Ok so this last month has been so busy! Partly because the garden is coming out, fresh fruit is finally ripe, so tons of canning. As well as the garlic harvest is done, which means cleaning and selling it starts! as well as school starting! I feel like this house has been a buzz of activity and its finally starting to slow down! We still have a bunch of stuff in the garden that needs to come out, as well as now starts fall cleaning! but in general I don’t wake up with my brain whirring or go to bed going through the list of stuff that I didn’t get done! to top it all off the field next door got harvested and we had a mouse family migrate to our house! well with the help of a bunch of mouse traps we got that taken care of in short order!

Through all the business I have been experimenting with some new to me ingredients, as well as new cooking styles, now I am so excited to share them with you! my sister came over and helped me figure out the technique of sour dough bread (I will share this with you next time) and now that has opened up the world of traditional cooking to me! I am hoping to experiment more with that this winter when I have more time. Right now I am also learning how to cook with garlic. This is an ingredient that we have always enjoyed eating, our family loves the rich flavor garlic adds to our dishes. Since we have started growing it I use it a lot more and try a few different things! the recipe I want to talk about to day is the extreme but it was delicious!

Well my dad has been growing garlic for years, just enough for himself and he grew most of our seed. Anyway, last fall when we where planting he sent me a recipe that took 40 cloves of garlic!! Well, i was curious what so much garlic would taste like in one pot so I told him next year we could have him over for supper and try it out! it was amazing! and, to top it off I made a delicious garlic dip for with the french fries. My brother and his girlfriend came as well which was kinda stressful because not everyone loves garlic! anyway here is the chicken recipe! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Chicken with forty cloves garlic.

2 cups coarsely chopped yellow onions

2 large celery stalks coarsely chopped

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

3-4 lb of chicken

40 plump garlic cloves

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup dry white wine

1/3 cup mixed fresh herbs (such as Tarragon, Thyme, lemon verbena, lovage, chervil, parsley, rosemary, lavender)

Preheat oven to 375*F . combine onions and celery in a 5 1/2 quart dutch oven, preferably cast iron. rub salt and pepper inside chicken and place bird over onion mixture. scatter garlic cloves around chicken. pour olive oil, white wine over chicken and garlic. season generously with more salt and pepper. place 2 TBSP herbs inside chicken. scatter remaining herbs over chicken and garlic cloves. cover pot tightly, first with heavy foil, and then with the lid. Roast chicken for 1 1/2 hours. chicken should be fork tender; it will not be browned. carve and serve.