Caramelized nectarine, pecan, and Feta salad

Instruction from Madame, "I need a salad to take to a ladies evening, please". These ladies like to eat, so just plucking a few leaves from  our Gardyn (hydroponic veggie grower) and knocking up a qhick vinaigrette wasn't going to cut it. Hence this salad - a way to really boost up the flavor of the nectarines. The basic thought came from this recipe

Ingredients

2 Nectarines, cut in half lengthwise, pitted and then cut into 12 pieces each.

1/4 cup Sherry vinegar

1 t white sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Simple vinaigrette 2 parts good quality oil/1 part suitable vinegar - I used red wine vinegar. Sherry would have been too strong. 

Handful of pecan halves, halved

1/2 jalapeno sliced very thinly

3 T red onion diced finely and soaked in water to remove bitterness

Lettuce greens washed dried, and torn into small, bite sized pieces

3 or 4 oz Feta broken into large pieces (i.e. not crumbled)

Method

Place the sherry vinegar, sugar, salt into a non stick skillet over medium heat. Bring to a boil, and then add the nectarines. Stir to coat. Continue to stir as the pan dries. The nectarines should be coated on all sides. The pan should end up dry and sticky, leaving some light caramelization on the nectarines.

Chill the nectarines.

To serve, place the vinaigrette in the bottom of your serving bowl, and pile the greens on top. Then add all of the rest of the ingredients, except the Feta.. Just before serving toss the sald, bringing the dressing up from the bottom and over the salad. Serve individually with a small block of Feta on top.

Chicken Refrigerator Soup

A refrigerator soup is one where you have a whole bunch of stuff lying round, and need to use it up - in a potentially unusual way. This one was no exception. Wee were leaving for the weekend and needed to make dinner the night before. How we had the ingredients is a bit of a mystery. What happened to them was awesome.
I had bought too many chicken thighs a few days before. The packaging had me with 2 bone in, skin on chicken thighs left over. Also there was 3/4 of a red onion. That meant to me "make stock". So into  the stockpot went thee thighs, onion and water. Simmer for an hour (so the meat was still viable and the stock was OK (weird color because of the red onion, but tasty. Shredded the chicken (removed the skin, of course) and we now had the basis of a soup.
We had an acorn squash lying around and some celery, carrots, yellow onions, and red potatoes on the day that soup making was required. So how hard could it be? The bonus surprise was that the acorn squash cooked right down and thickened the soup all by itself. So no need to puree anything.
Start to finish 35 minutes.

Ingredients

1T neutral oil

1 small red onion diced

4 small carrots cut into 3/4" lengths

3 ribs celery sliced into 3/4" lengths

3 cups chicken stock (defatted)

Hot sauce to taste (we used our home made habanero vodka - aka secret ingredient)

4 medium red potatoes - quarered

1 acorn squash peeled, seeded and diced

Shredded meat from 2 cooked chicken thighs

2T crunchy peanut butter (preferably unsweetened)

Salt/Pepper to taste

Method

Heat the oil in a saucepot or dutch oven until shimmering. Add the onions, carrots, celery, turn the heat down and sweat for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken stock and hot sauce, bring to a simmer and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add the potatoes and squash. Simmer the soup for 15 minutes - until the potatoes are just cooked. As you stir the soup here, the squash will disintegrate, thickening the soup.

Add the chicken and peanut butter, stirring thoroughly until the peanut butter is fully incorporated. 

Serve piping hot with crunchy salt.