Beaverton Farmer's Market Part 6

Glad to get back to the farmer's market, missed last week due to my wife and I are in the middle of buying a house. Each week there are more and more items showing up. We took a walk through the entire market first to see what was there and to compare prices and quality.

First got small Yukon and red potatoes, they can be roasted whole, about five stalks of broccoli and a pint of plum tomatoes. Grabbed some more rhubarb to make another pie, see previous posts for the recipe that I'll use. I'm going to bring it to a Peak Oil meeting this week, I've been told it's great to read about me cooking, but they haven't done any tasting yet ;-).

Seeing that the weather will get hot this week, we decided to make a chef salad one night. Picked up tomatoes, cucumbers, head of lettuce and some sugar snap peas. Mixed with some turkey breast, salami and whatever else is in the fridge, makes a great meal.

Onions are looking great, got two very large Willamette Valley sweet onions which I used in the recipe of the week. I added them to chicken Madeira, a great dish that is not hard to make but it very fancy. It's a good meal to make for a dinner party or a special occasion.

Chicken Madeira

3 to 4 chicken breasts
1 large onion
12 mushrooms
1 1/2 cup chicken broth
1 1/4 cup Madeira wine
1 tbs corn starch
3/4 cup flour
salt
pepper
2 tbs olive oil

1) Clean and cut chicken breasts if desired, mix salt and pepper in the flour and dredge the chicken to coat.
2) Heat a skillet, recommend cast iron, add one tablespoon of olive oil and fry the chicken until its browned on both sides, about two to three minutes a side. Remove from pan and put into a oven or Pyrex dish.
3) Cut up onion and add to skillet after de-glazing with the remaining olive oil. (De-glazing is adding a liquid to a pan after frying to scrape up the little bits that are stuck to the pan.) Cook onion for about five minutes until the onion begins to soften.
4) Slice mushrooms and add to onion and cook for another five minutes, they should be tender and cooked. Add broth and Madeira and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and allow sauce to reduce. Add seasonings, I put a dash of granulated garlic as well as some pepper.
5) To thicken sauce, strain off about a half a cup of liquid and mix with corn starch. Stir well to remove lumps and add back to the pan. Stir and allow to return to a boil, the sauce should thicken up nicely.
6) Pour mixture over chicken and bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees, or until chicken is cooked.

Made this with the broccoli and rice. Rice is a good side dish since it sops up all the gravy. Note the more broth and Madeira you add, the more sauce you'll get, I make extra sauce since I love the taste. Feel free to use less if you don't want it as "saucy".

Grabbed some blackberries and raspberries since they are now in season. Also got more artichokes, this time tried an Italian artichoke as well as a regular one. Made them for lunch on Sunday. The Italian artichoke is meatier and has a strong artichoke flavor. The leaves are thicker and the heart was amazing. Not to diminish the regular artichoke either, it was just as good.

Still anxiously waiting for eggplant to show up, I'll be posting a bunch of recipes then.