Category: Food

Weekly Dish 20/06/18

• Glendi canceled: For the first time in four decades, Glendi, a popular three-day festival celebrating Greek culture through food, music and dancing in Manchester, will not be taking place this year. Glendi had been scheduled for Friday, Sept. 18, through Sunday, Sept. 20, at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, but the church made the announcement of its cancellation in a June 10 press release. “Our number one priority is the safety and health of our volunteers, our parishioners and our customers,” the release read. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church’s 72nd Lamb Barbecue, which would have been on June 20 on the church grounds on Bridge Street in Manchester, has also been canceled, its Parish Council announced.

• Appetite for poutine: In place of the canceled fifth annual New Hampshire PoutineFest, which would have been last Saturday, the first PoutineFest Roadshow will be kicking off next month. Tickets recently went on sale online to purchase a special roadshow “passport” for $14.99 (or $29.99 with an event T-shirt included). From July 11 through Aug. 31 you can take the passport with you to any participating restaurant and get 25 percent off a regular order of poutine. According to event organizer Tim Beaulieu, participating Roadshow restaurants encompass much of New England, including many in New Hampshire but others as far north as Maine and the Canadian border and as far south as Rhode Island. “It’s just our way keeping the community of poutine-lovers alive,” Beaulieu said of the Roadshow. “We’ve also had some restaurants in the past that have wanted to come participate at PoutineFest but couldn’t because they were so far away, so now this is their opportunity.” Visit nhpoutinefest.com.

• Dinner at your doorstep: Great New Hampshire Restaurants, which owns T-Bones, Cactus Jack’s and the Copper Door, has recently launched a new project called DingDongDeliver.com. Known as a ghost kitchen, DingDongDeliver.com prepares and delivers ready-to-cook meal packages, featuring items like scratch-made chicken pot pie, burger kits, butcher cut steaks, pasta dishes and homemade desserts. Currently, pre-ordered deliveries are available to all Manchester and Bedford addresses on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from 1 to 5 p.m. Orders must be placed 24 hours in advance. Visit dingdongdeliver.com, find them on Facebook @dddeliver or call 488-2828.

Tropical Fruit Stack

Try this at home

The weather finally is turning to the warmth of summer. Although we, as New Hampshirites, are excited for the increased temperature, we also will be complaining about how hot and humid it is in the very near future. With that in mind, I have created a dish that welcomes the arrival of summer while keeping one cool.

Allow me to introduce to you the tropical fruit stack. While its name may make you think that it’s a sweet dish, it actually has a nice balance between sweet, savory, salty and even a little bit of spice. Yes, it’s all of the taste categories in one dish. Additionally, it has a nice balance between tender and crunchy, so what’s not to like?

This is a simple dish to make, but because of its simplicity you also need to be mindful when purchasing your ingredients. All of the produce needs to be fully ripened, as it won’t spend any time cooking or macerating to highlight its flavors. If you can only find under-ripe produce, that’s fine. The mango and avocado can be ripened by placing them in a paper bag on the counter for a day or two. The same is supposed to work with pineapples, although I’ve never tried that.

You may hesitate to try this recipe because you need a ring mold. However, there are many substitutes for a ring mold. You can make one out of aluminum foil. If you buy your pineapple whole but with the skin removed, that container can work, if you cut off the bottom. You also could cut the bottom off a large disposable plastic cup and use it with the widest part as the bottom of your mold.

With fresh ingredients and your tool acquired, you’re ready to make a dish that’s sure to wow. It’s pretty easy to make, elegant to view and refreshing to eat. Summer dining doesn’t get much better than that.

Tropical fruit stack. Photo by Michele Pesula Kuegler.

Tropical Fruit Stack
Serves 2

1 1/3 cup diced pineapple
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 avocado
1 teaspoon lime juice
1 cup diced mango
2 tablespoons finely chopped salted macadamia nuts

In a small bowl combine pineapple, chili powder, and salt.
Stir until pineapple is fully coated.
Remove skin and pit from avocado.
Place avocado and lime juice in a small bowl.
Using a fork, mash until avocado is creamy.
Place a 4-inch ring mold on a small plate.
Spoon half of the pineapple mixture evenly as the bottom layer.
Spread half of the mashed avocado on top of the pineapple.
Spoon half of the diced mango over the avocado.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of macadamia nuts over the mango.
Carefully remove mold, and repeat for second serving.
Serve immediately.

Weekly Dish 20/6/11

• Taste of New Hampshire goes virtual: Join the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central New Hampshire for the annual Taste of New Hampshire, which, for the first time in its 15-year history, will be going virtual. Normally a one-night event held in the fall at the Grappone Conference Center in Concord, Taste of New Hampshire this year will take place online over the course of a week. At 6 p.m. every day from Monday, June 15, through Friday, June 19, you can tune in to a free livestream through the event website, where discounted gift cards to several local restaurants will be sold. Local musicians are also expected to host livestreamed performances each evening. Visit tasteofnewhampshire.com or search “Taste of New Hampshire” on Facebook for more details.

• “Window” service: A new eatery offering made-from-scratch comfort foods and home-cooked meals is now open in downtown Manchester for online ordering and window pickup. Diz’s Cafe officially opened on May 29 in the former space of Lorena’s Cantina at 860 Elm Street, according to Judi Window, whose husband, Gary “Diz” Window, is the head chef. Due to Covid-19, windows directly adjacent to the front door of the restaurant are currently being used for walk-up orders and pickups. The menu is available for viewing in the window too; there’s a customizable “build-your-own” menu featuring a protein and three sides, plus other offerings like sandwiches and flatbreads, soups and salads, and specialty entrees, like chicken Parmesan, grilled steak skewers, buttermilk chicken macaroni and cheese, meatloaf and honey ginger shrimp stir-fry. Menu items, Judi Window said, will change all the time. For now, Diz’s Cafe is open Monday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., but the plan, she said, is to open for breakfast on Sundays once restaurants in the Granite State are allowed to resume indoor dining. Visit dizscafe.com.

• Pie season: The Live Free or Pie Stand (455 East Road, Hampstead), a seasonal business offering home-baked pies with local ingredients, will reopen for the season on Saturday, June 13, at 10 a.m., according to a May 27 post on its Facebook page. Owner Crystal MacDonald launched the stand in June 2018 at the end of her driveway. Throughout the summer and early fall she’ll restock the stand twice a week with full-sized and mini fruit pies for sale. Flavors include strawberry rhubarb, blueberry, triple berry, peach, peach raspberry, peach blueberry and apple, all of which are baked in her home kitchen with hand-picked fruits from farms, orchards or farmers markets in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The stand will be open Thursdays at 4 p.m. and Saturdays at 10 a.m., and masks are required for all visitors. Visit livefreeorpiestand.com.

• Market news: Both the Milford Farmers Market and the Bedford Farmers Market are scheduled to hold their outdoor season openings this week. The Milford market will begin on Saturday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 300 Elm St. in Milford, continuing every Saturday through Oct. 10. Bedford’s market will kick off on Tuesday, June 16, from 3 to 6 p.m. in a new location, the parking lot of the old Harvest Market (209 Route 101, Bedford). That one will continue every Tuesday through Sept. 29. In other local market news, the Derry Homegrown Farm & Artisan Market will not be taking place this year. Its board had announced in a May 11 press release that the scheduled June 3 start date would at least be delayed, but in a June 2 update the market was cancelled for the season. “We hope that people will understand that this decision was not made lightly and was a very difficult one to make,” the statement read. “At the end of the day, weighing the health and safety issues along with the impact of existing restrictions, the board did not feel we could offer the kind of market experience that patrons and vendors … have come to expect.”

• Burgers and brews: Join The Barley House Restaurant & Tavern (132 Main St., Concord) for its 15th annual Burgerfest, a gourmet burger fundraiser for Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (CHaD). All kinds of unique burger creations with beef, pork, turkey, vegetables and seafood will be available at the restaurant from noon to 10 p.m., Monday, June 15, through Saturday, June 20, alongside a lineup of local craft brews. Since its inaugural event in 2005 Burgerfest has raised more than $10,000 in annual donations to CHaD, according to a press release. Visit thebarleyhouse.com.

In the Kitchen with Carmel Shea

Carmel Shea of Londonderry is the owner of O’Shea’s Caife & Tae (44 Nashua Road, Londonderry, 540-2971, osheasnh.com), a health-focused eatery and coffee shop that opened in 2018. O’Shea’s offers fair trade coffees, teas and espresso drinks, pastries and breakfast sandwiches, and bagels with homemade butters and whipped cream cheeses. The lunch menu features sandwiches, salads, smoothies and mroe. Shea co-owned The Grind Rail Trail Cafe in Derry before opening O’Shea’s. The cafe is currently open for takeout.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

The mixer. We do a lot of whipped creams and cream cheeses with it. We just started doing a whipped coffee.

What would you have for your last meal?

Filet mignon, mashed potatoes, green beans and a nice cabernet.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

I am a huge fan of the Copper Door [in Bedford and Salem].

What celebrity would you like to see ordering from O’Shea’s?

Ellen DeGeneres. I just love her and I can totally imagine her coming in here.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

The oatmeal latte. It’s espresso with oat milk, brown sugar and cinnamon. It just has this really warm, comforting flavor.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

People supporting local. … I think it’s been amped up even more now.

What is your favorite thing to make at home?

You can’t beat a nice batch of warm chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven.

O’Shea’s homemade peanut butter
Courtesy of Carmel Shea of O’Shea’s Caife & Tae in Londonderry
3 cups dry roasted unsalted peanuts
3 ounces vegetable oil
2 ounces simple syrup
Place all ingredients in a food processor on high for two minutes or until smooth.

Whisked away

New food truck debuts in Loudon

A new food truck rolled into Loudon last week, and as its name and the whisks on its logo suggest, the Whisked Away Cafe wants to “whisk” you away to a different part of the world — or to Grandma’s house — each week with an ever-changing menu of specials that includes creative takes on wraps, sandwiches, burgers, salads, kid-friendly eats and more.

Sisters Korrie Garland and Crystal Hopkins run the truck with their mother, Louise Cloutier. They began offering lunch service on June 2 at a dirt turnaround road on Route 106 in Loudon, steps away from Cascade Campground. You can now find them there every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., where a few dining tables are set up out front.

Fifteen years ago the three women also operated the Bonne Femmes restaurant in downtown Pembroke, a spot that was known in town for its breakfasts, sandwiches and soups. Years after she and Hopkins both had kids of their own, Garland said, they became interested in the freedom a food truck would give them to create different recipes. They ended up finding and purchasing the truck last November.

Prior to starting a regular lunch service last week, the Whisked Away Cafe sold homemade holiday pies late last year and dinners for local delivery in the Pembroke area in March.

“We were doing the deliveries … just to kind of help out the people that didn’t want to or couldn’t leave their homes, so that picked up some steam,” Garland said.

Now, Whisked Away Cafe’s menu features a variety of sandwiches, chicken or steak fajita sandwiches, chicken or seafood salad, and grilled cheese sandwiches called “toasties,” with flavors like jalapeno chicken popper, chicken cordon bleu and Buffalo chicken. There are also breaded chicken fingers, steak fingers, hand-cut french fries and beef, pork or veggie empanadas.

Hopkins said she, her sister and her mother wanted to create a section of the menu that was fun and accessible for kids too. The children’s menu features options like homemade macaroni and cheese and a grilled peanut butter and Fluff sandwich, plus an “octodog” and a “redneck sushi,” both of which come with chips.

“[An octodog] is a hot dog that we slice up so when it cooks it curls up and it looks like a little octopus with legs,” she said. “The redneck sushi is just a slice of ham with cream cheese and a pickle in the middle, so when you roll it up and slice it, it looks like little rolls of sushi.”

Garland said they’ve had several pages of ideas for what will be on their specials menu. They began their first week by featuring a special of pulled pork with homemade barbecue sauce and coleslaw on grilled ciabatta, with either fries or pasta salad as a side.

“Our idea was that we’re ‘whisking’ you away to Mexico, or to your grandma’s house, or to college with a ramen noodle dish,” she said.

For now, Garland said, the trio is sticking with the Tuesday through Thursday schedule. But eventually, she said, they may appear on additional days on the weekends, as well as at events at C-R Helicopters in Nashua, which Cloutier owns with her husband.

Whisked Away Cafe food truck
Where: 485 Route 106 South, Loudon
When: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
More info: Find them on Facebook @whiskedawayfoodtruck

Caramelized peaches with bacon & blue cheese

There is nothing quite like a perfectly ripe peach as an afternoon snack. When a peach is tender and so juicy that you need to have a napkin nearby, it should be enjoyed on its own. There is nothing else this peach needs to evoke all of its flavors.

Sometimes, though, you have peaches that aren’t perfectly ripe. Then it is time to transform those peaches into an entirely different snack. Allow me to introduce you to a ridiculously simple recipe that turns ho-hum peaches into something much more spectacular.

You need only four ingredients and less than 30 minutes to create a dish that could be an appetizer or a side dish. It could even be your lunch if you wanted. Even better, slightly underripe peaches work well in this dish because the roasting time brings forth tenderness and sweetness. Topped with salty bacon and savory blue cheese, this makes an amazing mix of flavors and textures. Oh yes, this simple recipe produces a show-stopping dish.

A few notes on this recipe:

1. You don’t want to use thick-cut bacon, as you want the bacon to be really crispy after cooking so that it will crumble nicely.

2. I found it easier to cut through the pit, as opposed to trying to pull the peach flesh off the pit. Pulling resulted in squishing the fruit.

3. Be very watchful when broiling the final product. It takes mere seconds and will go from caramelized to burnt in the blink of an eye.

Although peaches are lovely on their own, after making this recipe you may be hard pressed to think about peaches without also considering blue cheese and bacon.

Caramelized Peaches with Bacon & Blue Cheese
Serves 2-4

3 slices regular-cut bacon
2 peaches
3 tablespoons blue cheese
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Heat large frying pan over medium heat.
Add bacon and cook until crisp.
Transfer fully cooked bacon to a paper towel-lined plate.
Cut peaches in half (using the crease as a guide) and remove pit.
Place peaches, cut side down, on a greased, rimmed baking dish.
Roast for 8-10 minutes or until tender.
While peaches bake, place blue cheese in a small bowl.
Crumble bacon into small pieces, adding it to the cheese.
Use a fork to combine the cheese and bacon.
Remove peaches from oven, and flip so that they are cut side up.
Change oven from bake to broil.
Move a rack to the highest shelf in the oven.
Fill peach centers with blue cheese and bacon.
Sprinkle sugar over peaches.
Place under broiler for 15-30 seconds.*

*Instead of broiling the peaches, you can caramelize them with a kitchen torch.

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