Pesto Chicken and Sauteed Zucchini-Pepper

Today, I harvested three Zucchini and a hot pepper.  But, most importantly, I harvested my first ripe tomato!

Okay, he's tiny.  But he's cute!

I decided to make some sauteed zucchini, orange peppers and tomatoes as a side dish along with the organic chicken breast I had marinated overnight in homemade pesto sauce.

I chopped up the zucchini, peppers, tomatoes and some basil to season the vegetables.

 

I started out by sauteeing onions and garlic in one pan (to go with the vegetables):

Meanwhile, I sauteed the shallots in a second pan (to go with the chicken):

Then, I added the some fresh chopped basil and hot pepper to the veggie pan:

And started browning one side of the marinated chicken breast in the other pan with the shallots:

Then, I added the orange peppers to the onions, garlic, pepper, and basil:

I continued to brown the other side of the chicken:

I added the sliced zucchini and the rest of the fresh basil to the veggie pan:

I added some more basil sauce to the chicken along with homemade stock:

Then, I added chopped tomatoes to the veggie pan, along with 3 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, a half teaspoon of sugar, and a dash of salt and pepper:

We had some leftover new potatoes from the other night, which I heated up and served with the chicken and veggies:

For dessert, we had the rest of the berry crumble I made a couple of days ago from a Martha Stewart recipe.  Her recipe was for blackberry crumble, but I made it with a mixture of blueberries and strawberries:

Although, I'm not generally a huge fan of berry desserts (I'm a chocolate person), this berry crumble was incredibly delicious.  I will definitely be making it again.

Basil!!!

I harvested a ton a basil yesterday for Pesto:

This is just half of it

This is the other half

I made enough Pesto to freeze two containers and give one to my neighbors  who invited us for dinner last night.

Pesto Chicken and Roasted Veggies

I finally got around to harvesting a bunch of my basil, which has been growing like crazy and starting to go to seed.
 

About Four Cups of Basil

I made a big batch of Pesto, using almonds instead of pine nuts, some Parmesan cheese, a few tomatoes and olive oil.

Then I marinated some chicken breast - I decided to splurge and buy locally grown organic chicken, which is about three times the cost of the chicken we usually buy on sale.

I also decided to make a roast vegetable dish to accompany the chicken, so I made a dressing from fresh herbs, red onion, garlic and lime juice:

And mixed it with a variety of chopped vegetables (red and green peppers, asparagus, carrots, tomatoes), which I roasted in the oven:

I browned about half the chicken with onions and garlic and then added some homemade stock and white wine to finish it off.  Then served it with a side of the roast veggies:

The chicken in particular was amazing - using the organic chicken made a huge difference.  Luckily, we still have a batch of marinated chicken left over for another meal.