Tag Archives: summer entertaining

Summer Crostini

There are times when you feel like being culinarily creative and making beautiful lunches like these for weekend cottage guests.

And there are times when you don’t feel like moving from here:

and want to suggest to those guests that they just help themselves to a peanut butter and sour cherry jam sandwich!

Happily there are several options in between these two. Option #1, and my personal favourite, is when weekend guests are invited and invariably ask what they can bring, suggest “lunch for Saturday.” When my mother heard that I do this on a regular basis, she was horrified. Had she not raised me to be a gracious host?

Actually, I think that people feel happy to contribute when being invited for the weekend (or longer, and those to whom I am referring, know exactly who you are!) And truthfully, it’s not the cooking that I mind. It’s the planning and figuring out what to make that takes up so much mental energy. So it’s nice to let someone else figure it all out and just show up at the table and be surprised. However, there is a caveat here. Make sure that your friends are comfortable in the kitchen and possess a basic skill set for preparing  meals.

I have one friend who used to use up every dish, pot and utensil when she prepared her meals. We would eat brunch at 2 in the afternoon. They were exquisite brunches but way too much for a cottage. Happily, she has gotten into the swing of things and now prepares perfect meals without destroying the kitchen. This friend is in fact, so comfortable in my kitchen and knows exactly where everything goes, that she and my husband joke that in the event of my demise, she will just slip seamlessly into place and become the woman of the house. Truthfully, all my friends are wonderful cooks and I love having them take over my kitchen.

Another friend makes sure we always have enough wine and her salads and salad dressings are so creative and inspiring. Did you ever notice how much better salad tastes when someone else makes it?

One friend takes her responsibility so seriously that she begins researching the meal she will prepare as soon as we settle on a weekend. She is an extremely accomplished cook and last year we feasted on Peruvian Grilled Chicken, Chile Roasted Sweet Potatoes and a 7 Layer Coconut Cake for our Saturday night dinner. Her husband is a skilled mixologist and she just told me he has perfected the Negroni, so I am looking forward to sampling that when they come to visit in August.

Option # 2, if you just aren’t comfortable turning over your kitchen, or have control issues or whatever, is to cook on auto-pilot. Perfect one special lunch and just make it every weekend, for the rotation of guests that turn up. If you have different guests every weekend they won’t know that you do this and you will look perfectly at ease turning out a wonderful lunch.

Here is my auto-pilot lunch that got its test spin last weekend, to rave reviews, I may add. These crostinis  will be appearing on the menu every Saturday for the next 8 weeks!

These crostini were featured in an article in the June 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. I have adapted them slightly. The first one features ripe peaches, ricotta and honey. I made Homemade Ricotta Cheese, but feel free to use store-bought. Just don’t try making this with less than perfectly ripe peaches. Although the peaches I bought were not yet local, they were the “tree ripened” variety, and after a few days on the kitchen counter, they smelled like peaches.

The finished crostini get a drizzle of honey just before serving.

The second crostini has a base of feta, sour cream and pickled jalapenos. It is topped with grilled corn, cilantro and a squeeze of lime. For these I used a multi-grain baguette and rubbed the  grilled bread slices with a garlic clove.

I set out all the prepared ingredients on trays and let everyone assemble their own. Much easier and way more fun. There are so many excellent quality Artisan breads available in supermarkets now. Have fun with your choices but be sure you slice the bread thinly (less than 1/2 an inch thick). You want the toppings to be the star, not the bread.

Click here to print the recipe for Peach and Ricotta Crostini.

Click here to print the recipe for Grilled Corn Crostini

Turkey Tonnato

I named my blog “Salt and Serenity” because I need to have a judicious amount of both on a daily basis. It helps to keep me balanced and sane. Last week I moved up to my cottage for the summer. You would think that by now I would be drenched in serenity. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of looking at this all day long:

I am looking at this:

You see, just before I moved up here I made the switch from PC to Mac. So my days have been filled with trying to learn how to use my Mac. That cool guy on the commercial made it sound like it would be all fun and games. Sure, fun and games until I can’t find all my documents. Then I just want to poke Mr Cool Guy”s eyes out!

Yes, serenity is in short supply here at the cottage this week. The nice woman at the Apple store promised me a short learning curve. Perhaps I’m just a slow learner, but I am having a heck of a time editing my pictures and creating new files. Nothing works the same anymore. Things keep disappearing off my screen and I have no clue how to get them back. I opened my trash bin yesterday, only to discover a file of photos I had been trying to find for over an hour.  I have no idea how they got in there.

So, all this to say that this week, I had neither the time nor the inclination to experiment with anything new in the kitchen. There would be 8 people at the table for dinner on Friday night and I needed a dish I could cook on auto-pilot, as all my brain cells were being consumed by my Mac.

Turkey Tonnato to the rescue! I found this recipe in Gourmet Magazine (a moment of silence please!) 10 years ago this month. It has stood the test of time. I can’t think of too many things that still seem stylish and appropriate 10 years later. Certainly today I would not wear the fashions from the early 2000’s. Trucker hats, sweat suits, low-rise jeans, belly baring tops and daisy duke shorts just don’t make the grade in 2011. But turkey tonnato is still the perfect summer dish. Think of it as the summer food equivalent to white jeans. A timeless classic.

Turkey tonnato is a spin on the classic Italian dish, Vitello Tonnato. It is basically chilled veal in a tuna sauce. The turkey version involves poaching a whole turkey breast in water and vegetables. Then the turkey chills overnight in the broth, where is soaks up all the liquid and remains moist and juicy. Canned tuna, mayo, olive oil, anchovy paste, and lemon juice are blended into a smooth sauce. While the combination may sound a bit strange,” turkey with tuna sauce”, the flavours really work. The turkey is slightly bland and the tuna sauce is tangy.

In the classic Italian version, each slice of cold veal is dipped and coated in the sauce before plating. This idea came about before anyone realized the artery clogging properties of mayo! In this lighter version, the sauce is served on the side and you can decide for yourself just how many arteries you wish to clog.

What I love most about this dish, besides the taste, is that it can be made ahead of time. The day before you plan to serve it, poach the turkey breast and make the sauce. The next day, all you have left to do is slice the turkey and cook the potatoes and beans.

After an overnight cooling in the broth, the turkey is ready to be sliced. Slicing the turkey breast is simple if you remove the breast from the bone first. Then remove the skin and just slice across each breast into 1/4 inch thick slices.

Basil is a tender herb and bruises easily. The best way to cut the basil is to stack the leaves, roll them into a cigar shape and slice across into thin strips. This is known as a basil chiffonade.

Wishing you all a serene week!

To print the recipe for Turkey Tonnato, click here.