Roasted fruits (apple and pear slices and feta, perhaps, drizzled with honey ? Better yet, drizzled with boiled apple cider?

I was thinking a layered salad. Since you already are planning a green salad (and the jars look too small for a decent portion of raw greens), you could do a grain, bean, or pasta (small pasta) salad. Just get some nice colorful layers in there. I do a corn and black bean salad (with avocado, tomato, and onion, and a lime-based dressing) that would look pretty served that way.

How are you preparing the halibut? Maybe make a few sauces (or are the containers too big for that?). Creamy, herbaceous, or spicy? Lemony?

It doesn't have to be butternut squash soup. It could be roasted red pepper or smoked tomato. I think you already used the jars for charcuterie, yes?

They aren't very big...could you make a salsa for the halibut? Not sure how you're cooking it, but I love salsa on grilled fish. Or maybe a chutney? They aren't very big so not enough for a large side...cubes of acorn squash drizzled with maple syrup and cinnamon?

Cheese straws as an appetizer? room temp haricot vert was marinated that maybe could be stuck in like pencils in a cup and eaten as finger food? Veggie sticks with a dressing or dip in the bottom of each jar so as they pull out the veggie it's already dressed on the bottom?

If you wanted a soup, how about cream of mushroom? Potato leek? Carrot and ginger?

Corn pudding? Rice salad? Rice pilaf?

Chimichurri sauce could be pretty in the jars.

Asian coleslaw?

I’d probably make X different sauces, condiments, or whatever, to go with the fish. e.g., a lemon-butter sauce, a mango chutney, some pickled vegs, etc. Let everyone have something different, or mark them and allow people to trade. lol!

They are so cute-- but my personal opinion is that they should hold something that isnt essential to the plated entree. I think it would be odd to have halibut and green beans, for instance, on the plate and then go to the little jar for lentil salad IYKWIM.

I am guessing they hold about 3oz? I think that's a pretty small serving size for soup but perfect for a dessert or a small appetizer ... or a sauce or condiment for the entree. I am thinking:

• a topping for the grilled halibut... compound butter.. or a vinaigrette, salsa etc... or compote of roasted grape tomatoes
• accoutrement for a soup ... homemade croutons. parmesan or fried onions, etc.
• a sorbet palate cleanser?
• I know I said too small for soup-- but i think a good size for gazpacho with slices of cucumber and halved heirloom cherry tomatoes and a sprig of herbs (though perhaps too late in the season?)
• a starter.. ceviche, savory panna cotta,

Here are a few savory panna cotta recipes i think look interesting and their photos make them look perfect for the little jars... i know you are the panna cotta queen so i am sure you have your own recipes but these images may inspire you!

• Black Pepper and Parmesan Panna Cotta Recipe on Food52
• Gruyere and Chive Panna Cotta with Bacon Jam | Crush Magazine (crushmag-online.com)
• Kabocha Squash Panna Cotta Recipe | Epicurious

Kswl mentioned savory bread pudding in her thanksgiving thread (are the jars oven safe?).

Maybe a little heavy to start but in such a small serving size it could be less heavy and nicely balanced with a bitter salad.

• Rosemary Olive Savory Bread Pudding - Broma Bakery
• Spring Onion and Goat Cheese Bread Pudding Recipe - Hiro Sone | Food & Wine (foodandwine.com)

Note: I haven't made any of these recipes.. sharing for inspiration

Does it have to be food? I think they are adorable but small to eat out of. If "yes to food", you could always put some candied pecans in them to sprinkle on the salad. Or, if you're willing to forego food, put a fall colored votive candle in each one and a rafia (or buffalo checked) ribbon around the neck as cute lighting.

Yes, they are oven safe.

The jars hold one cup. Perfect size for a side dish or a dessert, but too small for a leafy salad. Also, too short/squat for some of the veggie ideas or charcuterie.

Too large for sauces/condiments for one person. I want to use them for individual servings --- people always like their own serving of something in a mini container, IYKWIM.

I think it will look best if something is baked in them, because it gives a reason to use them rather than just put whatever it is on a plate. Since fish and green salad are light, and is autumn, I think something rich and warm like savory panna cotta (never done savory) or bread pudding or corn pudding would be very nice.

Thx for all the great ideas, off to look some of these up!

Scalloped potatoes? Using slices of teeny tiny potatoes.

Oh, ok! They hold more than I'd guessed. Yes, i think you are on a great track.. a cup will hold a nice individual serving size and allow you room to top with an herb salad or veggie decor! They will be lovely-- your guests are sure to be delighted!

I have only had corn pudding once-- a friend of my mother's brought it to a thanksgiving one year. As a rule, I am not big on corn or corn dishes other than cornbread-- but it was delicious and decadent.

Pumpkin, squash or chestnut soup with pepita garnishes. I've had all and really like it this time of year. Color is gorgeous too. Oh corn pudding! Yes!

My first thought was maybe three sweet potato dumplings or potato veggie dumplings. I have dumplings on the brain lol. We are going to do lunch in a restaurant that, instead of mac & cheese, they do dumplings with a light cheese sauce sprinkled with bacon and chive.

Anyone have a fave corn pudding recipe? I've never made it. Not too sweet, and not veering toward cornbread but softer like quiche?

I'm thinking if I go with corn pudding instead of something cheesy, then I can use this rich sauce for the halibut:

https://portandfin.com/garlic-parmesan-baked-halibut/

For my salad, I recently had this at lunch and it was so yummy and fresh. Waldorf esque without the mayo. I am thinking of tossing it with some baby arugula to add green.

For dessert, the pears are so good now I have to use them!. I have made this before and it is yummy. I can also use yogurt from a local farm.

https://nadialim.com/salted-caramel-poached-pears-with-yoghurt-and-almonds/

Guests are bringing apps, cheese and crackers, etc. So I think I'm all set.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016926-corn-pudding this is a non cheesy non bready corn pudding recipe. Ina has a very good one but it’s much richer with cheese, if you do a richer version, I would not also do a rich sauce but a more herby one for your fish.

I love most all corn puddings and casseroles but the type I like best is very thick and creamy much more liquidy than a quiche and not at all a casserole. No flour added, no cornstarch. Corn cut fresh off the cob and the cob scraped, whatever seasonings you want to add, maybe an egg or two, some cream, a little sharp cheese like parmesan or asiago.

I have a recipe for this at home but I'll have to dig it out later when I'm back. There may not be an egg in there. I'm very much in a low carb mode these days and particularly avoiding white stuff so all the floured casseroles don't really appeal to me. Not that corn is low carb but you know what I mean!

Sorry but no corn pudding recipes from me... but thank you for sharing the halbut recipe. I have a piece of halibut in the freezer that i really need to use.. and this sounds similar to a nova scotian cod au gratin recipe I love (but with a much better fish.. and crusted, not au gratin!).

And YES, pears have been great this season-- especially the bosc pears.

Yum, that halibut looks delish and easy.

I'll have to try it for the hallibut! :)

I pulled out my corn pudding recipe and no wonder I have such fond memories of it! Rich...

Corn Pudding

Corn cut from 4 ears - cut two w/knife, Grate two on box grater

1 egg

1 cup finely grated asiago cheese, preferably grated fresh

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup half and half

a little fresh grated ground pepper.

Bake in small 7"x 9" dish for 35 minutes at 375.

Let sit for 30 minutes after baking.

and my additional notes from me say NO garlic, onion, red pepper, sugar or herbs lol

I guess I like throwing all that in often enough.

I hadn't looked at your halibut recipe until now and you may be sold on it, but I'd never put a cheesy sauce on halibut (or any other fish). We are blessed with such wonderful seafood here that I seldom cook it with much embellishment; I'm assuming you source great seafood, too.
I have this recipe saved; I like the leek element for an autumnal touch. Just for your consideration, esp if you're going to do a creamy or cheesy side dish: Halibut with leeks, coriander and lemon

Could you put cocktail sauce to cover the bottom, then have 3 shrimp tails-up in the jar?

ETA similar to this

The halibut recipe sounds great. The little jars read kind of summer and casual to me, and I've never had nor made corn pudding so no help there, but I do like Sue's idea of the prawn cocktail as opposed to plating the jars with fish and sauce. Can corn pudding be made in muffin cups or some other mold and keep the jars for the first course?

Of course I totally understand the desire to use something cute that you've picked up! I have little 4 oz jars like that that I usually fill with some seasonal treats and attach tags with people's names to use in lieu of place cards, but that is just for our big family dinners - not suggesting that you give your guests jars of candy!

I would do the halibut with a saffron cream sauce. The corn pudding would be nice in your jars with a sprig of something green added.

a friend served pretty roasted pears recently. she offered whipped coconut cream and regular whipped cream on the side. not terribly sweet, yummy while warm.

i used to be completly devoted to red wine poached pears with chocolate sauce or creme anglaise but i really liked them roasted

IIRC Mtn and family are allergic to shellfish..

I know there are people who say NO to cheese on fish but it's very common on the northeast coast.. and I think very good (though I wouldn't do it in the summer).

Not sure what Mtn has access to in her area but we can *never* get fresh halibut in my area of the east coast. It is a west coast fish and in this area is always frozen or thawed from frozen.. it used to be hard to find but i haven't had an issue the last few years.

I was thinking we get halibut fresh here (it surely seems so and is advertised as such) but then you had me worried. So I looked it up, et voila: In U.S. waters, halibut is most common in the Gulf of Maine. And here we are.

I'm familiar with the "no cheese on seafood" rule and usually serve fish either blackened, unadorned or with lemon caper butter, maybe herbs, etc. Salsa in summer. But for autumn, I am thinking more substantial. I've made a saffron hollandaise before, yummy but looking from something different. I think it will be good, we will see.

The mason jars look small, but they are not 4oz, they are 8 oz. Funky is right, DH and I are both allergic to shrimp. Alas, shrimp are so pretty to serve!

I've definitely decided on corn pudding. Thanks, Oly! The meal needs a little ballast and I think it will be a crowd pleaser. I like the NYT recipe because it has no cheese and no flour. Thanks, Oly!! I think it will be more like a corn souffle. IDk I never made it and I don't think ive ever had it, either!

I packed my mini white ramekins and my mini masons when we came up from CT, so will see what looks best. I am going to get mini white pumpkins and put kraft paper name tags on them.

I have made the pear recipe before. Poaching them and then reducing the poaching liquid to a caramel is a PITA, so I may roast them instead. In any event I plan to garnish them with farm fresh yogurt (the tang complements the uber sweet fruit) and toasted almonds.

Thanks to all of you who are as crazy as I am. : )

Hmm, got curious about halibut.

The halibut season in Maine is a short one, running from mid-May to mid-June, in order to avoid overfishing. Fishermen can catch up to 25 of them, as long as the fish are at least 41 inches long.

We make basically the same halibut recipe except ours doesn’t call for garlic. It’s very good as is so I’m not sure I’d like all that garlic. Give it a taste before you add the garlic and see what you think. The sauce is really yummy so we double it even when it’s just the 2 of us. It must evaporate as it broils.

The sauce is a little rich so I think corn pudding would be a bit heavy to serve with it. Rice goes nicely with it to soak up the sauce.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/76659/heavenly-halibut/

The sauce is really yummy so we double it even when it’s just the 2 of us.

The recipe you linked is for 8 people. If you double it when it's just two of you, that is for 16 servings of fish! No doubt it's yummy but that seems like a totally different dish; no wonder you call it a sauce. Made as directed and pictured, there is no real sauce to "soak up." I think of it more as a topping than a sauce, which is also how I've seen it pictured.

Bookended by a very light salad and a pear with yogurt, the fish needs something substantial as a starch, hence corn pudding.

I don't think the fish will be too rich at all if it is just a thin coating. For example, I make a grilled swordfish that is coated in 50/50 dijon and mayo with chopped fresh dill. It is coated than grilled or baked. There is no sauce produced at all; I expect much the same in this case. Same is true with many similar salmon recipes.

Oh gosh.. my apologies. I really never knew there was an east coast halibut! For years we couldn't get it here. I had fallen in love with it in Seattle and even had it direct-shipped once for a special family meal. I feel stupid.

It's been a banner morning already-- i forgot to put the carafe in the coffee machine AND i was wrong! LOL.

I use the Ina Garten corn pudding recipe and like it. I modify some of the butter, reduce the cheese, etc to our tastes. Ina Garten Sagaponack corn pudding recipe

Another idea for the jars would be a butternut squash gratin or something similar. I would probably do one where the squash is pureed and either use toasted bread crumbs or caramelized onions on top.

ETA: Thinking of the butternut squash reminded me of this acorn squash with corn pudding from 101 cookbooks. The seasonings are a bit different and it is not as rich, but you could try the pudding by itself in jars. Or it may just serve a jumping off point as well.

acorn squash with corn pudding

Tish tosh, so darn cute! I am really tempted tho I already bought all my ingred.

LOL Jinx.. i won't even tell you the other things that have gone wrong due to my own self today. Luckily i am now off work for the rest of the day so I won' t bring down a whole government agency with my bad luck.

I shouldn’t make fun … DD and I were in a store yesterday and they announced they'd be testing the fire alarm shortly. I forgot all about it, was browsing the plate section intently … all of a sudden, the loudest alarm I’ve ever heard went off. I screamed. Out loud. I, not the alarm, scared my DD and several strangers nearby. Everyone jumped and was looking at me when the alarm stopped. I’ve never in my life screamed in public before, I normally don’t startle easily, I don’t know why I reacted that way!

Sorry, mtn, for my O/T on your thread! I am getting good recipe ideas here, though, and hope you all have a great time. :)

OT away, Jinx et al... this isn't for publication in a scholarly journal. : )

@Jilly, at least you didn’t flail about in the plate section! 😂

Update - the meal was great, I was very happy with it.

I roasted the pears with brown sugar and butter in the oven, which was a lot easier than poaching them and then making caramel. However, the latter *is* a superior dish, but maybe not enough to justify the vast increase in effort. Full fat yogurt (or creme fraiche) is the perfect touch as the pears are so sweet.

I made the corn pudding from the NYT. I switched out nutmeg for just a dash of cayenne, because I did not want it to taste like dessert. I 1.5x the recipe to match my quantity of corn, but kept the sugar to 1/3 cup. Raves. Delish.

For the halibut, I ended up using the Heavenly Halibut recipe Chickadee posted (thank you!) because I agreed when she pointed out that my version had a LOT of garlic. I added 2 cloves of garlic to the HH recipe. I sized the recipe for my quantity of fish, and it made just a top coating. It was very good but quite subtle; everyone liked it but asked what was in it; it surely did not taste cheesy per se. I will make it again!

We have the cutest little fish store right on the water here and their halibut was wild caught from Canada, delivered that day. It was perfection.

Glad all turned out well. I love reading the reviews of meals planned here!

Thanks for the update...always glad to hear how it went!

Sounds wonderful-- hopefully you had the tail end of the beautiful weather. Looks like next weekend is not going to be as nice (or the week).

yes, sunny and warm; still verandah weather, amazingly

I love corn pudding! My recipe is much like Funkys. No sugar though.

hmm.. I didn't share a recipe. In fact, I've only had it once (made by someone else).

Our weather went from unseasonably warm and beautiful-- to very chilly on Friday. Glad you could snag one more verandah meal!

Sorry!! Credit goes to Bumblebeez!!

Yeah I like it because it's not sweet and just has a deep corn flavor.

It all sounded wonderful. I'm intrigued by the menu planning here so always good to hear the results!