Sunday ... Feeling the Best of Summer Vibes

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It's Memorial Day weekend, the weather is warm, not hot, and there's a breeze, ahhhh. I savor days like this because I know the heat of summer is coming. I'm not a summer in Southern California kind of person where it can get so hot the only thing to do is stay inside with A/C. I'd much rather have the windows open and a nice breeze blowing through the house than run an air conditioner. Such is life. For now I'm basking in this beautiful weather outside with a bowl full of strawberries from the Farmers Market and little basil from the garden. Feeling the best of summer vibes on a late spring Sunday.

Here's a quick, seriously quick, strawberry & basil how to:

Get yourself some perfectly juicy, sweet and ripe strawberries, slice them up. Chiffonade a couple basil leaves, toss that together with the berries in a bowl, and let them macerate for about 20 to 30 minutes. All that's left to do is eat them. If you're using a lot of strawberries you'll need a little more basil, you get the idea. If you want to fancy it up a bit, add a drizzle of good aged balsamic vinegar.

Pan Roasted Lemon & Herb Chicken Thighs

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True confession, I make chicken a lot. Weekly, sometimes more than once. There's just so many things you can do with the humble chicken. Roast it whole if you ever want to truly impress people that don't cook very often. They're always amazed thinking it's difficult to do. Even easier than roasting a whole chicken is roasting chicken thighs ... and legs, sometimes you want to mix it up a bit. I think my favorite thing about this particular chicken isn't the chicken at all, it's the melt in your mouth roasted lemons and shallots, but the chicken is really good too. The amount of chicken thighs you choose to roast is really up to you and the size of your pan. You'll need to use a pan that can go from the oven to a burner on the stove top to make the pan sauce to finish the dish. This is a loose and easy recipe, precise measurements aren't necessary. 

Here's what you're going to need:

4 to 6 chicken thighs (again, if you have a large enough pan you could do 8 as well)

1 to 2 lemons, I love Meyer lemons but sadly they aren't in season year around so a regular old lemon will work too.

Several sprigs of fresh Rosemary. (You can use fresh Thyme or Tarragon as well, I've made it with Tarragon and it's really nice.)

1 or 2 shallots, roughly cut in half or quartered if large.

Olive Oil

Kosher Salt and Pepper

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For the Pan Sauce:

White Wine or Chicken broth, just of glug of whichever you're using. A glug being about a ¼ cup  give or take, but like I said, it's not necessary to precisely measure this.

Butter. Just a dab, maybe a teaspoon-ish, to finish the sauce and add a little richness. It's optional but highly recommended.

Lets make this:

Preheat the oven to 400°

Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season both sides with salt and pepper. Arrange the chicken, skin side up, in a pan. Tuck the lemon slices, shallots and herbs around and drizzle them with a little more olive oil, salt and pepper. Into a 400° oven for about 40 minutes.

When done, remove the chicken from the pan and set aside, keeping it warm while you make the pan sauce. Over medium heat bring all those delicious lemon and herby chicken juices to a boil and let them reduce down a bit, turning the heat to medium/low or low to maintain a simmer. Add a glug of white wine, Sauvignon Blanc works well as does a dry Riesling, and stir, scraping up any of those bits of flavor stuck to the pan. Finish with a dab of butter, stirring through. Take off the heat, return the chicken to the pan and you're ready to serve.

Easy for any night of the week and you can switch it up any way you want. Don't have a shallots? Smash a couple garlic cloves. No rosemary? Tarragon and thyme work great. No fresh herbs at all? I've made it with dried in a pinch ... let's be honest though, we're all friends here after all, sorta, fresh is always better. Enjoy! 

Buttermilk Biscuits

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I’ve made many a biscuit in pursuit of the perfect version. Some recipes use self-rising flour, some use yeast, some are treated like a laminated dough to give lots of layers. The yeast versions, while good, take more time and sometimes you just want a biscuit like, now. The greatest thing about a classic biscuit is they can be pulled together and in the oven in a matter of minutes and you know what that means? You’ll be eating them, slathered with butter and maybe some jam in no time at all. Welcome the weekend with the smell of biscuits baking, then eat 2 or 3 ... or maybe 4, who’s counting.

Preheat oven to 500° 

Makes about 9 to 12 biscuits, depending on the size biscuit cutter you use. I used a 2 ¾ cutter and got 9, when I've used 2 ½ I get about 12.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, use a good one like Kerry Gold or Plugra

1 cup cold buttermilk

In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Slice the cold butter and with a pastry cutter, cut butter into the flour mixture. You’re good when you have pieces of butter the size of peas throughout the flour. Add the cold buttermilk and toss together with a fork, just until it comes together into a shaggy clump. Dump the clump of dough out onto a lightly floured board and gently knead. Gently! You just want to it to come together. Pat it out into something like a roundish square and very lightly, like almost no pressure, roll to about a 1 inch thickness. Cut the biscuits out using a well floured cutter. Cut straight down, no twisting. You want these biscuits to rise to their full potential in the oven and if you twist that cutter, it’ll pinch off the dough and keep them from reaching lofty heights. Bake them for about 12 to 14 minutes at 500°. Brush the tops with a little melted butter when they come out of the oven. Then of course more butter, naturally.

Meyer Lemon & Rosemary Shortbread

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Meyer Lemons are possibly the most perfect lemon variety, at least that's my opinion. I use them in everything and am always sad when the last one on my little dwarf tree is gone. Fortunately I have a friend who has a large tree and always too many lemons to use, lucky for me. So what's a person to do with too many (impossible, I say) Meyer Lemons, a handful of fresh picked rosemary and lots of butter? Shortbread. It's maybe one of my favorite cookie varieties, not too sweet, very buttery. The lemony flavor will intensify over time, so don't plan on eating them the day you bake them or you'll miss out on that. These cookies keep really well in an airtight container so ration them out.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt

¾ cup confectioners sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tablespoon Meyer lemon zest

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

Combine flour and salt in a bowl and set aside. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Once creamed, add the lemon zest and mix until evenly blended, do the same with the rosemary. Add the flour and salt a little at a time. When it's all combined, dump the dough into a buttered 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing it into the pan. Putting some plastic wrap over the dough makes it easier to smooth out. Chill for at least 30 minutes. With the back of a knife, you can lightly score wedges into the chilled dough for easier cutting later, which I totally forgot to do. Bake at 300° for 1 hour.