Weddings in Vermont

It is September and with it brings the beginning of same sex marriages in Vermont. We were so delighted to host four weddings this past week. The first was of Megan and Lindsay of Indianapolis, Indiana. They were wed on Tuesday, the first day of legal marriage. It was a small affair but was officiated by our favorite Justice of the Peace, Leni Brown, who herself will wed her partner of many years this October. We here at Deerhill Inn offer a package for a wedding for two which includes the justice of the peace, flowers, wine and cheese in your room when you arrive, flowers for the ceremony, champagne and hors d'oeurves after the ceremony and a celebration dinner including wine and a custom designed six course tasting menu which includes your own wedding cake.

As Megan and Lindsay were leaving for their honeymoon in New Hampshire, our next couples were arriving for their ceremonies on Friday. It took some planning and a lot of work for Leni as she performed all three ceremonies for Michael and Ron, Jennifer and Debbie and finally Andi and Aya. The weather has been spectacular for the past week and the Inn was full of happiness and good cheer as we celebrated with these couples on their momentous and historic weddings.

Luckily for me, the three couples decided to eat on three consecutive nights rather than all in one evening.

Very interesting for me, was the food for Jennifer and Debbie. Debbie is wheat intolerant and most hors d'oeuvres start with a wheat platform of some sort. I dug into my repertoire and offered them beautiful local yellow plum tomatoes stuffed with local goat cheese and dusted with oil cured olive powder, smoked salmon served on crispy potato pancakes with a dab of creme fraiche, fresh crab meat salad tossed with basil mayonnaise and fresh corn served in cups made from pickling cucumbers and finally chicken skewers that had been marinated in red wine and rosemary and quickly grilled. I found it satisfying that I could come up with such tasty morsels.

For their wedding dinner, we started with an amuse bouche of chilled yellow pepper and tomato soup with a fresh fennel salad, moved on to a cornmeal crepe studded with fresh corn, bacon and scallions, stuffed with goat cheese and served with heirloom tomatoes and a drizzle of basil oil. I have been making this dish for years and have always made the crepe batter with a mix of corn meal and flour. I tried the recipe with only corn meal and was pleasantly surprised by the lighter texture and cleaner taste of corn. You learn something new every day. I followed the crepe with a diver scallop crusted with pignolia nuts and served with wilted arugula and local tomatoes tossed with extra virgin olive oil and extra coarse sea salt, then moved on to a roulade of grilled Italian eggplant stuffed with local Maple Brook Farm smoked mozzarella and grilled red pepper that was served with a fresh tomato sauce, then a salad of local mesclun greens tossed with roasted beets, local blue cheese and a vinaigrette made with green grapes, champagne vinegar and walnut oil and presented an entree of pan-fried saddle of lamb garnished with olive oil braised baby fennel, glazed fresh figs and a red wine sauce.

James, my intern, created a beautiful wedding cake of a flourless chocolate and almond cake that he filled with a chocolate caramel ganache and covered with vanilla buttercream and decorated the cake with nasturtiums picked from the garden.

I find it relatively easy to create gluten free menus because I use so many vegetables and use no flour in my sauces, a habit I learned while working with Madeline Kamman so many years ago in Newton Centre. But it is satisfying to create a luxurious menu for people who have to sacrifice certain foods due to allergies.

It was a wonderful weekend and we are now looking forward to another wedding celebration this coming weekend. This one will include a barbeque on Friday evening and a dinner celebration on Saturday with the happy couple and 27 of their friends. We look forward to the event.

Maple Brook Farm Mozzarella

The people from Maple Brook Farm asked me to send them a few recipes for their website and I thought I would include those on my site as well. Maple Brook Farm was founded by a woman in West Dover about five years ago. She has since moved the operation to Bennington and has expanded her product line from her original hand formed mozzarella balls to include smoked mozzarella, one of my favorite products, wonderfully smoky and firm with good melting qualities, as well as a fresh ricotta. She was originally importing her milk from Wisconsin, but in the past year or two has been sourcing milk from Vermont instead. We see each other often when we are doing demonstrations such as the Strolling of the Heifers in Brattleboro as well as the Taste of The Deerfield Valley at Mt. Snow in September.

Mozzarella Bruschetti with Roasted Tomato Salsa

this is one of our standbys for passed hors d'oeuvres, easy and delicious

for 8

1 baguette, thinly sliced

1 ball Maple Brook Farm Mozzarella

1/2 cup thinly sliced basil leaves

1/2 cup virgin olive oil

freshly ground pepper and sea salt

6 plum tomatoes

1/2 red onion, finely diced

1/4 cup coarsley chopped Italian parsley

1/4 cup capers

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

In a 350 degree oven, roast tomatoes, split, with 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper until soft and beginning to brown, about 1/2 hour. Remove from oven, peel off skin, and chop coarsely, adding juices and oil to tomatoes. Mix with red onion, parsley and capers and season with vinegar. Taste for seasoning, adding salt, pepper and more vinegar if necessary.

Slice the baguette thinly, laying out on a sheet pan. Top with sliced mozzarella, and scatter with sliced basil, drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper. Bake the bruschetti until beginning to crisp and cheese begins to melt. Remove from oven and top with a teaspoon of salsa. Serve warm .

Eggplant Roulade with Fresh Tomato Sauce

this makes a great first course or served with salad, a great lunch idea

for 6

1 large eggplant, sliced lengthwise into six slices, discarding two end pieces

2 tablespoons whole fennel seed

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon paprika

olive oil for drizzling

freshly ground black pepper and kosher salt

1 ball Maple Brook Farm smoked mozzarella

2 red peppers, roasted, peeled and seeded, cut into six pieces

1 onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

8 ripe plum tomatoes, diced into 1/4 inch dice

1 cup dry white wine

4 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup shredded basil leaves

Toss eggplant slices with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, paprika and enough olive oil to moisten. Lay on a sheet pan in a single layer and roast in 425 degree oven until browned and tender, turning occasionally to ensure even coloring. This takes about 20 minutes. When browned and fragrant, remove from oven. Lower heat to 350 degrees.

For the tomatoes, in a stainless steel pan or saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and saute onions until softened, then add garlic and cook until lightly browned. Add tomatoes and saute until softened and juices begin to come out of tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and when the tomatoes are softened, add white wine and simmer until alcohol has cooked off, tomatoes and onion have blended flavors. Finish the sauce with butter whisked in and finally with fresh basil.

While sauce is simmering, make the eggplant roulades. Cut the mozzarella into six sticks and drape with the roasted red pepper and then roll in the eggplant. In an ovenproof baking dish, arrange the eggplant rolls, seam side down, and ladle over half the tomato sauce. Bake in oven until mozzarella begins to melt. Remove from oven, arrange on plate and drizzle with some of the unbaked tomato sauce.

Late Summer Filet of Beef

this is a dish we look forward to when the fresh corn and tomatoes are in season

for 6 people

Crepe:

1 cup flour

1 cup corn meal

6 eggs

2 cups milk

1/4 # bacon, cut into dice, rendered until just crispy, reserving fat

3 ears corn, cut off the cob

1/2 cup sliced scallion greens

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

6 tablespoons melted fat, including bacon fat and melted butter

Filet:

6 5oz tenderloin of beef steaks

6 thick slices ripe tomato

6 slices yellow onion, sauted in butter until tender or roasted in the oven until soft and browned lightly

1 ball Maple Brook Farm Smoked Mozzarella

6 ounces red wine beef sauce

To make the crepe batter, in a medium bowl, combine flour, corn meal, salt and pepper. Add the six eggs and mix with whisk, slowly adding milk to form a thin batter. Add the corn, bacon and scallion greens, finishing with melted fat and let sit for 1hour to combine and relax gluten.

Saute the steaks, seasoning with salt and pepper in clarified butter, to desired temperature. While steaks are cooking, make 6 crepes in a seperate hot crepe pan or 6 inch saute pan. You will have extra batter to use at another time. Batter will keep, refrigerated for three to four days.

On large plate, place 1 crepe, top with slice of onion, slice of tomato, seasoned with salt and pepper, top with steak and slice of mozzarella, fold over crepe and drizzle with 1 ounce of sauce. Garnish with grilled scallion and grilled vegetables.

May in Vermont

The weather report calls for a temperature of 24 degrees tonight and we can only hope that the tender shoots that have appeared finally will not be seriously damaged. It is commonly acknowledged that annuals don't get planted until after Memorial Day and with this cold, you can understand why. In the gardens, the apple blossoms have finally started and the lilacs are starting to show some color. The growing season here is very short and the perennials are growing by the day.
I stopped in at Lilac Ridge Farm last week to check on annual starters. Amanda was in the fields, helping her workers to plant the sets for the coming season. She noticed the strawberries were beginning to flower and hoped the berries would start coming in during the second week of June. She told me she and her husband Ross would be appearing in a movie entitled "Food, Inc."
a documentary of the farming industry and the trends toward organic production. Her connection is through the founder of Stoneyfield Farm yogurt, who purchases the milk produced on their farm. One of her highlights for the spring was to be invited to a preview showing in New York with Martha Stewart, who was the recepient of this spring's maple syrup.
In the restaurant kitchen, I have been working with the products of the spring. Fiddle head ferns which have moved from local to upstate Vermont and Maine, ramps, or wild leeks, which are also moving further northward, the morel mushrooms, not found locally, but shipped in through my distributer, Black River Produce.
Less precious ingredients but no less tasty, are the english peas, fava beans, asparagus and artichokes which are the tastes of spring for me.
Speaking of the spring ingredients, I would like to include a recipe for my simple but flavorful vegetable puree soups. I start with a rich chicken stock, either from scratch or if you have a favorite packaged broth, that will do. I clean the vegetable and trim the ends, shell the peas or whatever leftovers from the vegetable prep and simmer those in the chicken stock until they have imparted their flavors into the broth. Then they are strained out and discarded and the stock is brought to a boil. Then the vegetable is added and cooked just until tender and immediately pureed and strained to maintain the color and the fresh, just cooked flavors, seasoned with salt and pepper and served immediately. I often serve a small cup of this as an amuse bouche before dinner continues.

Signs of Spring

The past few days have seen the beginnings of spring here in southern Vermont. The snow is still plentiful on the mountains, but here in the valley, the chives are beginning to sprout, the robins have arrived and the chipmunks have come out of hibernation. The air truly feels different.
We have started working in the yard, raking up dead grass, clearing the downed tree branches from December's ice storm, trimming trees and starting to make plans for the gardens. My big project for this spring is the "lower forty" as we call it, the open field in front of the inn. There are some old concord grape vines that I will trim and hope we can get some fruit, maybe this year but definitely by next. Last year, we did some serious cutting and this year we will try to do some plantings, mainly flowers, but I am thinking of following Michele Obama's footsteps and attempting to do some herb and vegetable plantings as well.
Stanley has his work cut out for him with a project to expand one of the guest rooms into another luxury suite. This is on the third floor of the inn and will entail demolishing one bathroom to create another king size room with fireplace and sitting area. He has a deadline for the middle of July when we are hosting a large family reunion for one of our returning guests. We will definitely keep you posted.