Tag cooking farm-to-table

Parties That Cook’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Potluck Recipe: Butter Lettuce Salad with Berries, Lardons and Tarragon Crème Fraiche Dressing

0 comments By The Kitchen Whisperer Filed in Menus & Recipes Tagged with Berries, Butter Lettuce Salad, cooking farm-to-table, Crème Fraiche Dressing, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Lardons, organic cooking, organic produce, parties that cook, Potluck Recipe, Tarragon September 29th, 2011 @ 5:51 pm

This weekend is BIG. In San Francisco, there’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which brings dozens of musicians to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for three days of free performances. In Seattle, Parties That Cook is hosting a public Cooking Farm to Table Class at Willie Green’s Organic Farm! How are they related, you ask? There will be food trucks at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but what puts this music festival over the top is Coach B’s Healthy Potluck. Guidelines request organic food, the freshest ingredients, and seasonal dishes. This recipe for a delicious Butter Lettuce Salad with Blackberries, Lardons and Tarragon Crème Fraiche Dressing will be featured at this weekend’s Seattle Cooking Farm-to-Table, and fits those guidelines to a tee!

Butter Lettuce Salad with Blackberries, Lardons and Tarragon Crème Fraiche Dressing

Ingredients:
Dressing:
1/2 cup crème fraiche
1/4 cup Greek-style yogurt
2 Tablespoons fresh tarragon coarsely chopped
2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 Tablespoons water (if needed)

Salad:
6 ounces thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch-wide pieces (to form lardons)
1 cup fresh blackberries or raspberries
2 heads butter lettuce (about 8 oz. total)

Methods/Steps:
Dressing: In a medium bowl, whisk together the crème fraîche, yogurt, chopped tarragon, garlic, lemon zest, juice, salt and pepper. If the dressing is a bit stiff, stir in water to thin the mixture to a creamy salad-dressing consistency.

Lardons: Cook bacon in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until browned and crisp, about 12 minutes. Pour off the fat as you go to help the browning. Transfer to a paper towel to absorb some of the grease.

Assemble Salad: Prepare blackberries. Wash and dry lettuce and break it into bite-size pieces. Toss the lettuce lightly with half the dressing. If salad looks dry, add more dressing. Put salad on plates and garnish with berries and lardons. Serve immediately.

Serves 8

Recipe created by Parties That Cook® | www.PartiesThatCook.com

Parties That Cook Connects with the Land at Cooking Farm to Table

0 comments By The Kitchen Whisperer Filed in Entertaining, News & Events Tagged with bay area cooking classes, Canvas Ranch, cooking class, cooking farm-to-table, corporate team building, corporate team building activity, farm-to-table dining, hands-on cooking August 19th, 2011 @ 4:41 pm

Last Saturday was Parties That Cook’s first-ever Cooking Farm to Table Class. It was such a fun event that we are now even more excited for the possibilities of future Cooking Farm to Table team building events than we already were! (Who knew that was possible??)

The folks at Canvas Ranch were great. Farmer Deborah gave an in-depth tour of the farm grounds, including the chicken coop where the free-range chickens dwell and the pasture where guests mingled with cashmere goats! Talk about getting “hands-on”, guests were then able to pick the veggies to be used in the evening’s meal. After whipping up a delicious menu that included Crostini of Goat Cheese and Tomato Jam, Balsamic Marinated Skirt Steak (or Portobello) with Herbed Breadcrumbs, Summer Squash Gratin with Salsa Verde and Gruyere, Strawberry Potpies with Buttermilk Whipped Cream, and more, guests enjoyed the “fruits of their labor” from the best seats in the house (below). What a great view!

Amongst the crowd were a couple of PTC MVPs, including Director of Event and Office Operations, Rosie, and our Warehouse Manager, Melissa. We even invited our newest Event Planner, Christina, who was eager to see what Parties That Cook events are all about! We were so glad to hear such positive feedback from her, “I had such a blast yesterday — a perfect summer afternoon surrounded by new friends and delicious food at Canvas Ranch.” The rest of us in the office were quite jealous of their weekend farm adventure – you might just see some other PTC faces at the next Cooking Farm-to-Table Class on September 17th! Keep on the look out for a SEATTLE Cooking Farm to Table Class currently in the works!