Category: Food

Gyro to go

Assumption holds its Greekfest Express

By Grace Clark
[email protected]

On Saturday, Aug. 26, Assumption Greek Orthodox Church in Manchester will serve up pastichio, lamb kebab meals and more during Greekfest Express.

A twist on the church’s Greekfest event, Greekfest Express is a pandemic innovation, giving those hungry for Greekfest eats a chance to order the food in advance via the church’s website and then pick up via a drive-thru on the last Saturday in August between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. — with a more specific window agreed on when the order is placed.

“Unfortunately, during the Covid period, we weren’t able to do our traditional Greekfest event, which we would typically do with an outdoor venue,” said Costas Georgopoulos, Parish Council President and Greekfest Chairperson. “Hopefully next year we will go back to our traditional Greekfest event.”

The express format is also an adaptation to having fewer volunteers for the festival.

“The hardest thing for us is volunteers,” Georgopoulos said.

Every dish is made fresh and the food is prepared by the Ladies of the Philoptochos (the official philanthropic organization of the Greek Orthodox Church), according to Georgopoulos. The Ladies of the Philoptochos have also created the recipes for the Popular Greek Recipes cookbook that is available to order on the church website along with Greekfest eats.

Some of the most popular dishes at Greekfest include barbecue lamb (the lamb kebab dinner is served over rice with Greek-style green beans and bread), gyros (served with French fries), Greek lasagna (the pastichio dinner is also served with rice, Greek-style green beans and bread), spanakopita, baklava, and loukoumades (the fried dough balls served with a honey syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon). Pastry offerings also include kourambiedes (Greek butter cookies with powdered sugar), finikia (honey walnut cookies), koulourakia (braided butter cookies) and a pastry sampler featuring a few of four different pastries. There is also a Greek rice pudding on the menu.

Other savory options include a chicken kebab dinner, a meatballs and rice dinner, a vegetarian combo dinner (with spanakopita, rice, Greek-style green beans and bread), a Greek salad with gyro or grilled chicken and a feta cheese peta.

This year’s Greekfest will also feature a 50/50 raffle, which customers can enter online. The winner is announced at the Greekfest festival and half of the proceeds go to the church.

Ordering is open now through Sunday, Aug. 20.

In addition to celebrating Greek food and culture, the event celebrates the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which is the Feast Day of the parish.

“We celebrate our culture, and people are able to experience Greek food that you may not be able to get at a restaurant, so they are able to experience that and our specialty dishes,”Georgopoulos said. “You also get to look at our church, and so forth, and experience Greek culture.”

Assumption Greekfest Express
Pickup day: Saturday, Aug. 26, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Pickup location: 111 Island Pond Road in Manchester
Order by: Sunday, Aug. 20
Menu: foodfest.assumptionnh.org
Pickup day: Saturday, Aug. 26, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Featured photo: Courtesy photos.

The Weekly Dish 23/08/10

News from the local food scene

• Food truck fest and car show: The town of Windham hosts a food truck fest and car show on Sunday, Aug. 13, from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Windham High School (64 London Bridge Road). Stop by for food, cars and cornhole.

• Vodka mixology: In the Spirits of Spirits holds pouring or mixology classes every other month. The next mixology event, on Sunday, Aug. 13, at CodeX B.A.R. in Nashua (1 Elm St.), will explore three vintage cocktails using the vodka from July’s tasting. Tickets can be purchased via eventbrite.

• Table for 10 at Bistro 603: Matchmaker Elaine Saunders of New England Singles Network Group hosts Table for 10 at Bistro 603 (345 Amherst St., Nashua) on Wednesday, Aug. 16, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event is limited to five men and five women ages 45 years old and up. Buy your own food and drinks and pay $15 to reserve your spot. Tickets can be purchased via eventbrite.

• International Food Festival: Don’t miss the International Food Festival at Brookford Farm (250 West Road) in Canterbury on Thursday, Aug. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m. Recipes from nationalities represented by the staff at Brookford Farm will be highlighted, such as Sudanese, Ethiopian, German, Ugandan, Russian, Polish, Turkmen and more. The event will also feature live music performed by The Velvet Dirtmunchers. Tickets, which include access to sunflower fields and a barnyard, are $60 for adults, $30 for children ages 3 to 12 and free for children under 3 years old and must be purchased ahead of time. Visit eventbrite.com to get your tickets.

• Burgers at the farm: Burger Night returns to Brookford Farm (250 West Road, Canterbury) on Saturday, Aug. 19, from 8 to 5 p.m. Sit among the sunflowers and enjoy local food, see barn animals and The Artty Francoeur Band perform live. It is $40 for an adult plate, $20 for kids ages 3 to 12 and free for children under 3 years old. Tickets must be purchased ahead of time and can be bought through eventbrite.

• Cigar dinner: The Bedford Village Inn’s (2 Olde Bedford Way in Bedford; bedfordvillageinn.com, 472-2001) annual 12th Cigar Dinner will take place Thursday, Aug. 17, beginning with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m. featuring cocktails, beer and bourbon tastings as well as hors d’oeuvres from the grill, according to the website. Once seated, guests will have a three-course plated dinner paired with cigars, cocktails and wine, the website said Find the evening’s menu online. Tickets to this 21+ event cost $135 per person.

Mango daiquiri

Days like this call for something cold, boozy and tropical, something with a lot of crushed ice.

Mango Rum

  • Unsweetened dry mango
  • White or silver rum

With a heavy knife, chop the dried mango into a small dice — very small pieces. Add the chopped mango to a large, wide-mouthed jar, one with a lid. It’s best to look around and find a lid to fit the jar you are using before you get up to your elbows in mangoes.

Add white rum to the same jar — three times (by weight) as much as the mango you just chopped. Could you use vodka, or even blanco tequila, instead of rum? You could, but you would be heading off on a different adventure than the one we are on today.

Seal the jar with a tight-fitting lid, shake it well, then store it someplace cool and dark — maybe in that cabinet above the refrigerator that you always forget about — and shake it once or twice per day, for a week.

Strain with a fine-mesh strainer. Bottle and label it. You will be surprised at how much rum has been absorbed by the dried fruit, but also how much color and flavor the rum has taken on. This rum should keep indefinitely.

Guava Syrup

  • Fresh guava (Available in international markets, and at Walmart, guava is one of those fruits that you are probably pretty sure you’ve never had before, but you probably have. It’s one of the perfumy background flavors in “tropical” juice mixes.)
  • White sugar
  • Juice of half a lemon

Chop fresh guavas into medium-sized pieces, then freeze them for several hours. This is to let the ice crystals poke holes in all the fruit’s cell walls and make it oozier when it’s time to cook with it.

Cook the frozen guava over medium heat in a small saucepan, with an equal amount — by weight — of white sugar. Stir occasionally. As it thaws, the frozen guava will give off a surprising amount of liquid. If you wanted to help it along its way, you could encourage it with a potato masher.

Bring the mixture to a boil. Swirl it around the saucepan to make sure that all the sugar has been dissolved into the syrup.

Remove the mixture from heat, stir in the lemon juice, then strain the syrup with the same fine-mesh strainer that you used for the mango rum (see above). This syrup will keep for several weeks in your refrigerator.

Mango Daiquiri

  • 3 ounces mango rum
  • ½ ounce guava syrup
  • 1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice, which isn’t discussed above but you can probably figure out
  • Lots of crushed ice

Wrap several handfuls of ice cubes in a kitchen towel, and beat viciously with a rolling pin or some sort of martial arts weapon that you find lying around, until well-crushed. I like to leave a mixture of different sizes of ice. Fill a large rocks glass with the crushed ice.

Add the mango rum, guava syrup and lime juice to a cocktail shaker, and shake it over ice, until it is very cold. Feel free to shake it longer than you normally would; this is a strong, sweet drink that will benefit from the cold and the melted ice.

Strain the shaken daiquiri over the crushed ice. Call up footage of a beach view of Bora Bora on your laptop. Watch it through half-closed eyes as you drink this daiquiri. If small children try to disturb you while you do this, tell them that you are listening for secret messages that you have to be very, very quiet to hear.

It’s no secret that rum plays well with sweet fruit, which in turn plays well with acidic citrus like lime juice. The first sip of this daiquiri will be sweet, then a little sour, which will make your mouth water, which prepares you perfectly for another sip.

Featured photo: Mango daiquiri. Photo by John Fladd.

In the kitchen with Lindsey Bangs

Lindsey Bangs has always had a passion for baking. Her mom taught her how to bake, buying her her first cookbook when she was just 2 or 3 years oldA few months ago, she decided to step away from her job as a medical receptionist to focus on I Whisked It full time. She specializes in custom cakes, cupcakes and cake jars as well as hot chocolate bombs with homemade marshmallows and French chocolate during the winter. You can find I Whisked It at the Bedford farmers market every Tuesday from 3 to 6 p.m. through Oct. 17, and the Candia farmers market the third Saturday of every month through Oct. 21 from 9 a.m. to noon.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

I would have to say my small offset spatula. I reach for it for everything from smoothing brownie batter in pans to decorating cakes.

What would you have for your last meal?

I would start with a croissant with apricot or raspberry jam, Rhode Island-style calamari, halibut tacos and cheesecake with a traditional graham cracker crust and raspberry coulis.

What is your favorite local eatery?

I love Tuckaway Tavern in Raymond. .

Name a celebrity you would like to see eating in your restaurant?

I would love to have any of my favorite musicians, like Dave Matthews or Chris Carrabba, buy a cake from me just so I could thank them for the music and lyrics that so often keep me going. Or one of the cast members from Friends or The Office. They’re all responsible for delivering so many laughs in my house.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

I love my Pina Colada cake jar. It’s layers of light coconut cake, coconut cream buttercream and a pineapple coconut filling. It’s so good.

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

I’ve noticed a lot of food, drink and even ice cream flight options, so it’s not just beer anymore. It’s great because I love being able to try a little bit of everything.

Banana bread
From the kitchen of I Whisked It

¾ cup sugar
1½ cups mashed bananas (three large)
¾cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 325 degrees.
Grease a loaf pan with shortening, butter or non-stick spray.
Mix sugar, bananas, oil and eggs in a large bowl. Add in remaining ingredients and stir until just combined.
Pour into the greased loaf pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean (60 to 70 minutes). Let cool in the pan on a cooling rack with the pan on its side for 10 minutes, then remove the loaf from the pan. Let cool completely before slicing. Makes 1 loaf.


Featured photo: Lindsey Bangs. Courtesy photo.

Friends and family on the farm

Vernon Family Farm hosts agritourism events

For the past nine years, Vernon Family Farm, a livestock farm in Newfields, has been supplying the community with fresh meat, farm-to-table meals and agritourism events like live music and outdoor classes hosted by other organizations. Their next event will be on Friday, Aug. 4, from 4 to 8 p.m. with dinner and live music by New Hampshire Grateful Dead tribute band Not Fade Away.

Having grown up in New London in a family that raised and processed animals for consumption, Jeremiah Vernon developed a love for the farming lifestyle. This interest was reinforced while attending college in Maine.

“There was a big dairy farm near the school and the dairy farm had a restaurant … and I just became enamored with the whole farm scene they had going on over there,” he said. “That was sort of my start of production farming and basically I’d been farming for other people for about 10 years and then in 2014 we bought our own property and started our one farm.”

What started out as Jeremiah’s passion has turned into a family affair, his wife Nicole Vernon, a Spanish teacher at Exeter High School, co-owning the farm with him.

“It’s what I wanted to do having worked on farms for so long. This is who I am and what I want to do,” he said. “Nicole at the time [was] on the outside looking in as far as her farming experience, but now 10 years in she’s as deep in it as I am. … Now it’s definitely a shared passion and shared career.”

The farm has come a long way since growing 1,200 broiler chickens on leased land in 2012. They now annually produce about 15,000 to 20,000 chickens as well as other livestock, like pigs and sheep and a small amount of vegetables, such as cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas, on their 33-acre property. They have a farm store open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., host dinners on Thursdays and Saturdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and have even created a second business, Vernon Kitchen. While the catering company used to be a part of Vernon Family Farm, it made more sense to have it be its own entity that the Vernons could hire to cater events.

“[It] means that we can do more events more often and we also have more resources available to us,” Jeremiah said. “It is also the highest-profit market aspect of our business, so having a customer buy a ticket and sit down for a fried chicken dinner, that’s the most profitable way we can get that chicken to you.”

On average, about 50 to 100 people attend these events, with upward of 300 on nights when there is live music. Tickets can be purchased on their website ahead of time or upon arrival for music events. For non-music events, a $5 cover is charged that is donated to various nonprofits.

In addition to dinners, entertainment and tours, the farm also functions as a space for other businesses to use for classes on yoga and meditation, cooking and art.

“Our farm is very beautiful, like many in New Hampshire,” Jeremiah said. “We have a big wildflower meadow, nice seating, there’s animals everywhere [and] ample parking. It’s a nice … creative space to occupy.”

Upcoming events at Vernon Family Farm

Kids Art Classes: Treehouse Construction
When: Friday, Aug. 4, 10 a.m. to noon
Where: 301 Piscassic Road, Newfields
Visit: vernonfamilyfarm.com

Not Fade Away
When: Friday, Aug. 4, 4 to 8 p.m.
Where: 301 Piscassic Road, Newfields
Visit: vernonfamilyfarm.com

Featured photo: Event at Vernon Family Farm. Photo courtesy of Vernon Family Farm.

The Weekly Dish 23/08/03

News from the local food scene

• Sample wine and bourbon and golf: Don’t miss Bourbon, Wine & Nine at Stonebridge Country Club (161 Gorham Pond Road, Goffstown) on Friday, Aug. 4. Sample wines, bourbons and food from Drumlins Restaurant. Live music will also be featured, as well as a nine-hole scramble tournament and a putting contest. Golf registration starts at 2 p.m. and tee-off is at 3 p.m. The tasting tent opens at 5 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $60 and can be purchased via eventbrite.

• Try traditions from Zimbabwe: Sycamore Community Garden will hold the third and final event in its current guest speaker series on Sunday Aug. 6, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at NHTI (31 College Drive, Concord). Board member Sibongile Ndlovu will lead an interactive food preservation workshop. Learn how to properly dry tomatoes through a Zimbabwean food preservation technique and learn about the importance of food preservation in Zimbabwe through Ndlovu’s personal experience and cultural background. Everyone will help in cutting and preparing the tomatoes for sun drying. The event is free. Visit sycamorecommunitygarden.org or sign up via eventbrite.

• Get vegan Southern eats: Vegan pop-up vendor Southern Fried Vegan hosts Vegan Brews N BBQ at Rockingham Brewing Co. (1 Corporate Park Drive, Unit 1, Derry) on Thursday, Aug. 10, 4 to 8 p.m. Menu items are nut- and gluten-free and the menu includes jambalaya, totchos, cajun corn and more.

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