Playing With Our Food

Friend Julie's departure for a trip to Washington, D.C., seemed reason enough to plan a small dinner party (like we need an excuse?) -- but what to serve?  Julie is not particularly keen on rich meat dishes, and tends to prefer veggies and such.  She has grown a number of heirloom tomatoes this year with spectacular results.  Since we're in the height of the good produce season here in the upper Midwest, it wasn't too hard to develop most of the menu in such a way as to exploit local growers.  A roasted vegetable tart to start, along with some Cambozola and crackers (http://www.gourmet-food.com/gourmet-cheese/cambozola-cheese-1000325.aspx  -- a good description, though locally we like Caputo's or Trader Joe's offerings of this creamy mild blue cheese).  We keep trying to buy alternatives to Cambozola, but our guests favor it so highly, that we're afraid to suffer their disappointment -- and okay, we like it lots, too.  The veggie tart had sauteed yellow squash and baby eggplant, carmelized onions and garlic, a variety of fresh heirloom tomatoes, and was topped with a mixture of shredded Parmesan tossed with Panko bread crumbs, all on a puff pastry shell.  The frozen puff pastry was pre-baked, then the veggies were layered on and then the whole tart was baked again until the tomatoes softened and the cheese browned slightly.




As a nod to Julie's more carniverous spouse and The Chef, the third opener, along with the tart and cheese, were crostinis with a mortadella schmear -- mortadella was processed in a food processor and mixed with a small amount of cream whipped into soft peaks, and combined with a little bit of chicken veloute (roux with butter and flour and a small amount of chicken stock), and finished with a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.  The crostini tops were garnshed with chopped pistachios and reduced balsamic syrup.     

The next course was a gazpacho, but unfortunately it was all consumed before any photos were snapped.  The Chef doesn't really like gazpacho all that much, so her success was all the more delightful for the rest of us.  Her winning approach consisted of a variety of luscious mid-season local and heirloom tomatoes, 1 sweet red Carmen pepper (grown by Thrifty!), fresh local cucumber, tossed with sherry vinegar, olive oil, and some day-old bread -- all allowed to marinate together in the fridge for at least 2 hours.  Meanwhile, a small onion was quartered and tossed with about 4 cloves of garlic in olive oil and roasted together on a pan in the oven for about half an hour until everything was soft.  The tomato mixture and roasted onion/garlic mix were added together in a food processor and blended until smooth.  If you make your own, at this point taste for seasoning and adjust with salt & pepper as needed.  Garnish with crisp croutons and Chiffonade of basil.

The side dish to accompany the entree was a fresh corn casserole, consisting of 2 cups of fresh corn kernels (about 5 ears), half of which gets pureed with a stick of butter and 2 eggs.  Add into the puree 1 cup Mexican crema (or sour cream), 1/2 cup diced Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup polenta or cornmeal, 5 or 6 slices of bacon sliced thin, fried until crispy, drained, and chopped, and the other half of the fresh corn kernels.   Whip 2 additional egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture. Pour into a generously buttered 2 quart rectangular casserole and bake, uncovered, 50 - 60 minutes in a preheated overn until no longer jiggly in the center.  If you want to gild this perfect lily, garnish with Chiffonade of basil and a bit more bacon.  Of all the ways to enjoy fresh grilled Mirai corn, this may be the best.  And if you don't yet know about Mirai corn, stop what you are doing right now and go find some:
http://www.miraicorn.com/mirai_story.html

Since our guest of honor wasn't likely to be wildly enthusiastic about any meat, we decided this might be the time to have some fun and be silly.  Well, nothing new there, but at least it seemed like the perfect occasion to test something weird that came across our desks in an email back in early July.  "Bubba and LeRoy's Redneck Turtle Burgers" consist of 'handmade ground beef patties, topped with sharp cheddar cheese, wrapped in a bacon weave, with hotdog portions added as heads, legs (with slits for toes), and tail'.  It was the photos, though, that had captured our attention.  Here is our version -- the raw form:

 

This is one occasion when perhaps our enthusiasm for high quality (thick) Wisconsin bacon (either Usinger's or Neuske's for us) may have been misplaced.  Cheap bacon may crisp better when following Bubba and LeRoy's original instructions, "Place on an oven rack, covered loosely with foil and bake for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.  A little crispy, not too crunchy . . . just how a turtle should be, no?''

Our version mixed ground beef with ground veal and used Usinger's bacon, and turned out like this:

Cute and silly. 

For a salad course, we enjoyed fresh Cylindra beets, roasted with olive oil, fresh thyme, and salt until tender -- our last batch, roasted whole, took 2 hours at 375.  Cool until you can handle them, then peel and chop into bite sizes.  Our beet bites were mixed with greens and a dressing made from a leftover Cambozola chunk (of mild blue cheese) mixed with Mexican crema, lemon juice, and a little milk, all blended with an immersion blender.  The most spectacular part of this version was the garnish.  Julie had previously presented us with some Chioggia beets -- the products of some seeds we had given her.  They were small, and young, and looked great.  The Chef had intended to slice them thin and use them raw as a garnish on the roasted beet salad, but to our horror, we found they were pretty tough AND had a distinctly bitter taste that would have ruined the rest of the salad.  Uh oh . . .  what to do?  Food Funatic has 2 basic answers to all food dilemmas, and since 'bacon' didn't fit here as a solution, the anwer had to be 'fry it'.  Indeed, she quickly got a sauce pan going with a 2" mix of olive and peanut oil, and voila!  Beet chips!  Nothing like the raw form, these were incredibly sweet, crispy cruchy, and darned cute with their little red and white swirls.  This was one of those times when it pays to hang out with someone who has a LOT of cooking experience.

 

Finally, after a good long rest, we were treated to a lemon almond tart produced by Professor Physics (who is frankly much better suited to the fussing and measuring required to bake than is Food Funatic).

Astonishingly, his tasty dessert came from a recipe out of Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts, published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., N.Y. 
Freshly whipped cream with a bit of almond extract and sugar to top it . . . m-m-m-m-m!  

Nice finish to a Silly Supper for Julie.