Strawberry Basil Sorbet

I mentioned in an earlier post that I actually had the pleasure of performing my first “solo” catering gig, that is one where it was not part of some other promotion, and very much beyond simply cooking for friends, and as a bonus, it actually tied in pretty neatly with one of the purposes of this blog, that is being a cook for geeks.

I didn’t go too much into it last time, but I’ll rectify it with this post.

When my host, Steve, described the campaign, which placed a large focus on both human hegemony and an elven rebellion. While he wasn’t sure that I would be able to tie in the campaign content with the menu content, I think I did a pretty good matching up food to themes.

Between what I’d consider hearty human food and a slightly more exotic leanings from what I would surmise to be in elven cuisine I detailed the following menu (which admittedly pulls quite a bit from tried and true standards):

To provide an interesting finish, I thought that a slightly exotic twist on a straightforward dessert would really do the trick, and so I opted to make a strawberry sorbet, augmented with basil from my garden.

Had I known Steve was such an aficionado of spicy things I might have went with the white pepper variant instead! But then again for some reason the thought of basil in dessert seemed to mesh better with my perception of “elven” sensibilities.

Maybe I’m totally wrong there.

Strawberry Basil Sorbet Cook Geek 000

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Curried Lentil Soup

A hearty vegetarian soup that’ll satisfy even the stoutest of adventurers

This last weekend I  had the pleasure of catering a Dungeons and Dragons Meet & Greet which happened to have a rather large portion of vegetarian adventurers. Among my other offerings, I knew I needed to have a really great soup as a bridge between the appetizers and the exciting mains.

Something simple, yet exciting. Enter Curried Lentil Soup. I looked for a base recipe to  modify and epicurious definitely delivered with this one.

I upped the quantity of various items to serve a larger party, and replaced the chicken broth with vegetable broth. Had I more time I would have loved to have made my own veggie stock, but it was not meant to be. Still, absolutely no complaints about how this dish turned out.

Curried Lentil Soup Cook Geek 000

 

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+5 Recipe Test #4 and the notion of “Sandwich Gaming”

Wild Rice Pancakes

Wild Rice Mushroom Pancake Recipe Cook Geek 001

Before launching into this post’s specific recipe, I want to talk about a phrase I call “sandwich gaming.” These are hobbies (preferably geeky ones) that are easy to do while eating at the same time, provided that the food being eaten isn’t terribly messy. Actually I’d give bonus points for an activity that allows you to eat really messy food while being entertained at the same time.

There’s very few ways I enjoy relaxing more than cracking open a book or playing a more relaxed kind of game, say one that is easy to put down like Suikoden or Shining Force II,  while noshing on a well made sandwich or some other easy to eat finger food. And of course I have to add other role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Apocalypse World as fantastic social games for the sandwich recreation phenomena.

It is perhaps this leaning that drew me towards the +5 Food of Eating project, with its emphasis on finger foods tailored toward the tabletop gaming community, and by extension, perfect dishes for other kinds of “sandwich gaming.”

This recipe for Wild Rice Pancakes that Tiffany asked me to try out is no exception either, and I personally found it marvelous. It was served at the +5 Food of Eating West Coast event I mentioned in my first post here.

There is a weakness with the dish though, and that it does not do well cold at all. While deliciously fluffy and savory right off of the pan and into my mouth, being placed into an icebox and plated did not do any favors to the guests or to the recipe at all, but some quite rewarming on a cast iron pan helped considerably. Still, if I were to serve this again for guests or at a function, I’d definitely make a point to fire these up on site!

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