Chef Cosmo Meens - Chefs in the Garden Grand Finale

We closed our Chefs in the Garden Summer Series today with Chef Cosmo Meens cooking up a "ridiculously" (young speak for fantastically) delectable array of visual and taste sensation beauty.   My swiftly flicked photos don't do it  justice...here was the 7 course menu:

1. Kombucha Raspberry Lavendar Spritzer

2. Purslane Salad with Venture-Schulze Balsamic and Strawberries

3. Heirloom Tomato draped with Sauteed Crookneck & Pattipan Summer Squash dressed in Basil and Crispy Lavendar Brown Butter Sage (I snapped too soon and missed the sage topping which was beautiful and delicious)

4. Almond, Pumpkin Curried Carrot Pate with Collard Green Wrap and Nasturtium 

5. Butter lettuce, Spiralina Hemp, Grape Tomato & Queen Charlotte Seaweed Salad

or Russian Blue & Fingerling Potato Salad with Cilantro and Moonstruck Beddis Blue Cheese (shown here adorned with Calendula flowers of exquisite color)

6. Garlic Smoked Spot Prawns on New Zealand Spinach with Curried Coconut Cream

7. Triple Berry Cup with Raspberry Cashew Cream and Johnny Jump Ups

I can't remember a meal more delicious, imaginative and sensitive.  It was a delight beyond words and a perfect note upon which to end our July 2009 Summer Series.  

We will be featuring one Chef in the Garden each month beginning October 2009.  Check our calendar for details.  Next week we start our Healthy Summer Fun Camps for Kids where we'll serve up a trilogy of gardening, cooking, and ecology complete with healthy lunches and lots of fun.

 

Our Terralicious demonstration kitchen is well equipped to provide students a clear view of the stove top (over-stove camera linked to the flat screen) and the demonstration counter (overhead mirror).   The open concept ensures you get to see what's going on it the background of the kitchen as well.    We use the TV screen to air Powerpoints we've assembled on the various stages of food plant seeding, growing, harvesting, and seed collection.

Here is our version of no knead bread.  Sometime after dinner, mix together 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp quick rise yeast, and 1 5/8 cups water in a stainless steel bowl. You can add dried fruit and/or a mixture of seeds, nuts, and herbs to the mixture.  Cover tightly.  In the morning, dump the gooey mixture onto a tea towel that has been dusted with flour, cornmeal or other non-stick medium.  Let raise two hours.  Put a cast iron pot (like the red one pictured here) into the oven and heat the oven to 475 degrees.  When ready remove lid and plop bread into the hot pot.  Don't worry if it's sloppy.  The bread actually looks more artisanly beautiful when it has lumps and ridges.  Put into oven and bake with lid on for 30 minutes.  Remove lid and bake for an additional 10 minutes to brown.  So easy and so good.

A couple of photos of our BC Greenhouse which is currently bursting with Heirloom tomatoes, bull horn peppers, and Thai basil growing in the ground.  Cherry trees in the background - left. Our lovely little greenhouse grows food all year long beginning with radishes and arugula in late winter.   The herb and berry garden on the left is the permaculture bed you see us preparing in other photos on our site.  It's come a long way, baby...

Chefs in the Garden - Chef Heidi Fink

After gathering fresh ingredients from the garden with our own Tina Baynes, Heidi cooked up a luscious Salad Nicoise for our Chef's in the Garden luncheon this week. Always entertaining and filled with helpful cooking tips, Heidi's demonstration included method and technique for the Nicoise plus a glorious Indian spiced veggie stir fry and delectable Strawberry Shortcake. The meal was enjoyed with a glass of wine on a long country table dressed in fresh white linen.   Under tent in the garden of course.

Chef Bradford Boisvert– Amuse French Bistro 

Our Chefs in the Garden series started off with a delicious burst of flavour last Monday when Chef Boisvert presented us with a deliriously delicious lunch of Grilled Qualicum Bay Scallops; Garden Vegetable Ragout; Rosti Potatoes; Arugula Pistou Vinaigrette finishing with a plumply textured Hazelnut Savarin, Blue Cheese Ice Cream with Raspberries peaked with Thyme and Lemon Balm Foam.

Featured in Forbes, Newsweek, USA Today and Epicure Magazine, classically trained chef Bradford Boisvert has won many prestigious culinary awards including the Bocuse d’Or USA Concours award. Bradord and his wife Leah are proud proprietors of Amuse French Bistro in Shawnigan Lake where they grow their own produce and herbs.  James Barber of Eat Magazine declared Amuse the “Best restaurant in the Cowichan Valley”.  The restaurant currently enjoys the rank of 2nd best Restuarant on Vancouver Island by Vancouver Magazine.   www.amusebistro.com