Category: Food

Red Beard’s Kitchen offers ready-made farm-to-fork meals

From soup, chowder and chili to beef stew, veal Bolognese and shepherd’s pie, a new ready-made meal business is offering a variety of locally sourced comfort options, available at a few area farm stands and also via weekly pickups in Manchester.

Known as Red Beard’s Kitchen, it’s the latest culinary project of Matt Provencher, who has held executive chef positions at multiple Granite State eateries over the years, most recently at The Foundry in Manchester. The business launched earlier this month with its first curbside pickups in front of the temporarily closed Noodz restaurant on Elm Street. For now, pickups will continue there every Saturday between 10 a.m. and noon.

“We’re working with local farms as much as we can,” said Provencher, who’s been putting out Red Beard’s Kitchen’s meals with the help of his wife, Dalila. “We’re dealing with New England Fishmongers for our scallops and haddock, and Bohanan Farm [in Hopkinton] for ground beef, dairy and cheese. … The goal is to do some self-distribution.”

Ordering is available through Red Beard’s Kitchen’s Facebook page and through its website. All items are sold frozen, with specific heating instructions depending on what you get. Most meals will serve two or three people per order

Some of Provencher’s hottest-selling items right out of the gate have been seafood chowder with scallops, haddock and veggies, and shepherd’s pie with ground beef. He has also done beef chili with kidney and pinto beans; veal Bolognese; split pea soup made with chicken stock, bacon and veggies; beef stew, and broccoli cheddar soup. Several of the meals, including the chili, the shepherd’s pie and the Bolognese, are gluten-free. Provencher has also tested the waters with different products and worked with potential items like meatloaf and meatballs.

In addition to ordering online for Saturday pickups at Noodz, you can get Provencher’s meals at a few local farm stands — he’s working with Vernon Family Farm in Newfields and Brookvale Pines Farm in Fremont, and will soon have his products available through the Three River Farmers Alliance, an online network linking customers to locally sourced food.

Red Beard’s Kitchen
To order, visit red-beards-kitchen.square.site, email [email protected] or find them on Facebook. Place orders for weekly pickups on Saturdays, between 10 a.m. and noon, at Noodz (968 Elm St., Manchester).

Mola Foods to open new tasting room and kitchen

Since launching Mola Foods in 2016, Jeannette Bryant of Nashua has opened a retail store, established a culinary scholarship program and published a cookbook offering ideas on how to best utilize her globally inspired spice blends and chili relishes into one’s meals. Now Bryant is expanding her “culture in a bottle” theme even further in the form of a new space, which will serve as a combination store front, tasting room and commercial kitchen.

Set to open on Saturday, Feb. 20, the new Mola Foods location is much more than a larger retail spot for Bryant’s products.

You’ll also be able to order traditional meals from her home country of Cameroon in Central Africa as well as other nations, prepared fresh in the kitchen and available weekly through a grab-and-go model.

Bryant, who has been offering a similar meal service at Creative Chef Kitchens in Derry, known as Jals Cuisine Bantu, said the transition to Nashua allows her to do everything under one roof.

Although she expects meals to be available on the first day for visitors stopping in to the store, orders going forward will be accepted by 10 a.m. every Thursday, for pickup on Saturdays, either fresh out of the oven or out of a refrigerated case.

“People can experience Cameroonian cuisine right here in Nashua,” she said. “[Meals] will be from other countries too, so you’ll be able to taste different things from different countries, but you’ll always find at least one Cameroonian meal that you can try.”

One such meal is ndole — because it’s a dish made with a plant that’s indigenous to Cameroon, Bryant said, she uses spinach as a substitute, stewed together with peanut sauce, shrimp and beef, and served with boiled plantains.

A vegan version of ndole will also be available.

Other options will include a black bean and mango rice bowl with cilantro vinaigrette and red bell peppers; a Cameroonian peanut soup, made with tofu or beef and served with basmati rice; and a blackened sauce, known as mbongo, that will be cooked with bone-in pork.

New menus will be updated on Sundays for the following week. All of them will be used with Mola Foods spice blends, each of which is inspired by a different country, from African nations like Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Morocco to those in Asia, like India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

“Everything here is made fresh. There will never be meat in here that is conserved or frozen,” Bryant said. “That’s why we have people place the orders on Thursday. It gives us time to go to the market, purchase everything and start cooking.”

In the front of the retail store, small standing tables will be set up for designated tasting events of Mola Foods products, and the space can be used for private tastings for larger parties too.

Bryant said the concept of her company started when she was experimenting with a hot sauce recipe made from a Cameroonian ghost pepper.

The feedback she received from it was so positive that she began working with other world-inspired spice blends, sauces and marinades, and she has continuously expanded her product line ever since.

Most recently she has introduced hibiscus and golden milk turmeric tea, as well as a new sweet and spicy wing sauce.

Mola Foods
Where: 9 Simon St., Suite 103, Nashua
Hours: Retail store hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Order meals by 10 a.m. on Thursdays for pickups on Saturdays
Visit: molafoods.com or jalscuisinebantu.ecwid.com

Featured photo: Cameroonian ndole (spinach cooked with peanuts and served with boiled plantains). Photo courtesy of Mola Foods.

Amherst, Merrimack Lions Clubs to host “virtual” chili cook-off

If a hot bowl of chili has been one of your favorite go-to at-home meals, you’ll be able to showcase your creation during a special “virtual” cook-off. The event, a collaborative effort of the Amherst and Merrimack Lions Clubs, will be video recorded on Tuesday, March 2, at the former Buckmeadow Recreation and Conservation Area Clubhouse in Amherst.

“Covid has taught us to be very creative,” Amherst Lion and event co-captain Joan Ferguson said. “We said, ‘What can we do to continue the tradition?,’ and we kind of got more creative with it as we went along. There were a lot of combined resources to make this fall into place.”

One of the first tasks in organizing this event involved recruiting local chefs and restaurateurs to serve as “celebrity” judges, a significant change from the people’s choice voting of previous cook-offs. Merrimack Lion Adam Jump, who has been a participating chili maker in the past, helped select the three judges — Jay Smith, executive chef of the Copper Door Restaurant in Bedford; Dan DeCourcey, owner of the Up In Your Grill barbecue food trailer in Merrimack; and Alan Frati, owner of Crack’d Kitchen & Coffee Eatery in Andover, Mass.

Now through Feb. 24, anyone can register their chili by filling out an entry form on the Amherst Lions Club’s website and emailing a copy of their recipe. Chili cooks will then be invited to the March 2 taping at a designated time. Submissions will be divided into three categories for judging: individuals, restaurants and Lions Club members. Smith, DeCourcey and Frati will rate each chili on a scale of 1 to 5 in a variety of factors, like taste, smell, creativity and presentation.
“They’ll be judging everyone from each category at one time frame,” Ferguson said. “The entrants will get to receive constructive comments from these chefs, which is another thing that’s different this year and can be valuable as well.”

To promote social distancing, participants will be given a time within the two-hour event window for when their presentation will be recorded. Tables, napkins, spoons and gloves will be provided, but you must bring your own bowls, serving ladle, electrical cords and heating elements, in addition to at least one quart of your chili.

Among the restaurant contestants is Smokehaus Barbecue in Amherst — last year’s winner in the Restaurant category — as well as The Common Man of Merrimack, Tomahawk’s Butchery and Tavern in Merrimack, the Alamo Texas Barbecue & Tequila Bar in Brookline and Bobby and Jack’s Memphis Barbecue in Tewksbury, Mass.

Shortly after its taping, the recorded video of the cook-off will be uploaded onto the Amherst Lions Club’s website and social media pages. Viewers will be given the opportunity to purchase recipes from each of the cook-off entrants, with all proceeds going to the Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation of New Hampshire. Winners of each cook-off category will receive an engraved trophy and bragging rights for a year.

“Virtual” Chili Cook-off
When: Tuesday, March 2, 5 to 7 p.m. (open to chili registrants only, with recorded video of the cook-off to be posted online soon after; enter your chili by Feb. 24 to participate)
Where: 30 Route 101A, Amherst (former Buckmeadow Recreation and Conservation Area Clubhouse)
Cost: No cost to register; participants’ recipes will be sold online ($5 for one recipe, $12 for three recipes and $25 for 20 recipes), with proceeds going to the Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation of New Hampshire
More info: Email [email protected], or visit e-clubhouse.org/sites/amherstnh