Tailgate Revisited
Friday night was a shopping and cooking fury as I made preparations for the big tailgate. I got a late start, heading to the store at about 7:30pm to fill a basket with all the necessary ingredients.
A trick I learned from my favorite caterer of all time is to write your shopping list on a piece of paper divided into quadrants for each section of the grocery store. In other words, instead of just writing the list of ingredients (one recipe after another), you take the time to put the dairy items from each recipe in a list of dairy stuff, the veggies in the produce list, etc. This makes for fairly speedy shopping and prevents me from having to go back and forth for ingredients that somehow got missed along the way.
By 9pm I was unloading groceries at my Mom's house. As anyone who has ever been to my place knows, it is a galley kitchen and there is no multi-tasking in a galley kitchen. So, with the mega granite kitchen at my disposal I had enough space to work like an octopus on methamphetamine. Simultaneously, I boiled red skins, blanched green beans, baked chicken for my sandwiches, cooked up the marinade for the artichoke and mushroom salad, sliced and marinated the veggies for my roll ups, whipped up the sauces for the roast beef sandwiches, and sliced and diced like a pro.
Presto!
In two hours I had three prepared salads and all the trimmings for the interior of three different kinds of sandwiches. Oh, how I love a large kitchen...six burners, two ovens, a large double sink for fast clean up, a vegetable sink with disposal, about 15 yards of solid granite counter top and a double door stainless steel fridge to hold everything! Yowsa!
The next morning, all I had to do was buy some booze. The list of salads is on the last entry. For the sandwiches I ended up making:
1) Roast beef with horseradish/cream cheese/sour cream spread, alfalfa sprouts, and cranberry/orange relish on Italian bread.
2) Turkey, pepper jack cheese, sprouts, and guacamole on pumpernickel bread
3) Roasted chicken with marinated mixed vegetables rolled into either tomato basil or spinach basil flat bread.
I served water, iced tea and do-it-yourself cocktails of lemonade, raspberry vodka, ice and a handful of fresh raspberries to float.
The menu was a hit. Coupled with a basket of enormous homemade chocolate chip cookies from my cousin, Gail and a tray of assorted mini brownies (chocolate toffee bars and the good old fashioned nine layer bars you may remember from childhood!) made by my Mom - this was one helluva tailgate!
Too bad the weather didn't cooperate. I ended up serving the whole thing indoors...and then caravanned over to the theater to watch the BF perform in Harvest Theatre's "Taming of the Shrew" at the Ottawa Park amphitheater. For those of you who love Shakespeare, you can catch the show this Saturday or Sunday at 3pm (The amphitheater is located at the corner of Midwood and Kenwood, behind the Police Station in Ottawa Park).
A trick I learned from my favorite caterer of all time is to write your shopping list on a piece of paper divided into quadrants for each section of the grocery store. In other words, instead of just writing the list of ingredients (one recipe after another), you take the time to put the dairy items from each recipe in a list of dairy stuff, the veggies in the produce list, etc. This makes for fairly speedy shopping and prevents me from having to go back and forth for ingredients that somehow got missed along the way.
By 9pm I was unloading groceries at my Mom's house. As anyone who has ever been to my place knows, it is a galley kitchen and there is no multi-tasking in a galley kitchen. So, with the mega granite kitchen at my disposal I had enough space to work like an octopus on methamphetamine. Simultaneously, I boiled red skins, blanched green beans, baked chicken for my sandwiches, cooked up the marinade for the artichoke and mushroom salad, sliced and marinated the veggies for my roll ups, whipped up the sauces for the roast beef sandwiches, and sliced and diced like a pro.
Presto!
In two hours I had three prepared salads and all the trimmings for the interior of three different kinds of sandwiches. Oh, how I love a large kitchen...six burners, two ovens, a large double sink for fast clean up, a vegetable sink with disposal, about 15 yards of solid granite counter top and a double door stainless steel fridge to hold everything! Yowsa!
The next morning, all I had to do was buy some booze. The list of salads is on the last entry. For the sandwiches I ended up making:
1) Roast beef with horseradish/cream cheese/sour cream spread, alfalfa sprouts, and cranberry/orange relish on Italian bread.
2) Turkey, pepper jack cheese, sprouts, and guacamole on pumpernickel bread
3) Roasted chicken with marinated mixed vegetables rolled into either tomato basil or spinach basil flat bread.
I served water, iced tea and do-it-yourself cocktails of lemonade, raspberry vodka, ice and a handful of fresh raspberries to float.
The menu was a hit. Coupled with a basket of enormous homemade chocolate chip cookies from my cousin, Gail and a tray of assorted mini brownies (chocolate toffee bars and the good old fashioned nine layer bars you may remember from childhood!) made by my Mom - this was one helluva tailgate!
Too bad the weather didn't cooperate. I ended up serving the whole thing indoors...and then caravanned over to the theater to watch the BF perform in Harvest Theatre's "Taming of the Shrew" at the Ottawa Park amphitheater. For those of you who love Shakespeare, you can catch the show this Saturday or Sunday at 3pm (The amphitheater is located at the corner of Midwood and Kenwood, behind the Police Station in Ottawa Park).
“Glass City Gourmet” is a chronicle of one woman's attempt to cook, eat, diet and entertain with both flair and whimsy while based in Toledo, Ohio. I encourage you to read on as the "Glass City Gourmet" attempts grand recipes, samples locally owned restaurants, visits indigenous markets and humbly pursues her quest to be formally recognized as the official "Glass City Gourmet".
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