The Volunteer Garden: Mini Spaghetti Squash

This year our garden is doing pretty good. Yellow squash and zucchini pickin’s are a little low but there’s plenty of eggplant, tomatoes, and broccoli to make me happy. The volunteers are the best of all. What’s a volunteer? It’s a plant that came up without any assistance from you. You didn’t  plant the seed or seedling, it just came up on its own. In our garden, we have volunteer tomatoes, pumpkin, watermelon, and spaghetti squash.

 

When the spaghetti squash first came up I thought they were honeydews. The plant, and the fruit, look sort of the same. They didn’t get very big, though, about the size of a large tomato. I baked a few and sure enough, that’s what they are, little spaghetti squash, just right for stir-fry. If you’ve never tried spaghetti squash you should. They are low calorie and sort of like tofu….they take on the flavor of whatever sauce you cook them with. We make a vegetable stir fry with them using soy sauce and oyster flavored sauce that comes out yummy….Cheap, fast, and easy. Served over rice and its a meal.

As for the tomatoes, the volunteer plants are as big as the deliberately planted ones, if not bigger.

I love the volunteers. A little small but hearty and determined to come into this world….and onto my table.

Post by Eileen Patterson.

Chicken Chili Recipe

Bowl of Chicken Chili

The cold weather has me thinking of ways to keep warm and feed people. As I said in an earlier post, we eat a lot of chicken in my home so there is usually leftover chicken waiting to be reinvented into something tasty. Today the hubby and friends are out in the cold cutting trees for an orchard so I thought a hot lunch would be in order. Looking in the refrigerator I found leftover chicken breast and leftover beans. Hmmm, I thought, looks like the basics for chicken chili.
I won’t claim this as an original recipe, although my take on it might be a little different than most. A friend made some for work one day and it was wonderful. Since I don’t have her recipe I had to make my own. Hope you like it.
Chicken Chili     Makes about 8 12 ounce bowls.
2 cups of cooked, diced chicken

1 onion, diced

1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
2 cups of beans already cooked. Use 1 can of beans if you didn’t cook any. Kidney beans are great but pink, navy, and black beans work well, too.

1- 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes

2 tablespoons of chili powder

1 tablespoon of crushed cumin seed

In a large saucepan heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until the onions are lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté another minute.

Add chicken, gently stir, and allow the chicken to heat through, about 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and beans to the chicken. Turn the heat down to low. Add chili powder and ground cumin and stir.
At this point, you can either continue cooking the chili on the stove over a low heat or do what I do, put it in the crock pot and continue cooking on low. If you continue on the stove, make sure to stir the chili often to make sure it doesn’t scorch.
If you use the stove the chili will be ready in about 1 hour. If you are using the crock pot it will be ready in about 6-8 hours.

Serve with grated cheese, diced onions, and crackers, if you prefer.  Hot sauce is also a welcome addition.
The chili was a big hit at my house. I hope it is at yours. Enjoy and stay warm!

Post by Eileen Patterson of GoofingOff.etsy and GoofingOff.Artfire