a wonderful dream activity. Whether we’ll actually get all those plants planted out by spring, I don’t know; truth is, we’ve had as much fun out of all of this as if they were already planted and ready to be harvested!

Now that Ward’s been cooking, I’ve gotten really used to home-cooked meals all the time. He wasn’t able to make us dinner tonight, because he had to go to a special Aikido seminar downtown - so I decided to whip up an old standby: Chicken Pot Pie.

The recipe that I use is from Art Smith’s KitchenLife. I’ve found KitchenLife to be a great cookbook as far as the kids are concerned; nearly everything I’ve tried out from the book has been a big hit with everyone.

I’ve always liked the idea of chicken pot pie - there’s something about the savory nature of this dish that’s very appealing. But before I tried the KitchenLife recipe, I had never eaten a Chicken Pot Pie that tasted as good as it smelled.

The Chicken Pot Pie recipe in KitchenLife, however, is a clear winner. It fills your entire house with that delicious scent of chicken pie, and when you dig into the dish itself, it doesn’t fail to please. Even though you’re baking chicken breast meat for 25 to 30 minutes, the morsels of chicken remain tender and moist and extremely flavorful. (Since we all prefer dark meat, I now prepare the pot pie with boneless chicken thighs rather than breasts, but you’ll have no problem with chicken breasts, which is what the recipe calls for.)

Rather than playing around with a crust, the recipe uses biscuit mix to top the pie, which makes the whole thing amazingly easy. I also vary things sometimes, such as adding mushrooms, which my kids love.

My house is filled right now with the scent of the best chicken pot pie ever right now. The pot pie is still in the oven, but I thought I’d just write up this post now, since I can’t take a picture (Ward took the camera to his seminar).

Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Crust, from Art Smith’s KitchenLife (I’ve added my comments in italics):

2 tbsp vegetable oil
Three 6- to 7-ounce boneless and skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces*
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 celery rib, finely chopped
1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
One 10-ounce box frozen mixed vegetables (with corn, carrots, and green beans), thawed**
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth ***
1 cup regular or nonfat half-and-half
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 cups instant baking mix, such as Bisquick
2/3 cup buttermilk****

* If you prefer dark meat, you can use six to seven boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces
** I like to stuff as much vegetables as I can into this, so I’ve used two cups plus of frozen mixed vegetables, with no problems. Also, I never seem to be organized enough to have the vegetables thawed ahead of time, so I’ve used them almost completely frozen, again with no problem - I cook them a bit longer in the sauce to compensate.
*** I don’t like to use reduced sodium chicken broth - I use organic, free range chicken broth instead
**** You can also make the biscuit topping with just regular milk (skim or otherwise)

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add the chicken to the skillet and cook, stirring often, just until it turns opaque and loses its raw look, about 8 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

3. Add the butter to the skillet and reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion and celery and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables soften, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the mixed vegetables and mix well. Add the broth and half-and-half, and bring to a boil, stirring up the browned bits in the pan with a wooden spatula. Cook until the sauce is slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the reserved chicken, thawed mixed vegetables, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Pour into an ungreased 2-1/2 to 3-quart round casserole.

4. Mix the baking mix and buttermilk to make a soft, sticky dough. Drop six large spoonfuls of the dough over the chicken mixture. Bake until the biscuits are golden brown, about 25 minutes. (Note: My biscuit topping seems to take at least ten more minutes to bake to a golden brown, but this has never hurt the pot pie, even when I use chicken breast meat.)

It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks around here. Lots of cooking, lots of great new recipes, and a complete kitchen makeover!

One of the newest joys in my life is sitting down now with a cookbook or a cooking magazine, and finding recipes that I think I’d like to try out. Sure, I did this before my husband discovered he likes to cook, but I’ve never been a particularly confident cook, so I ended up just looking at a lot of recipes wistfully and never going much farther than dreaming about eating those particular dishes.

It turns out, however, that Ward is what I call a “fearless cook”. A long list of ingredients and instructions that go beyond a page don’t daunt him at all. In fact, I suspect he relishes the challenge of preparing dishes that appear complicated!

We still haven’t gotten into the rhythm of taking pictures of everything that Ward makes, so unfortunately there aren’t any pictures to accompany this post. But I just had to write up the experience of eating a Rice Noodle Flan - it is absolutely delicious, with a taste sensation that is very unlike traditional Chinese cooking.

The recipe is from Susanna Foo Fresh Inspiration: New Approaches to Chinese Cuisine, and it was the picture of the dish that caught my eye first. A small round made up of rice noodles, with visible slivers of leek, it definitely looked like something I would enjoy.

Susanna Foo notes, “The custard that forms the base of this [flan] is typically French, seasoned with leeks and garlic; here Chinese rice noodles give the flan body and texture.”

The resulting flan is very rich and filling, with a creamy taste that’s lightly spiked with the flavors of garlic, onion and leek. It’s not a dish to be eaten quickly, but rather one to be savored. Best of all, we discovered that it’s just as good the next day, pan fried to a beautiful crispness on both sides, retaining the melt-in-your-mouth smoothness of the night before.

I will definitely ask for this one again!

Update: Ward made these again, and we remembered to take a picture this time. And yes, they were just as good the next day, fried nicely crisp on the outside!:

From Susanna Foo Fresh Inspiration: New Approaches to Chinese Cuisine:

Ingredients:
4 ounces thin dried rice noodles
1-1/2 tsps soybean or corn oil
1 tbsp finely chopped onion
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 cup chicken stock or vegetable stock
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp butter
1 very small leek, white part only, cuti nto 2-inch sections, washed, and cut into fine julienne
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 large egg
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces Swiss or Parmesan cheese (or a mixture), grated

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease six 4-ounce 3-inch diameter soufflé cups or molds (Ward used slightly bigger cups but they worked just as well.)

2. Soak the rice noodles in warm water for about 10 minutes, then drain well.

3. Heat oil in medium saucepan over high heat. Add onion and shallot and sauté until soft, 1 to 2 minutes. Add stock and drained noodles, and bring to boil. Turn heat to low and cook about 5 mintues, stirring often so noodles don’t stick to bottom of pan. Noodles should absorb all the liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Spread hot noodle mixture out onto large platter to cool.

5. Melt butter in small skillet over medium heat. Add leek and garlic and cook, stirring, just until soft, 2 to 3 minutes. Cool.

6. Beat egg and cream together in large bowl. Add noodle mixture, leek and garlic mixture, and grated cheese. Mix well. Pack evenly into prepared molds, smoothing the tops.

7. Place molds in baking pan and add enough hot water to come halfway up the sides. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until firm. Remove from oven and cool for a minute or so.

8. Run small knife around the edge of each mold and turn out onto serving plate. Serve hot.