Fandango Catering Offers 6 Ideas for Cool Hors d'Oeuvres Presentations

As summer winds down many are either having end-of-summer bashes or planning for fall and beyond gatherings.  Either way, today we offer 6 ideas for cool hors d'oeuvres presentations. 

Shrimp cocktail martinis--so cool and really easy to do.  Just rent martini glasses from a rentals company, prepare or buy shrimp for cocktail, and put cocktail sauce or remoulade in the bottom of the glasses, then one whole shrimp either on the edge of each glass or on the top of the sauce in the bottom of the glass
Verrines and parfaits--These have been hot for the past couple of years in everything from savory to sweet food.  Here's how they're cool: You can fill wine or parfait or hurricane glasses with a salad, just layer the ingredients, or chunks of cake or crumbled cookies and whipped cream, or chunks of ham and cheese and mascarpone...the idea is to layer. 
Easy cocktail purses--these are usually too much trouble, but one way to make them that's not too much work is to buy Parma ham, fill each slice with herb cheese, twist up like a little purse or pouch, and tie each with the long green piece from a scallion.  These are best for small gatherings as they ARE a bit more work (unless you hire a caterer to do them for you).
Mirror--We love Martha Stewart's idea of serving slices, pre-cut, of terrines spread out in rows on a mirror.  A mirrored tray is even better, as is a Lucite tray with sides (the kind without compartments)--sometimes you can find Lucite trays with sides meant for cosmetics or jewelry, just use them for your parties! If you don't like terrines, any small bites look cooler on a mirrored surfacr or Lucite tray.
Sticks--The trend of skewers, sticks, and picks continues unabated.  Make your hors d'oeuvres of the moment by serving them speared on sticks or picks.  Many hors d'oeuvres shapes lend themselves to this (round, oval, small bites).  For example, you can buy small fresh mozzarella balls, cut off a slice so they'll sit flat on a tray, lay the flattened balls on sticks out on a tray, then put a cherry tomato on each skewer too, and they'll stand up like little soldiers.  So fun.  People like this more than small bites served in cones, for some reason.  If you're feeling ambitions cut bell peppers in small dice, which we call in the catering profession "pepper confetti," and scatter it on your serving pieces.
Buy an ultra-cool serving piece--This is the easiest of all! You can find this type of ultra-cool serving pieces at www.gretelhome.com  --We like Babell XL, their white mod tier stand with gradually bigger tiers--any small bites you put on this tier stand will look so cool!  For a more traditional look rent a large stainless tier stand (some have swinging arms) at a rentals company and put your small bites on that.  Anything with height adds a lot of oomph to a food presentation.

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Announces New Menu Additions

Twice a year we spend extensive time coming up with menu ideas, and we've just finished a serious menu-a-thon of this type. 

New Menu Additions Include:

• New hip hors d'oeuvres and tapas
• New creative dinner menu items for buffets, stations, and seated dinners
• New vegetarian vegetable side dishes and vegan main courses
• New small hot plates for cocktail events that run through the dinner hour

New menu items include:

Salads and Starters

• Mixed Greens and Roasted Cherry Tomatoes in Sherry Vinaigrette
• Spinach and Roasted Pears in Honey Vinaigrette
• Stuffed Avocados with Creole Shrimp, Jack, Tarragon, and Tomato
• Tomato, Cucumber, and Mixed Fresh Herbs with Mint Vinaigrette Verrines (parfaits), garnished with Cinnamon Croutons

Hors d'oeuvres and Tapas

• Chicken Bites in Marsala Sauce
• Poblano Crab Cakes with Red Remoulade
• Ancho-Marinated Pork and Mango Skewers
• Ham-Stuffed Mushrooms Au Gratin
• Asparagus and Bechamel Tart Bites
• Shrimp in Sherry-Scallion Cream Puff Pastry Bites
• Black Bean and Jack Quesadilla Bites
• Dill and Pimentón Seafood Tartlets
• Mini Meatballs in Saffron-Orange Sauce
• Mango and Peach Gazpacho Shots, Garnished with Fresh Herbs
• Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Salad Vol-au-vents (puff pastry baskets)

Dinner Items

• Smoked Ham and Gruyere-Stuffed Ravioli with Pink Champagne Sauce
• Chicken with Tarragon-Orange Sauce
• Chicken with Pears in Sherry Sauce
• Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Cutlets with Salsa Verde
• Beef Tenderloin with Five-Spice Crust in Beer Jus
• Beef Tenderloin with Caramelized Onions in Cream Sauce
• Beef Tenderloin with Shallot and Blue Cheese Sauce
• Spice-Seared Scallop Lollipops with Pistachio Sauce
• Salmon with Orange-Basil Sauce
• Ginger-Glazed Salmon with Creamy Scallion-Ricotta Sauce
• Moroccan-Spiced Roasted Seasonal Vegetables
• Mushrooms in Sherry Glaze
• Carrots and Spinach with Pimentón-Vermouth Sauce
• Glazed Carrots with Caramelized Onions
• Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes in Gingered Reduction
• Bacon and Gruyere Macaroni and Cheese
• Baby Potatoes in Salsa Verde

Desserts

• Espresso Cream with Coffee Bean Crunch
• Upside Down Bourbon Cheesecake Shots
• Chocolate Croissant Mini Bread Puddings

Of course, we continue to offer our signature menu items!

As always, all our menus are custom menus so that each event is unique to the client.

And, as always, our produce is local as much as possible, as is our chicken and wild-caught shrimp, supporting local businesses. 

For more info: (713) 522-0077 or info@fandango-catering.com

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Offers 3 Tips for Late Summer Entertaining

As summer winds down you may be hosting or thinking of hosting a gathering, and today we offer three tips for your late summer entertaining.

Actually, the start of the Summer Olympics is very representative of late summer entertaining--how so? Well, it brings together people for summer sports at the end of summer, and the colors of Team USA are good for late summer entertaining, as I explain below. 

When we lived in NYC everyone had a late summer "blowout," one last summer gathering to concurrently celebrate summer, mark summer's waning, and look ahead to fall.  These blowouts often took place at the beach (or "shore" as it's called there) or began at the shore and ended at someone's home, whether a beach home or home in the city/boroughs.

To create celebrating late summer elements at your gathering, here are 3 ideas:

• Use certain colors--Here's where the Olympics idea comes in--Red or dark red and royal blue in napkins, tablecloths, plates, flowers, or decor are "bridge" entertaining colors, bridging summer into early fall.  Other bridge colors are marigold, dark sea green, and navy mixed with white or with a pastel, e.g., marigold with medium pink or with light blue.  Still says summer, but the mix of medium and light colors also says looking ahead to fall.
• Serve bridge foods--Take advantage of summer produce but serve it with a slightly heartier dish that also looks ahead to fall.  For instance, sauté some lovely spice-rubbed t-bone steaks in a mix of butter and oil until just underdone, then add 1/2 cup Marsala and cook over medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes until done to your liking, and serve with pan juices.  Accompany with a pasta salad of diced ham and cheddar, diced red onion, diced tomatoes, maybe some diced cucumbers, and a dressing of sour cream mixed with pesto and chopped fresh tarragon and dill.  For dessert, serve a verrine (layered parfait) of chocolate cake chunks, chocolate mousse, and mascarpone with sugar to taste.  A bit more substantial than the food of high summer, but it still says summer.
• Create a "this summer" activity--This is fun for you and your guests.  Invite guests to bring "this summer" photos (print, phone, tablet) of trips, their garden, kids, activities, or other "this summer" moments and add yours.  Then have fun with it as everyone explains the photos to each other-don't go around the room doing this, which would make it boring, but have everyone choose a few photos and show them to the person nearest them, then move to the next person.  The most fun is when everyone is talking at the same time!  This celebrates summer but also marks it as moving toward its finale.  And a great icebreaker too, BTW.

What was your summer like?

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Offers 5 Tips to Make Your Large Wedding or Event More Sustainable

Whew! After our recent events we are just finally catching up.  Today we want to share with you some tips for making large events (over 200 guests)--whether a wedding, corporate event, or other large event--more sustainable.

Large events in particular need to be made more sustainable because their use of the Earth's resources is much greater than that of small events. 

For Randy and Lucy, whose wedding had 350 guests and who are both nature lovers and active in causes, increasing their large wedding's sustainability was important to them.

Here are some of the ways we made this wedding more sustainable, and which you can also use to make your large event more sustainable.

• The menu emphasized more sustainable choices--The couple changed their menu from beef to chicken; beef uses many more of the Earth's resources than chicken or fish.  The produce was local, as was the chicken.  We choose all the produce by hand from the Restaurant Row farmer's market, and it was so large and lush!
• Only compostable disposable plates and cutlery were used--we used bagasse (sugarcane) plates and cutlery and 100% recycled paper napkins.  Because the wedding was more fun and casual than formal, this worked very well, and bagasse would also work well at large corporate events such as a large cocktail party.  Bagasse plates now come in round, square, and even triangle shapes.  And if you're in a hurry you can even buy them by the case at Whole Foods--done!
• The food tables were decorated with "natural" flowers from our organic community garden source--these included passionflowers, trumpet lilies, calendulas, baby's breath (and even some wonderful wild mushrooms), which we coupled with our mod metal dessert towers for a "romantic and mod" design as the couple wanted.  Since these flowers are grown anyway by our master gardener instead of being grown for sale and shipped from far away, their decoration of the food tables was a more sustainable choice
• The cascading fruit display decorating the dessert buffet was taken down in the last hour and put on decorative trays and the guests, especially the children, enthusiastically ate all the fresh fruit.  Often fruit from fruit displays is just thrown away after an event.
• The groom provided boxes for our bartenders to recycle wine and beer bottles and designated some friends to take charge of taking the recycling boxes to a recycling facility after the wedding. 
• Leftover food was donated to a shelter the next day--The couple's family took home some of the leftover food and the rest was donated so no food was wasted

We hope these tips will help you with ideas for making your large event more sustainable :)

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Offers 9 Summer Dessert Ideas for Entertaining

Today in our continuing blog series, "Summer Entertaining," we offer 9 ideas for easy desserts for summer entertaining. 

 In the heat of summer it makes sense to offer a cool/hip dessert, something your guests may not be expecting and that's easy to accomplish, even without help.

 Below, 9 ideas.

• Fruit fool--These English desserts are so cool to serve in summer.  Mix pureed fruit, whipped cream, and sugar in a blender.
• Sorbet or gourmet ice cream--Dress these up by serving with nice cookies (bought if you have no time).  Or use add ins--we like to add cheesecake to ice cream, or tiramisú cream or crushed cookies.  To sorbet you can add a tiny bit of vodka (serve to adults only, please)
• Pour ice cream or sherbert into popsicle molds--Serve on interesting trays for passing or in bowls in larger bowls on ice
• Create a nostalgic ice cream station--In large bowls filled with crushed ice, put bowls of ice cream sandwiches, fudgesicles, creamsicles, Dove bars, etc.
• Macerate fruit in wine or liqueur--Very popular in Europe in summer.  Try berries with kirsch or Cointreau or peaches with red or white wine or Prosecco.  Add a bit of sugar if you like more sweetness
• Watermelon with balsamic vinegar--We love this idea from José Andrés: Cut seedless watermelon in cubes, cut a small hole in the side of each cube, and fill with balsamic vinegar.  Or serve the cubes alone, without the whole, and enjoy summer's fruit!  Use a minimalist tray.  Add lollipop sticks if you want a stunning presentation.
• Serve cupcakes with ice cream--Buy cupcakes from a reputable source and serve with ice cream, which you can pre-scoop and put on cookie sheets in the freezer, then take out the sheets at serving time and put one scoop and one cupcake on each dessert plate. No cutting cakes, pies, or tarts necessary!
• Chocolate lava cakes--This takes only 10 minues prep and 15 minutes in the oven and is so good hot, cooled, and/or with whipped cream.  See www.famousfrenchdesserts.com for a recipe
• Bourbon Cheesecake Shots--This is the big hit at our events this year! To serve 16 shots: 3/4 cup half and half, 2 tbsp. bourbon, 1 tub whipped cream cheese, and vanilla wafer cookies, crushed.  Just blend all ingredients in blender until smooth, then put the cream into shot glasses or dessert dishes and top each with wafer crumbs.  Make ahead and put in the fridge, then take out around 1 hour before serving time (again, as it has alcohol, it's best for an adults gathering)

Delicious and they add distinction to your summer gathering.

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Offers Cool Hors d'Oeuvres Ideas for Summer Events

Today in our "Summer Entertaining" blog series, we offer some cool ideas for creative hors d'oeuvres for summer events.

To offset summer's heat, choose hors d'oeuvres that are representative of summer's bounty and that won't heat your guests up.  Below are ideas for creative hors d'oeuvres that you can and should serve cold or at room temperature--better for summer's heat! 

As skewers and savory lollipops are wildly popular now we'll concentrate on those--guests just love the whole skewer experience!

And if you want to make yours more elegant and eco-friendly, choose knot bamboo picks for your skewers. 

Vary the skewer-esque look by serving both skewers and savory lollipops--skewers have the pick going all the way through the food (i.e., the food is in the middle of the skewer stick) while lollipops have the food at the end of the skewer or lollipop stick.  Lollipop sticks are widely available online and at craft stores.  Skewer ideas:

• Antipasto brochettes or lollipops--small mozzarella balls (bocconcini) or feta chunks with small round slices or square chunks of coppa, salami, or other Italian-type cold cuts, topped with fresh basil leaves.  You can also brush these with pesto sauce.
• Chicken satay with yellow cherry tomatoes
• Jamón serrano threaded on skewers with chunks of Manchego cheese
• Marinated grilled or sauteed pork or shrimp with mango chunks
• Teriyaki beef or shrimp with pineapple chunks
• Pineapple chunks with whole strawberries or grapes
• Beef or chicken fajitas, threaded on skewers, with grilled pepper chunks
• Fresh fruit and cheese chunks
• Small mushrooms marinated in chimichurri or pesto sauce, grilled or sauteed and skewered
• A variety of mini red and yellow tomatoes, brushed with an interesting vinaigrette or dressing

For presentation ideas, you can:

• Lay skewers spoke fashion around the perimeter of a round or square serving tray or cake stand
• Lay them side by side on a rectangular tray, or cross them in pairs on the tray (we like to lay a few long chives on the base of our rectangular skewers trays for color and to make it cooler (and add a few drops of sauce on the tray if you're really creative) 
• Lay them in rows making an "X" on a serving tray
• Line them up to make a diagonal on a square or round serving tray
• Put those skewers with flat bases in rows on a serving tray with sides for the lollipop effect (trendy now)

Also be sure to have a small glass or dish nearby for guests to put their used skewer sticks in.

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com

Fandango Catering Offers 5 Tips to Make Your July 4th Gathering Distinctive

Today in our "Summer Entertaining" blog series we offer 5 tips to make your July 4th gathering distinctive.  And if you don't celebrate July 4th, you can still use some of these ideas to make any summer gathering distinctive. 

People often tell us that when they handle their own parties the event seems dull or amateurish.  Of course, as caterers and event consultants, that's our profession and our passion.  But there's plenty you can do to make your party NOT dull, at least, not the look of it.  Below, some ideas.

Embrace color tastefully
One of the easiest ways you can make your July 4th or any summer gathering distinctive is to embrace color, but tastefully.  Say that you'd like a red, white, and blue theme but don't want the final effect to be kitschy or overdone.  Here are some ways:

• Add blueberries or rasperries to decorate your dessert, whatever that is--cupcakes, cakes, cheescake, parfaits, ice cream...Avoid the bought desserts decorated with colored icing! You can add fresh whole berries to your dessert and it will look great and add color.
• Use the theme colors in tasteful combos for the tablescape--For example, use a red tablecloth with white plates and blue napkins, a white tablecloth with red plates and blue napkins, a blue tablecloth with red plates and white napkins or white plates and red napkins.
• Add single-color flower arrangements--this looks more elegant, yet not fussy, than mixed flowers.  So choose all red flowers or all blue flowers.  You can also mix types of flowers if you stick to just one color, red or blue.  Avoid white flowers as they don't add color--we rarely use white flowers unless it's a wedding and even then today's couples tend to want more color in flowers and everything else at their wedding receptions than used to be the case.
• Use event items to add color--red or blue or striped straws, colored serving pieces or glasses, colored beverage tubs, colored table runners or lanterns...But it's important to not overdo--if you use the three colors on the tablescape, then choose ONE or max two event items to also be part of the color scheme. The exception would be if you have one whole food or beverage setup inside and another outside--then you'll want to also use the color scheme in your outside setup so it doesn't end up looking like the poor cousin of your gathering.  Again, it's about your gathering not looking dull, as if it were just like any old day.

Embrace local food and drink
We advocate often for sustainable catering and events, and we are strong believers that a great way to celebrate our country's birthday, or to celebrate any country, is to embrace local food and drink. 

This July 4th or at your summer gathering, seek out at least one local food, whether it's local produce or locally-produced food.  Is there a particular dish or dessert associated with your area and that you could make or buy? Also, many upscale food emporiums now regularly provide local food options from produce to charcuterie to seafood to cheeses.  Then go even one better and buy a local wine and/or local beer.  Maybe make labels (we love little flag labels or round mod disk labels or written on little chalkboards) letting people know the name of the local winery or cheese or whatever the source of what you serve that's local--this is very trendy now.

Warmly,

Kristina

Fandango Catering and Events
(713) 522-0077
www.fandango-catering.com