Good to Go!

You may hear something familiar on the radio – its Blue Mountain Bistro-to-Go coming at you on Oldies 98.5FM!   Our radio spot  reminds you that your Blue Mountain Bistro take-away gourmet is food to feel good about as it is made from farm-fresh produce and cooked in the “slow food” tradition.

“Feels good, tastes good and is good for you!”

Listen for yourself!

Eggplant Okra Bhadji

Our friends at Gill Farms in Hurley, New York keep surprising us with beautiful, tasty, healthy vegetables. Life is too short to only eat broccoli! So come on in and try some of the wonderful vegetables we have been preparing. Expand your mind and your palate!

Today’s delivery included multicolored mini-eggplants and gorgeous okra.  There is definitely much more to do with okra than making gumbo, (which we love) so to highlight these fascinating vegetables I made an Indian inspired dish, called a “bhadji”, delicately seasoned with ginger, tamarind and chili for today’s plat du jour.

The fresh cranberry beans we cooked yesterday are another late summer treat, truly amazing!  I folded these into a clove, cardamon scented rice, sort of like an Indian version of the Cajan “dirty rice”.

To finish the dish we’ve paired  a nice cool cucumber yogurt raita, with cucumbers from Gill Farms, of course, and some fresh herbs from our garden out back. We’re loving the bounty of the harvest in August, come share it with us!

Farm-to-table Gardiniera

We were just asked to provide a “farm-to-table” recipe for a local magazine called VISITvortex and of course we knew that we had to create something with the fresh produce we’re getting in every day from our local favorite Gills Farm in Hurley, New York. I turned around to ask our chefs what they had in mind and Jonathan had just put out our plat du jour today, Fresh Trout with Olive Salad (inspired by Muffuletta Olive Salad Recipe from New Orleans).

We make our own version of “Gardiniera” with the beautiful tri-color (purple, green, and white) cauliflower from Gills Farm. Cut the cauliflower into similar sized florets and blanch. Then lightly toss with red wine vinegar and cool. Insert this simple version of Gardiniera in the following recipe to create the topping you see for the trout.

Muffuletta Olive Salad
1 1/2 Cups Picholine Olives, Pitted
1/2 Cup Calamatta Olives (or Black) Pitted
1 Cup Gardiniera (Pickled Cauliflower, carrots, celery, Pepperoncini)
1 Tbsp. Capers
3 each Fresh Garlic cloves, chopped
1/8 Cup Celery, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. Italian Parsley, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. Fresh oregano (from our garden) or 2 tsp. dried
1/4 Cup Pimientos (Roasted red peppers)
1 Tbsp. Green Onions, thinly sliced
1 finely diced jalapeno pepper
Kosher Salt & Freshly Ground pepper to taste
1 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes
3 Tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
Extra Virgin Olive Oil about 1 – 1 1/2 Cups
Finely mince first 11 ingredients and then combine with the red pepper flakes, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly, let stand for one hour for flavors to marry.

This is a great condiment for grilled fish, steak, chicken or as in New Orleans – on a sandwich – Muffuletta or otherwise!

The Blue Mountain Bistro is the GO TO place for TO GO food!

WHERE DO YOU GO WITH YOUR BISTRO-TO-GO?  WE WANT TO KNOW!

We’re having a CONTEST – and we would love YOU to ENTER!!!!

Many of our customers have told us that we are the ‘GO TO’ place for ‘TO GO’ food in the Kingston / Woodstock / Shandaken neck of the woods – and that brings us great joy!

We also found out that folks often take our take away far away – they sometimes end up enjoying our Moroccan Chicken Wrap on a Trans-Atlantic flight, our Antipasti Platter at The Bronx Zoo, and our Frittatas in the Holland Tunnel!

In the Historic Hudson Valley community, it is summertime – and that means picnic time! Our personally prepared picnic to go food is ready in a flash for you to put in the car and take to any Hudson Valley happening, event, activity and attraction. What is YOUR destination?

And then there are the ‘secret’ spots! The swimming hole nobody knows about, the hammock under the pine trees in your back yard, the grown over mountain trail long forgotten.

And sadly, there are the boring places our food travels to. The icky basement office in Kingston, the employee back room at the mall shoe store, and behind the Honda lawn mower you push on a hot August day when you’d rather be at the beach!

So pick up your ‘big old’ or ‘mini new’ camcorder, your Flip, your iPhone, or your waterproof Nikon, and take a fun video of – you, your friends, your family – that answers our question: Where Do YOU go with your Bistro-to-Go?

We want to know!! Your video will be judged on creativity (25%), originality (25%) and most interesting place (50%).  TECHNICAL QUALITY DOES NOT COUNT – so just do it!

Simple Instructions:

WHERE DO YOU GO WITH YOUR BISTRO-TO-GO?

1) Make your short video and save it on your computer

2) Go to our Facebook Contest Page:

http://on.fb.me/WhereDoYouGo

3) Click on the Enter Contest Button

4) Fill in the simple entry form

5) Upload the video

6) Fantasize about winning the Grand Prize!!!

THE GRAND PRIZE FOR OUR FAVORITE VIDEO IS A PICNIC-TO-GO THAT’S BIG ENOUGH FOR EIGHT HUNGRY FOLKS TO FEAST ON!!!!!

(If anything above seems too technical for you – just get your own (or a friend’s) kid to do it all for you in under 2 ½ minutes!!!)

We love all our customers – so we look forward to see where you eat our food!