Summer Menus....

actually today I am serving a cold dinner for some co-workers of my wife. A simple little thing for 25 people.


3 bean salad- no canned beans, parsley, small dice red onion and a sweet red wine vinaigrette.

Potato salad - mayo, mustard, capers and brine, fresh dill , small dice red onion and celery

Whole Roasted Herbed Chicken- stuffed with lemon and thyme, I will be pulling these out of the ice chest and carving at site.

dessert is going to be a simple strawberry parfait


this is what happens when you bring the best dishes to the potlucks..you get roped into everything..not that I don't enjoy the compliments;)

summer succotash salad always a big hit here, and you can vary the ingredients and dressing to suit a 'theme' if there is one.

fresh corn off cob
chopped heirloom tomatoes
fresh butter beans/black eyed peas/lady peas
celery
diced spring onions
'baby' asparagus spears
parsley

Dressings I've done have been a Mex theme with the usual - cilantro, lime,cumin, cayenne, sherry vinegar, oil; Italian w/fresh chopped basil, oregano and white wine vinegar (red wine and balsamic I've found to be too 'heavy' for this light salad); 'down south', with cider vinegar, a little sugar, fresh chives and chervil.

>.....watermelon, red onions and raspberry vinaigrette<

If you like that, Julie, you might like one I made last night; a variation of Bobby Flay's Jicama and Watermelon Salad. Very refreshing.

Sounds wonderful. Would you serve it chilled or room temp

Cheers. Just happen to have all i need. Reckon it will go well with tomorrows crayfish and smoked salmon

fav summer salads

moroccan carrot and chickpeas with fresh lemon, cumin & touch of sugar dressing (julienne & blanch carrots quickly cool in dressing to marinate) add cilantro and red onion to taste.

french potato salad - haricot vert, baby white or red potato, marinated artichokes, & whole grain dijon mustard. Dressing is combo of some of the artichoke marinade and the whole grain mustard

cheese Tortellini with feta, mint, red & yellow roasted peppers, basic vinaigrette. filling - can add dolmatis cut in half as garnish.

watermelon, feta & lime - sublime

simple caprese pasta salad - trick is to marinate fresh mozzarella balls (cherry size) in EVOO, fresh garlic & herbs - add chiffonade of fresh spinach or arugula to kick it up too.

Summer menu

Here's a menu I did on Monday for a cocktail party of about 50. All cold or room temp, which works well on a hot Florida summer afternoon. Pretty easy menu to prep and no re-heating!

-Kevin

Always great stuff coming from you in NYC! ;-)

-Kevin

summer menu

Love Black bean mango salsa with avocado, red onion, lime & cilantro

Nothing out of the normal as far as ingredients. I just cut everything differently and displayed it in a tiered vertical format using round and square glass vessels along with glass blocks. Carrots, celery, green beans, radishes and grape tomatoes, and a cool yogurt sauce. It's not spectacular, but I can't bring myself to serve the plain crudite tray that has been done since the 1970's.

Should have photos soon. This event was on Monday and I am waiting on my photographer (also my server for the event) to finish all of the digital fine tuning.

-Kevin

architectural crudite

When we first started catering in the 80's we would do the Martha Crudite table all the time. I still use it occasionally - call it spilling crudite.
Next morp was flowering crudite basket which is still lovely. Basically a huge basket filled with green curly kale or mustard greens (have even used picnic basket or the back of a wooden pickup truck) then layer veggies in like a flower display. Must have a photo somewhere.

In the 90's that was one of our signature catering items.

I had a client tell me once her only complaint was it was so pretty no one wanted to eat it LOL! the other great thing was that it never looks empty or sparse even if well eaten (and most crudite is just fluff and garnish but we once catered for 800 and 1200 showed up and there was NOTHING LEFT for sure!


Here's a photo of something similar to what Kevin is talking about.

cuisinEtc - a culinary journey via catering: Lin's 40th - a catersource collaboration

scroll down to the second photo for the architectural crudite

It's been making the rounds at catersource for at least 4 or 5 years now so you will see variations of it coast to coast.

with some of the very tall vases we might put two veggies - a cheaper filler one in the bottom and then the one guests can get to on the top half or 2/3

we found this cool pillar candle holder last year and have used that for smaller parties with a similar effect.
go to the 12th photo the one with the hummous sunflower display in the front of the crudite to see how that looks. It's on a boat shaped wrought iron stand (set came with stand and glass hurricane holders - let's hope they don't break) In this case we mixed more than one color per vase

cuisinEtc - a culinary journey via catering: service to city - New York City that is...

it is great as shroom mentioned to use other than the standard veggies.
and we have also done things like all white or all green or all red veggies

Love the look of the pale green cauliflower - forget the name for the moment but the one that spirals. It's a great garnish whole but also looks really pretty colorwise cut up.
The clear glass square and round vases in various heights highlights this type of presentation nicely.

Pics up now

Here is a link to one of my blogs with the summer food photos -

Entertaining With Flavor! Tampa Bay Catering from Good Food Catering Company: Summer Menus - Hot Weather and Cool Food

Food wise, it is not super special, but I was really happy with the way everything came out and the food was really tasty and refreshing.

-Kevin