Holmes Elementary Harvest Celebration

Each spring my daughter's new school plants a large garden. Then in the fall they have a harvest celebration, featuring foods made from that same garden. The PTO delivers ingredients to parent volunteers, and they make a dish. The kids get to try some new foods, and get great experience seeing where and how food really gets on to their table. Here is the line for the Harvest Buffet:

I volunteered to make a soup from the bell peppers (recipe follows). The turn out was amazing - there must have been several hundred people from the community there, and dozens of volunteer chefs. There were several versions of bruschetta, a couple soups, numerous salads, a couple sweet breads (zucchini and carrot) and basil lemonade!

Unfortunately, my soup was a hit which means there were no left overs for (a) a picture for the blog or (b) me freezer! Next time I'm making a triple batch.

Roasted Yellow Pepper Soup

This is an easy soup to make, requiring little in the way of fancy preparation or ingredients.

Ingredients:
6 Bell Peppers (I like 5 yellow and 1 orange)
1 Med Onion, Chopped
2 Stalks Celery
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Bay Leaf
Sprig of Thyme
1 cup Buttermilk
1/2 tbsp Cumin (fresh ground is best)
1 qt. Stock (chicken or vegetable)

Cut the peppers into wedges cleaning out the interior seeds and membrane. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and put into a 500 degree oven. Roast for 15-20 minutes turning once. You want to see some nice carmelization on the wedges. Put aside to cool.

Put some oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and celery with some salt and cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the thyme, bay leaf and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes more until fragrant. Add the peppers and cook for another 5 minutes, than add the stock. Bring to a boil, then drop the heat to low. Add the cumin and stir. Cook for 30-60 minutes, covered, over low heat. The longer you can cook it the better the flavor will be. Remove the bay leaf and thyme stem and puree the soup. I like to use a stick blender. This saves moving hot soup from pot to blender and back. I bought mine at Target I think for about $25:

About 5 minutes prior to service raise the heat just a tad and add the buttermilk. Stir to combine and do a final seasoning check.

I like to serve the soup with a dallop of sour cream and maybe garnish with a few chives. The soup freezes really well.

Grilled Scallops with Korean Barbecue Sauce

We had good friends over last weekend for a little sup. We hadn't seen them in quite a while and we had originally planned to do one of our entertaining favorites: Schmidt Scallops. That recipe was an adaptation of an old family recipe of my wife's for chicken. It's essentially a vinaigrette marinade. Let the scallops marinade for an hour then grill. But this time I decided to try something new. I had made a Korean taco recipe a while back. While the recipe itself needed work, the sauce was pretty good. I tweaked it of course - isn't that half the fun? - and made a jar full. Here is the recipe for the sauce:

Ingredients
3 tbsp Sugar
1 or 2 tbsp Sriracha (to taste - 2 tbsp makes a pretty fiery sauce)
2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Mirin

Throw all the ingredients together and stir to combine. If you want to mellow the sauce a bit add 1tbsp orange juice.

To grill scallops you want a small but hot fire. Let the grill get good and hot, then scrape it off well. Then oil it using vegetable oil. Put a tbsp on a paper towel and use tongs to rub the grill area where you'll put the scallops. Season the scallops then put on the grill. You will need to watch them carefully. When they look about 1/3 cooked through, about 2-3 minutes. Gently flip them with tongs. You may need to use the tong as a mini spatula. Be gentle so they don't fall apart. Cook another 1-2 minutes. I like mine still milky but just warmed up in the middle. If you like yours more well done, leave them on a minute or two longer.

Remember, you start with sushi. After a few minutes they are grilled, a few minutes later they are charcoal. Better a minute less than a minute more.

We served this with a spicy Indian greenbean salad (recipe coming in a few days) and some good crusty bread.