Great use for left over chicken

Made mushroom leek ravioli last night. Since I had guests coming and not sure if they’d eat mushrooms I also made chicken ravioli. I just picked off the left over chicken from drumsticks we’d cooked 2 nights before. They had been coated with Penzy’s ‘Mural of Flavor’ so I just added chicken with some salt, pepper and ricotta cheese to food processor and ground. For the pasta I used round dumpling/wonton wrappers from produce area of supermarket. Just spoon mound of stuffing mixture onto center of bottom layer, wet edges and place top layer over squeezing air out while sealing edges with your fingers. Can use fork around edge for further seal/presentation. Cook for just a few minutes in gently boiling water. Top with favorite sauce. I had made truffle butter cream sauce with Parmesan. Marinara works well too.

An indoor garden that’s fun for kids

I attempt every year to have a vegetable garden, and every year I think I will be more successful.  Unfortunately I find that I am not dedicated to it enough to reap heaps of produce but do get the occasional vegetable.  ( I call myself the accidental gardener— if I harvest anything it’s by accident.) Herbs I can do; but I always start too late or don’t prune enough, or don’t weed enough, or whatever… I don’t have a glut of peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, chard, kale, lettuce, etc.  At least we get our CSA bin and I have so many heirloom tomatoes now that I will have to learn to can this year.

I guess I try to garden each year knowing that it won’t yield much (until I put more time and effort in) but I think it’s a good way to show the kids that not all foods are so easy to procure.  We live in an age and place that we don’t have to worry about growing enough food, we can just buy it.  But things aren’t as easy for everyone, everywhere in the world. 

 

Watching them grow!

Within just 10 days a beautiful bunch of oyster mushrooms!

Anyway, this year I tried something new and was so pleased with the outcome.  I bought an indoor mushroom garden kit.  It was so easy and it was fun for the kids to do. They just need to mist it every day. (Mister is included, but I used another one we had too). 

Yesterday I harvested mushrooms and made an omelet with them.  Omelet also had tomatoes, potatoes, thyme, parsley, leeks— all local, organic from the CSA, and goat cheese.  The eggs are locally produced too!

 

My youngest was so happy to have one of his favorite foods but he wouldn’t let me put them all in; he had to have a few forkfuls of sautéed mushrooms sans egg.

And, now we just turn the box to the back and start again!  You can buy them here.