"potluck" news and stories

My friend Wendy is an terrific cook. She is the one who made the gorgeous and tasty cheesy pita chips I mentioned awhile back. Despite the fact that she isn't actually a food blogger, she stopped by my place last Friday for the potluck and brought with her a couple very excellent dishes. One was a Vietnamese tofu and rice dish. I got to keep the leftovers and ate them the following morning for breakfast. The thing she brought was a batch of quick homemade pickles. These pickles were delicious. They held onto a fresh crispness while still absorbing all that puckery vinegar goodness.

At the end of the night there were but three lonely spears floating in a dish full of pickling liquid. With Wendy's permission, I poured those leftover spears and all the pickling juice into a jar. The next day I sliced up some of my own cucumbers and popped them into the jar, thus extending the life of her pickles for another week or so. Luckily today she sent me the recipe for the pickling liquid, so when this batch runs out, I'll be able to make my own. I recommend you do the same, as they bring such brightness, both in taste and in color, to fall and winter meals.

Sometime last week, while I was on the phone with my mom, she said, "Just a second, there's a recipe I want to read to you." Pulling out an ancient pumpkin cookbook, she proceeded to narrate a recipe that consisted of pumpkin, potato, cheese and egg, all mashed together and baked in a casserole dish. It sounded yummy, but a little plain, and so I tucked it into the back of my mind to let it hang out for a couple of days.

Then Friday rolled around and I needed a recipe that would be delicious, seasonal and just ever-so-slightly impressive because it would be my offering at the first-ever Philly food blogger potluck. I called my mom for the exact recipe to use as inspiration and then went my own way with the dish. The final product was amazingly good, full of acorn and butternut squashes, yukon gold potatoes, gruyere, parmesan, sage and nutmeg. It was something of a hit with the food bloggers and by the end of the night there was only a little bit left in the far corner of the pan. If you're looking for something new for your Thanksgiving table, this would be an excellent way to go.

In the winter months I think of comfort food, and when I think of comfort food three things immediately come to mind: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and carrot cake. Brilynn at Jumbo Empanadas is allowing me to satisfy one of those cravings vicariously with a 3-layer carrot cake she adapted from a Dorie Greenspan recipe. Certain substitutions were made after discovering she was either missing or short on a few ingredients, but I think the addition of dried cherries (to make up for a lack of raisins) would really enhance this dish.

Though she made the cake itself for a potluck lunch, the 6-layer sample shown in front was ingeniously prepared for her own tasting pleasure. I really need to remember that trick the next time I bake something.

Source

Likely, if you're not throwing a party yourself this weekend, then you're going to someone else's, and that's the weekend schedule from now until September. It's high season for summer soirees. And likely, the parties will be potlucks because it seems more and more that potlucks are becoming a popular way of entertaining. It relieves a huge amount of pressure from the host, who needs only provide the place and perhaps a main dish. After that, it's all out of the host's hands, right?

Not so fast. A proper potluck may take some of the food preparation pressure off the host, but it still requires a little bit of savvy planning. What do you need to do in advance? Party professionals offer some tips via the Washington Post, and here are the ones that I found especially helpful:

1. Hardy greens like Romaine, endive, radicchio, and frisee hold up better in salads
2. Less chance of food safety problems with vinaigrettes than creamy dressings
3. Place dressing in bottom of bowl, with greens on top, then toss the salad once you get where you're going - the salad wont' get soggy during transport
4. Roast potatoes instead of boiling for potato salads
5. If fruit isn't completely ripe, toss with orange liqueur for a fruit salad
6. Use frozen cubes of watermelon, grapes, or cherries to chill drinks instead of ice
7. Instead of using disposable containers, take your potluck dish in a dish that you will "gift" to the host
8. Serve Asian-inspired foods in disposable Chinese takeout boxes, which are inexpensive at party stores

After successfully promoting the supper club trend that has become so popular in the past could of years, Cooking Light highlighted a new concept in this month's issue of the magazine.

Many people who work outside of their homes eat lunch out almost every day. The days that they don’t eat out they are as likely to grab a candy bar and a bag of chips out of the hall vending machine as they are to have brought something from home. Beyond a peanut butter sandwich, sometimes it can seem daunting to prepare a whole meal in the morning before you leave for work. The concept of the lunch club is that different people bring in foods on different days of the month, dividing up the cooking duties but still providing everyone in the office (who wants to participate) with a full, healthy lunch.