Tonight I am having a dinner party to celebrate the late summer bounty.
Here is my menu:
Fresh tomato soup with tarragon
Roast chicken stuffed with lemon and rosemary on bed of garlic and onions
Roasted corn pilaf
Buffalo mozzerella and fresh peach salad with watercress and proscuitto
Wild blueberry pie for dessert
But I need appetizer ideas. Seasonal ones, if anybody's reading this. What is a nice idea for an appetizer with ingredients that are at their prime right now?
And here's an aside: Why does anyone even buy a tomato at any other time of the year except now? They bear no significant resemblance to the gloriously juicy and flavourful tomatoes that are from the farm right now in our grocery stores. I literally eat about four a day, and even more peaches and plums.
8 comments:
I personally feel you can never go wrong with a good stuffed olive, but that's hardly seasonal.
I'm also into prosciutto wrapped around goood quality breadsticks with parmesan shavings and an olive oil/blasamic vinegar/honey vinaigrette (and I'm not usually wild about Balsamic).
Keep it simple, I say, olives or nuts and a good coktail, best hors d'oeuvres ever.(Well, next to foie gras and let's not go there today.)
p.s. Are you really making this pie yourself?
yes! it's already baked and sitting on my kitchen counter, ready for eating!
It sounds delicious. Don't change a thing. All my wife cooks is frozen dinners.
I'd like the recipe for the fresh tomato soup please. Can you provide?
Oh it's so easy!
You dice a medium-large yellow or white onion
Crush two garlic cloves
Place onions and garlic in a large pot with about 2 tbsp. of butter
Fry up til soft and fragrant. Then you core and chop up in pretty big chunks about 10-12 medium-large field tomatoes, skin and seeds included. Dump them in. Add about five cups of chicken stock and two or three sprigs of fresh tarragon (or any herb you like -- I have used basil, oregano and thyme).
Bring to a bowl then reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes. Then turn off and let cool for about a half hour.
Then take a stick blender and blend the soup right in the pot until everything's blended together (if you don't have a stick blender, put the mixture in the food processor, blend it and then return to pot). Take a slotted spoon and take out any remaining tomato skin, stems from herbs, etc.
Add salt, pepper and about two-three tablespoons of white sugar. Stir in about a quarter cup table cream. Warm up the soup again til almost boiling, but don't let it boil, and then serve with a garnish of fresh tarragon and some toasted baguette croutons.
Extremely delicious, and this the only time of the year that it works. I honestly cannot recommend it highly enough.
Sugar!!! Everything tastes better with sugar and salt.
It cuts the acidity of the tomatoes and brings out the fabulous tomato flavour.
Great Italian chefs always put a dash of sugar in their tomato sauces, I once read.
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