Hearts and Laserbeams

A few weeks ago we started getting tons of tomatoes from the dozen or so plants we have growing in the back and front yards – to the point where I got all Martha Stewart and tried my hand at canning em so they wouldn’t go bad before we ate em!

But then, as we got more and more tomatoes and I canned most of ‘em for later use, I started thinking… what if, as a newbie canner, I didn’t quite do it right and they tasted bad? I better crack open a jar and use it just to make sure, seeing as there was another big ol’ bowl of tomatoes sitting on the counter waiting to be processed. So last night I made up a chicken recipe using a jar of our tomatoes – it turned out so freaking delicious that I’m gonna share! (The recipe. Sorry, the tomatoes are much to delicious to hand out, especially since it takes a few hours for each batch of canning to get done!)

Caprese-inspired Chicken Dinner!
Serves 2, takes about 20 minutes in the kitchen to prepare.

You’ll need:

2 defrosted chicken breasts

1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 pint jar of tomatoes (or a 14.5 oz can of crushed tomatoes)

5 cloves garlic, minced

olive oil

salt and pepper

red pepper flakes

We served it up with:

some frozen asparagus

frozen garlic bread

***

1) Start up the frozen garlic bread, which takes about 15-20 minutes to cook. (We like that texas toast in the white and green box. You know the one. Delicious.)

2) Heat up the ol’ George Foreman grill. What? You don’t have a George Foreman grill? Hmmm… then I guess heat up whatever cooking implement you’re gonna use on your chicken? While the grill’s heating up, go ahead and generously brush some olive oil on each side of your chicken breasts, and give em a little shake of salt and pepper.

3) Throw em on the grill when it’s all heated up, and let em cook til they’re not pink in the middle anymore.

4) While that’s going, heat up a medium skillet with some olive oil in it. (Over medium heat is good.) Throw your minced garlic and some red pepper flakes in, and sautee those for about 2-3 minutes. Then add your jar of tomatoes, liquid and all. (Be careful, though – one of the two kitchen fires I’ve started in the past was caused by pouring a can of tomatoes and liquid into a pan of heated olive oil… remove the pan from the heat, add the can carefully, put the pan back on the heat if you’re super cautious like I am. Fire will do that to ya.) Add chopped basil (but save a little for a fancy garnish at the end!).

5) Let  the tomato mixture get all nice and hot – soon your chicken and garlic bread’ll be done cooking. Get the garlic bread out of the oven, and do whatever you like to do to keep it warm til serving. You could get fancy and wrap it in a towel and put it in a bowl, or you could have your husband sit on it for a while. Turn up your oven to the broiler setting. Put your chicken breasts in a little pan, and give em each a good smattering of mozzarella cheese. Put em in the broiler for 2-3 minutes.

6) Incidentally, that’s about how long it takes for frozen asparagus to heat in the microwave. So cook that goodness up while your cheese is getting all good and melty on top of the chicken!

7) Take the chicken outta the broiler and put it on yer dinner plates. Put some of the tomato-basil mixture on top, sprinkle a little fresh basil on top of that… serve it up with the asparagus and garlic bread! Marvel in your culinary amazingness!

I wish I had gotten a picture of this dinner cuz it’s probably one of the first times I sorta winged it making something up in the kitchen, and it was so effing tasty! Instead, you get this hastily-drawn representation of the final product! The end!

AAAAAAA!!!!

Our chickens have officially started laying eggs!! Josh found the first one hiding behind a bush in the backyard yesterday morning, and throughout the day two more eggs turned up behind a rosebush! We prompty cooked up the eggs  into omelettes for breakfast this morning, and they were super-delicious!

Click here to check out some pics - taste test between our homegrown eggs and storebought eggs coming soon!

I only signed up for one event this summer, because I wanted to take it easy with the little one on his way (good job spending gobs of free time on licensing stuff, Steph!). That one show I’m doing takes place tomorrow night in Long Beach, and if you’re free you should go!

Photo from Long Beach Museum of Art website

Long Beach Museum of Art is hosting After Dark from 6-10pm (with a 5pm early entry for museum members), and it’ll be a blasty. It’s $10 to get in (free for museum members), with drink specials, djs spinning some tuneage, access to the museum’s galleries, and a chance to win a free iPad! Make it worth your while and ride your bike there, you’ll receive a voucher for a free appitizer!

Long Beach Craft Mafia will be there doing crafty demos and offering up some unique handmade shopping – Hearts and Laserbeams will be there sellin’ mousepads, coasters, magnets, pins, little 3″ paintings, hand-screenprinted tees and underwear… AND we’ll be drawin caricatures til 9pm! And the caricatures will be cheap!! I’ll be workin for tips, so whether you can only afford to spend one dollar or 70 dollars, I’ve got a drawing for you! Come get yourself drawn up in a wacky, non-traditional style and be the envy of all your friends! Or some of your friends. Some of your friends might be caricature snobs. Those friends aren’t much fun.

Click here to check out the Long Beach Museum of Art’s website for more details - see you tomorrow night!

last night, i let our dogs out for the last time before bed at around 10:30. and as i was letting them in, i thought to myself “self, you should go outside and close that chicken coop door.” and the exact same time i thought it, i walked into the bedroom and crawled into bed.

zzzzzz…..

around 4am, the dogs and i were awoken by a chicken-y sounding ruckus coming from the backyard. “OH SHIT!!” i thought to myself, putting on my glasses and runnin to see what the hell was going on, jimmy runnin in front of me to regulate any backyard cat intruders. it was dark, so i couldn’t really see what the eff was up, but i saw one lone chicken kinda hanging out near the patio. the rest were tucked safely into their nesting boxes. and jimmy starts barking like crazy over by our little patch of corn. he’s cornered himself a possum!

OH SNAPS!!! i thought… what do i do, what do i do… if jimmy engages with this thing who knows what the hell kinda diseases he’ll pick up. what do i do… and i spot the hose lyin near me. it’s good on two levels – if i spray the hose jimmy will back off because he hates most watery things, and hopefully it’ll scare the possum away to boot. so i set that thing to FULL STUN, and i started lettin that possum have it. he took off into our corn patch looking for cover, and found none since i just walked over and sprayed directly at him from my side of the little fence. there’s a big ol’ star jasmine plant in that patch, too, and as i was spraying i saw that plant start rustling something fierce, like our freaky little middle of the night visitor was making a hasty getaway!

i ushered the stunned chicken (one of the Doublemint Twins) on the patio back into the coop and went back to bed. she’s got a tiny bit of a limp this morning, but she may have just landed wrong coming out of the coop. we’ll keep an eye on her, but i’m pretty sure she’ll be all right!

here’s what i wanna know – why aren’t possums ever cute when you see em in real life? they’re never all kitten/puppy/fluffy “hi i’m adorable pick me up and love me!” like this possum here:

"Forest Green Possum" by A Cagey Bee

no. possums are never cute like that. it’s one of the harsh rules of nature. when you run into a possum at 4am, they always look more like this:

if anyone knows why that is, i think you should share with the class. also, i can’t be completely sure my possum last night was wearing a top hat. i was pretty tired when i was chasing him off, so he might have actually been wearing a monocle, not a snappy hat.

y’all should join me on friday june 18th at the road less traveled in santa ana! i’ll be there with long beach craft mafia from 5-9 as we celebrate etsy’s birthday and participate in their worldwide craft party!

it should be a ton of fun – just bring a craft you’re working on and a snack to share, and hang out with current crafty buddies or make new friends! you totally don’t have to be an etsy seller or shopper to attend – it’s just a celebration of crafting and of course eating. but for the etsy sellers that do come, we’ll be having a business card swap to aid in networking! (i’m also thinkin it’d be cool to refresh the stack of business cards i’ve got from other sellers that i include with the packages i send to hearts and laserbeams shoppers.)

if you think you can go, definitely click here to r.s.v.p. by june 7 – if the long beach craft mafia/road less traveled party is one of the 50 worldwide craft parties with the most rsvps by that date we’ll receive a free etsy party pack to share! (but seriously, if you don’t rsvp by then you’re still invited to join us!)

i’m so jazzed we were able to get on board with the road less traveled for this – they’ve got such a great space for a crafty party! can’t wait to hang – what project are y’all gonna bring to work on?

true story, every time i make omlettes they get a little prettier. can’t wait til this summer when our chickens are laying eggs!