Food for which to be thankful

The rain and cold of November means no more denying summer is gone.

Time to put away the outdoor furniture and winterize the grill (tho there really is nothing quite as tasty as a barbequed turkey!!)

Time to get out the sweaters, the stew pot and the cast iron pans.

Halloween has come and gone, but we still have pumpkins, apples and cider. Thanksgiving is beginning to loom large but we need more than pumpkins, apples and cider! For most of us the overriding question of the moment is how will we spend the day-where and with whom. That is going to give way to food assignments. Whether you are at home or not, feeding one or one hundred, in charge of all the food or one dish, this will become an all consuming topic before any of us turns around twice. It’s a good thing to plunge into the dilemma because it makes us focus on this future event, warm clothes, and comfort food.

Every magazine, food program, and newspaper is starting to overwhelm us with recipes. And we begin to dither about staying traditional vs trying something new, having the favorites, or adding a couple of  special “new items”.   For some of us the whole idea of cooking for this holiday is daunting. For others there are parts of it we look forward to doing, and parts that drive us crazy. Some of us really like to dive in and cook all of the Thanksgiving meal, and some enjoy asking others to help. Goodness-makes one hungry just contemplating!

I don’t mind cleaning my house, decorating, or firing up the BBQ for the bird, and I especially don’t mind going to someone else’s house for the day. But really what I love to do are all the different side dishes. Traditional, slightly different, and even really different side dishes. I like 7 or 8 different choices. We must have mashed potatoes, green beans, and dressing, but why not a slightly different take?  Try offering sweet potato polenta in addition to the usual garlic mashed potatoes, fresh green beans in tomato concasse, along with brussels sprouts with bacon and blue cheese, and traditional sausage dressing as well as cornbread dressing with bacon, sage, and  pears. Try a creamy creamless soup!

Root vegetable soups are creamy and silky without the need of cream. Combine vegetables to make your own tasty concoctions. Garnish with chopped herbs, herb oils, or yogurt.

Enjoy!

Parsnip Soup

• 1 onion chopped   (1 cup)
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 garlic clove minced with 1 Tblsp salt
• 1 Tblsp minced fresh ginger
• 1 tsp chopped thyme
• 6 large  parsnips peeled and cut into 1 inch slices (4 cups)
• 5 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 tsp grated fresh nutmeg
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onion in oil until soft. Add garlic and ginger and sauté about 1 minute more.Add parsnips and thyme and cook for 2 minutes more.Add stock and cook at a simmer covered for 30-45 minutes or until parsnips are soft.Puree in blender or food processor. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

If you want help this year with some or all of your Thanksgiving celebration, call Mangetout. We  love doing the whole meal that you can pick up on Wednesday-and we love, love love doing side dishes and pies. Watch for a list of some of the ones we are doing this November.  Eat well!

For 25 years Mangetout Catering has had the privilege to be involved with Seattle Children’s Theater. We donate the pre party for Trustees and donors and the post party for theater goers on opening the night. The  2010 Season  opening play is The Borrowers

Our roll is to provide fun food, loosely fitting in with the theme. Our theme for this play is “little”. We made “little chicken casserole” with tiny bite size Mediterranean couscous, chicken, peas, local corn in a delicious light creamy sauce. Also on the menu were mini toasted cheese sandwiches and fruit salad with local fruit cut to the size of the little Interlaken grape that added so much flavor . The run away favorite at the post party were the baby buttons-thick little sugar cookies marked like a button before baking and dusted with powdered sugar after.

The play is amazing and runs until Oct 31st Blog on the Borrowers

Baby Button Cookies

16 oz        butter, unsalted

3 cups      powdered sugar

1 cup        cornstarch

1 tsp         vanilla

3 cups      all purpose unbleached flour

Method

In food processor, process butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar until combined.

Add vanilla cornstarch and flour and process until a soft dough forms.

Transfer to a lightly floured work surface and divide dough into 4 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a 12 inch rope, cut each rope into 12  equal pieces.

Mark each cookie with four dots representing the holes on a button using the blunt end of a toothpick.

Bake cookies until bottoms are golden but tops are pale-about 15 min.

Sift remaining powdered sugar over cookies

After two days of rain, the weather broke and the afternoon proved to be one our most beautiful of the month! The sun shone brightly as the guests arrived. Drinks and hors d’oeuvre were passed as guests mingled on the manicured lawn amid the exquisite gardens.

Hors D’oeuvre Reception Menu
Lemon Rosemary Chicken Skewers
Nova Smoked Salmon on Cucumber Rounds
Dungeness Crabcakes topped with Housemade Tomato Conserve
Chorizo Empanaditas
Canape of Pork Rillette with Preserved Apricots
Mini Ham and Chutney Biscuits
Crostini topped with Fresh Mozzarella, Heirloom Tomato and Basil
Dates filled with Blue Cheese and Marcona Almonds
Platter of Local Seasonal Crudite with Saffron Aioli
Northwest Cheese Board with Grapes, Baguette and Crackers

Rustic Tarts are just that-a free form easy dough that is filled with fruit and baked. It is rustic and delicious. The idea is that because it is not fancy or difficult, we will all feel inclined to pick up some fruit and throw one together. As a snack or the finish to a great soup and salad or casserole supper this is heaven!

At our farmer’s markets now farmers from all parts of the state are bringing in a wide varity of fuits.  We choose here to use  plums in our  a rustic tart but any combination of fruits or berries work. We hope wherever you are you are finding great inspiration in your markets as well!

  Types of plums to choose from                                    
            
    Italian Prune plums   Shiro
   Mirabelle                    Plulots
 Green Gage      
Santa Rosa

   Duarte
 

Some of the farmers bringing these beautiful plums to us are
Tiny's Organic
Little Wing Farm
Tonnemaker Family Orchard
Mair Farm Taki

For individual tarts use ¾ of an apple, pear, peach or nectarine per person or ½ a cup of sliced plums or fresh apricots, figs or berries-or any combination-let your taste buds rule- can be made into individual or larger tarts. Remember that if you want to transfer them off of the baking sheet use a baking sheet with no sides and keep the width of the tart to one you can easily manage!

Rustic Fruit Tart Dough

yields 1 discs that will serve about 6 people

Dough:

4 oz butter, unsalted

1 cup flour

3 Tblsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 Tblsp  iced water

Fruit:

3 cups of sliced plums

¼ cup lemon juice

3 tbsp sugar

3 tsp all purpose flour

topping:

1 tsp cinnamon

1¼ tsp sugar

Procedure:

Cut butter into 1/2 inch pieces and put in freezer for 10 minutes.

Put dry ingredients in the cuisinart and pulse to mix.

Add butter, pulse until you have quarter sized chunks of butter mixed with the flour.

With machine pulsing add water and stop before you have a solid mass.

It should be crumbly and may have streaks of butter running through it..

Turn dough out on to a floured board.

Roll dough into a rough circle about 15” in diameter about ¼” thick and place on a parchment covered sheet pan .

Toss fruit in a bowl with flour, sugar and lemon juice

Mound or layer fruit in the middle of the circle with 2 inches of unfilled edges all the way around.

Fold edges over fruit to form a barrier for the juice (dough will cover only a portion of the surface of the tart).

Mix cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over the top before baking.

Bake in 350 oven for 25-35 minutes or until bubbly in the middle and golden brown on  the crust .

Sunday, although cool and overcast , was a perfect day for a birthday celebration.                            
The much loved birthday girl and special friends and family feasted on:

• Garlic Prawns
• Crostini topped with Caramelized Onions and Willapa Hills’ Two Faced Blue Cheese
• Tonnemaker’s Melon wrapped in Prosciutto
• Pesto-Crusted Wild troll caught Salmon Fillet from Mutual Fish
• Grilled Spicy Pork Tenderloin with House made Tonnamakers’ Plum and Martin Farm’s Apricot Mostarde
• Alvarez Corn and Billy’s Cherry Tomato Salad with Basil Vinaigrette
• Oxbow Farms’ Yellow and Green Romano Beans tossed in Blue Cheese Dressing
• Toasted Israeli Couscous Salad with Willie Green’s Peas and Sugar Snaps and Billy’s Baby Zucchini
• Billy’s Arugula Salad with Shidu farms Blue Berries, Hayton Farms’ Blackberries, Figs, Toasted Walnuts and Port Madison Camembert Cheese
• Composed Tomato, Fresh Mozzarella and Basil Salad
• Fresh Peach Cobbler from Tonnemakers white and yellow peaches with Vanilla Ice Cream
• House made Rosemary Lemonade

PEACH COBBLER

Filling:

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
8 cups peeled and sliced peaches
1 Tbls lemon juice
2 Tbls butter

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, add the peaches (without any of the juice that has accumulated or it will be too soupy), toss with lemon juice and fill a buttered casserole dish. Dot butter over the top. Bake in a 350 oven for 25 minutes or until fruit is bubbling.

Biscuit Topping:

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
4 Tbls sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup(4 oz) butter
1 egg beaten
1/4-3/4 cup milk

With you fingers in a large bowl, or in a food processor, short (cut) the butter and the dry ingredients until mixture is like corn meal. Beat the egg with half the milk and add to the dry mixture in a large bowl.Toss mixture with your fingers to form a loose dough. Add more milk as necessary.

When peaches are bubbling. remove from oven, dot top with dollops of dough -no need to cover top entirely, biscuit will grow as it bakes. Return cobbler to oven and continue to bake for 20-25 minutes or until browning. Pull cobbler from oven, carefully pull up a little of the biscuit to see if it is cooked on its bottom. If it is till doughy return to oven for  few minutes more. If it is cooked through, remove, cool and enjoy!

Not just your ordinary taco bar! Mangetout Catering takes it to a new level with this Oaxacan inspired menu. Set aboard a yacht cruising the lake on an exquisite summer evening, guests enjoy margaritas and appetizers on the upper deck, then dine on this casual yet upscale taco dinner. Highlighting corn, peppers, zucchini and tomatoes, which are some of the best of our local late summer farmer’s market produce, this meal is truly a northwest version of a south-of-the-border classic.

Mini Chorizo Empanadas

Shot Glasses of Chilled Green Gazpacho

Oaxacan Braised ChickenHousemade Pulled Pork

Grilled and Roasted Organic Peppers, Onion and Zucchini

Cumin-Black Beans topped with Queso Fresco and Diced Heirloom Tomatoes

Fresh Roasted Corn, cut off the cob, with Lime Cilantro Butter

Fresh Corn Tortillas

House made Green Tomatillo Salsa, Pico de Gallo, Fresh Guacamole

As our mellow summer begins to perk up with back to school, back to work back to meetings and impromptu gathers let, Mangetout Catering help with the overwhelming and the little things. Here, as a great example, is a little menu we delivered tonight for a small after work gathering. A few dozen of each makes a lovely offering!

MENU

Potato Frittata Squares with Romesco Sauce

Cherry Tomato filled with Salmon Mousse

Curry Chicken Phyllo Triangles

Crostini with Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil

Pastry Purse with Savory Cheese Filing

Roasted Vegetable Frittata Squares

Corn in Seattle, fresh from the farmers, is so sweet, juicy and flavorful that it is easy to understand the anticipation for the first ears that appear on the farm tables of Alvarez Organic in late July.  This corn is quickly followed by plump and succulent ears grown at Willie Greens.   Soon the market is full of silky green ears!  After shucking, boiling and roasting as much as one can eat we offer a couple of recipes to keep you going back for more!

Corn Cherry Tomato Basil Salad serves
2 cups washed and stemmed Billy’s cherry tomatoes (large ones cut in half)
8 ears shucked, cooked in boiling water for 5 minutes and removed from cob 18 ears of
Alvarez Organic corn
1/2 cup basil dressing

Directions:
Mix corn and cherry tomatoes with enough dressing to coat, season and serve.

Basil Dressing (makes more than you need for this recipe)
2 cup loosely packed Billy’s basil leaves
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:
Put the basil and lemon zest in a blender and pulse a few times.
With the blender running, slowly pour in the olive oil and puree until smooth.
Transfer to a small bowl, add lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Fresh Corn Chowder
1/4 lb. Zoe’s Dry Cured Bacon from
2 large diced Wall Wall Sweet onions from Willie Greens
4 Cups chicken stock
4# large Yukon Gold potatoes peeled and chop from Olsen Farms
4 cups fresh Willie Green’s corn shucked, cooked in boiling water for 5 minutes,removed from Cob
1 cup Golden Glen Creamery Cream
salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:
Fry Bacon in 6-8 qt sauce pan.
Remove bacon, drain on paper towel, chop and reserve.
In bacon fat, sauté onion until translucent.
Add potatoes and cook for 3 minutes, add stock and simmer for 10-20 minutes or until potatoes are soft but holding their shape.
Add corn and cook for 3 minutes.
Add cream, heat for 3 minutes, season and serve with crusty bread and a hearty market green salad.

One treat all cooks agree on is the pleasure of having someone else cook for them. We had the extreme pleasure the other night at Staple and Fancy, the newest member of Ethan Stowell’s ESRseattle group http://www.ethanstowellrestaurants.com/. In a funky old warehouse space the the “other end” of Ballard Avenue, Ethan and Angella Stowell have created a very chic and trendy but very casual place to eat. The menu comes on a plank of wood and gives the option of paying a set sum and letting Ethan and his team create.

Well, a couple of hours and much incredible wine chosen by Perry Atkins later.Eleven of us were in food heaven. Spot prawns and beans, squid ink pasta and crab, pork fried rolls, sword fish, fried peppers,grilled baby zucchini, pork hunks too large to be called chops gnocchi with fresh corn- these are all too mundane words to describe the luscious dishes we swooned over consumed. A few felt their platter of crab on squid ink pasta was less amazing than our platter but ours was so good we would not share!

Then came dessert. Not always a must in my life-I like my sweet things in the late afternoon- but, brownie cake with grappa ice cream, Hazelnut tart-no stick chewy mess here but perfection and a light ricotta cheese cake with fresh blueberries in a light syrup disappeared faster than it was set on the table!

Congratulations Ethan, Angela, >>>>>>>>>>>>>Chris, Elwood, etc

From the Chefs table.
We love when a client asks us to take something from our repertoire and play with us. In this case our client asked us for a farro grain salad with summer flair. Seemed like a tabbouleh style salad would be a perfect match.

Of course, this meant a trip to the University District Farmers Market to the Bluebird Grain Farms table. I could, and did go on line to their great web site http://www.bluebirdgrainfarms.com I just need to see with my eyes while I hold produce in my hand and talk to someone who knows and is passionate about their product-really gets that motivation up!

I got both the Potlatch Pilaf “A northwest blend of Bluebird split farro and Oregon Jewel Wild Rice” and the Whole Grain Emmer Farro and lots of cooking tips.

The package directions or both products states that one cup of grain put in 3 cups of water with a teasp salt, brought to a boil then simmered covered on low should cook in 50-60 minutes. i found it was closer to 40 minutes. The product instructions also state that that the yield from 1 cup dry should be 2 cups cooked. but found this to be more like a cup and 1/2. Both products were easy to cook.

I mixed the Potlatch Pilaf and the Emmer Farro and turned the grains out onto a sheet pan to chill in the walk-in while I prepped the rest of the salad. The following recipe is a suggestion of things to add to the cooked grains. i really liked the combo of grains. The Emmer gave the salad a little “chew”.
Please add what ever you have from the market that strikes your fancy. This salad is healthy and delicious!
Potlatch Pilaf and Farro Tabbouleh
serves 12
4 cups cooked grains
1 bunch minced parsley
1 Walla Walla salad onion- about 1/3 cup minced
1 clove garlic minced with 1 teasp salt
1 bunch chopped mint
4 tomatoes, chopped small
2/3 c olive oil
1/3 c. lemon juice+ zest
salt and pepper to taste