February 8, 2010

Local Superbowl?

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…so last week, a dilemma was presented to me- what to make for the superbowl and keep it as local as possible? I took an inventory of what we already had in the house- potatoes, frozen strawberries, flour, cornstarch, beer…and what we could get that was local. For the big game, I ended up coming up with a take on fish and chips- cod brandande with some homemade fries and for dessert, a strawberry tart…I did let the rules slip a little though and instead of wiping out our canola supply, I bought some peanut oil at the store. We received a new fryer for Christmas and thought that this would be the perfect time to use it. First off, the fries- I used the trusty mandoline to cut them into shape and rinsed them in cold water multiple times to wash away any residual starch. After drying them on paper towels, they were blanched in the hot oil for 5-6 minutes and left to cool and drain again on some more paper towels. To finish, they were fried for 2-3 minutes more in a higher temperature oil which made them a nice golden brown. Next up the cod- it was poached in milk for 5-7 minutes, drained and mashed with a fork. The cooked potatoes were folded in along with some garlic confit, paprika, olive oil and white pepper. The mixture was formed into balls and coated in the beer batter and fried for 5-6 minutes until golden brown. I ended up scraping the mayonnaise jar and adding some capers for a “sauce”. For the finale, the tart was a homemade tart shell filled with a pastry cream and topped with local strawberries that Ingrid had picked this past summer…which was perfect- not super sweet and a good way to watch the Saints complete their victory.              -Josh

 

February 5, 2010

Soup’s on!

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Last night was soup night in the RI100mi household. I took a Thomas Keller Bouchon recipe and added a few twists to make it my own…here’s the breakdown of ingredients and where they came from:

  • Butternut squash- Wintertime farmer’s market in Pawtucket.
  • Potatoes- From the 50lb bag that we bought at the Goddard Park Farmer’s market (stored in the PSD)
  • Carrots, Onions and Celery- All from the Goddard Market, diced and frozen for the winter.
  • Honey- Also from the Goddard Market.
  • Veal Stock- Made in December and frozen for future use.
  • Canola Oil- Already had it before the challenge- it’s fair game.
  • Butter- see above.
  • Sage- Frozen from our garden (2008).

                                           -Josh

 

February 3, 2010

…day three.

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We’re into day three of our Wintertime 100 mile challenge and this is our first official meal since the start- Day 1 involved some leftovers that we had and yesterday we had an event that served us dinner, so today was the first test of doing the challenge in winter- and you know what? It wasn’t that much different from doing it in summer. We found some nice greens at the market on Saturday, so I used that as a nice base and sautéed some local shallots and a fine Watson Farm skirt steak to sit on top…we had a homemade anchovy salad dressing base tucked away in the fridge which added some pop to the greens…all in all, not a bad start to the month (I have a feeling things are going to get a little interesting in a couple of weeks!).

 -Josh

 

 

January 31, 2010

The truck (of goodness).

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…outside of the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmer’s Market there parks a truck. Not just any old truck. It’s a truck that produces some of the best mobile take out food that you can find. The owners of Chez Pascal in Providence upgraded their hot dog cart that usually sits on the sidewalk at Lippett Park to this mobile purveyor of hand made sausages and other delectable offerings. On any given day you could find turkey and rabbit sausages, a bacon-wrapped meatloaf sandwich and homemade meatball subs (just to name a few). A stop at the truck has become a must for Ingrid and I after shopping at the market- we suggest that you check it out for yourselves.

-Josh

 

January 27, 2010

Roots

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…thank goodness for root vegetables! They still are in abundance at the winter markets- with the seasonal greens and fruit all but gone, it’s nice to have a choice of hearty vegetables to accompany our meals. Tonight, I cut carrots, turnips, potatoes and sweet potatoes into a large dice, coated them with olive oil, mixed in some minced rosemary and roasted them in the oven for about 45 minutes under some foil. For the last 10 minutes or so, we took off the foil and let them carmelize a little…the result was a tender and very sweet melange of late Fall holdovers…hopefully they’ll be around at least through February!

                                 -Josh

 

January 25, 2010

100 Miles . . . in February?

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So Josh and I had kicked around the idea of doing the 100 Mile Challenge in February.  We like the challenge in the summer and we thought we could try it out in a colder, darker month.   However, we did pick the shortest month of the year.  This past weekend we decided that we are definitely going to take the plunge – the 100 Mile Challenge in February.  Those 20 pounds of frozen strawberries in the freezer will come in hand next month!  I’m already planning for the first week – February 1st is one week from today.  I’m not sure why but the first few days catch us off-guard when we have done this in the past but not this month.  I have some of Kenyon’s white corn meal and flour from UpinGil Farm so this Sunday, I’ll be making blueberry (also in the freezer from this past summer) corn muffins to have for the first week.

 

January 23, 2010

Thank you Pat!

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Today I (Ingrid) was up at the Pawtucket Winter Farmers Market to pick up our chickens and eggs from Pat’s Pastured.  You may remember that name as Josh and I have mentioned Pat’s Pastured a lot – I think the most recent was in relation to our new favorite chicken – the Poulet Rouge.  We signed up this past fall to take part in a six month chicken and egg CSA (community supported agriculture).  Basically, you pay for the food up front and then you pick up your goods at prearranged times.  So once a month for six months Josh and I get four chickens and two dozen eggs and it’s been great.  Pat emailed us earlier this week to remind us that today was pick-up day at the markets and also told us that he’s run out of chickens for market customers but the CSA members would still be getting their chickens.  The farmers markets have been so successful that some vendors, like Pat, have been running low.  But you know what that is causing?  There are new vendors selling these products at the market.  I noticed a new chicken vendor today who wasn’t there at the beginning of the winter market.  So if you’re looking for chickens, just mosey your way all the way down the hall of vendors at the winter market – you should find someone who has them!   But be sure to stop by Pat’s Pastured – though he may not have chickens right now, he has lots of other yummy products!

 

January 22, 2010

Beer in the City

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…I don’t think our synopsis of our recent visit to New York would be complete without a rundown of the beer happenings that we squeezed in during our stay. I make it a point to find the best places wherever we go to imbibe and/or purchase the malty goodness that is known as beer. Even though Ingrid does not particularly like the beverage, she is a very good sport and not only encourages my quests, but also takes part in accompanying me in my beer-y adventures (it also helps that some of these places serve excellent food!). Beeradvocate.com has become an integral tool in planning our visits to new places- all you need is an account and you can use their “BeerFly” feature allowing you to search a database for beer related businesses…in this case, there was a bounty of places to check out all within walking distance of our hotel. Two of the better beer stores on Manhattan were within a couple of blocks from each other…the Bowery Whole Foods and New Beer Distributors on Chrystie street. Both have a great selection- although I am a fan of the “little guy”, I did make some purchases at the Whole Foods…New Beer can be hit-or-miss and the lighting is atrocious…but we did get some great help while we were there. After checking out those two places, we headed to Daniel Boulud’s DBGB for some lunch. This place specializes in homemade sausages and charcuterie…and they have a fantastic draft beer list to go along with it. We sampled a bunch of sausages and a couple of beers and then we were on our way. After checking out the New Museum, we headed to Zum Schnieder for a pre-dinner beer. Located in alphabet city, this is a cash-only German restaurant which serves authentic German beer and food…

…On Saturday, we braved the chilly winds and headed over to Williamsburg in Brooklyn to stop in at the First Annual Williamsburg Cask Ale Festival and to check out the Brooklyn Brewery. The Festival was at dba Brooklyn and featured about a dozen of cask-aged beers…some of which you don’t see too often. We ended the beer portion of our trip at the Brewery by doing a short tour and sampling one of their beers…

New Beer Distributors on Chrystie Street.

Whole Foods Bowery.

DBGB front door.

A nice De Dolle Stille Nacht before lunch.

Excellent fries!

Blood sausage.

Parisienne lamb sausage.

Aventinus Dopplebock at Zum Schnieder.

Cask at the Festival.

Some cask beers- note the lack of carbonation.

Beer in front of the beer engines- the cask beer is hand-drawn.

A cask porter.

Outside the Brooklyn Brewery.

In the brew room…

Aging barrel…

The Brewery cat.

 

-Josh

 

January 13, 2010

Other reasons to visit NYC

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In addition to eating donuts, Josh and I spent some time checking out some markets in NYC.  We first visited Whole Foods the Bowery Store.  We had read about it, mostly Josh read about it on Beer Advocate.  It was rated very high for it’s range of beers.  This Whole Foods has what they call a “beer room” with close to 1,000 different beers.  I was picturing a cellar with low lighting but it was a nice, bright room at street level with a very extensive beer selection.  They also had about six beers on tap.  It’s really amazing how many beers there are out there – we saw many of the beers we tried in Italy including Baladin.  I was pretty impressed with their chocolate selection but I’m sure no one is really surprised about that!

One of the other markets we went to was the Essex Street Market.  This Market was right around the corner from our hotel. I had read about it online before heading to NYC.  However, at Doughnut Plant on Saturday morning, I picked up the latest version of Edible Manhatten and saw an article about Roni-Sue’s Chocolates.  The article was about Pig Candy – dark and milk chocolate covered crispy bacon.  I’ve had bacon chocolate bars before but this was a little different – super-crispy bacon dipped in chocolate – you have to taste it, you really do!  We also tried a beer and pretzel caramel chocolate there – porter and stout had been added to the caramel which was then covered in milk chocolate.   And on the top was a small piece of pretzel – perfect combination of flavors!  Click here to read the Edible Manhatten article and see pictures.  The Essex Street Market was great to visit – in addition to getting chocolate covered bacon, you can get all kinds of cheeses, fish, meat, fruits, vegetables – the list goes on.  It’s not the biggest market but those small stalls/stores hold a whole lot of stuff!  One product that I had not see before was champagne soda.

Just so you know, we didn’t eat and drink the WHOLE time.  We checked out the Urs Fischer exhibit at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.  Three floors of the gallery space was his work.  He works in a number of different medias and it was interesting to see.  If you go to the second page of the Urs Fischer brochure from the exhibit – you will see  his piece Cumpadre, 2009 which is hanging at about eye level, danging on fishing wire from a ceiling about 30 feet up.  Cumpadre 2009 is the real name for it – Josh called it “Fishing for Ingrid”.

More to come on the NYC trip from Josh.

~Ingrid

 

January 11, 2010

NYC Eats- Clinton St.

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…as you guys have probably figured out, Ingrid and I spent this past weekend in New York- primarily on the Lower East Side. We stayed on Rivington Street and we ended up eating at a variety of places on Clinton Street, a short walk from our hotel. While the primary motive of the trip was for Ingrid to get her hair cut, we always end up satiating our taste buds as well. We were able to get reservations at WD-50 and were treated to an exciting tasting menu by Wylie Dufresne on Friday night. There were more highs than lows and each course was a sensory adventure that was unparalleled…standouts included everything bagel ice cream, scrambled egg ravioli, cold fried chicken, a play on beef and bearnaise, hazelnut tart and carmelized brioche. Wylie was manning the kitchen which was good to see and our server Chris was impeccable and gave us a great lead for dinner on Satuday night which was a few doors down on Clinton Street- Falai. Falai only had early reservations for Saturday, so we got there at six and we were treated to our second outstanding meal in NYC. Falai is a smaller restaurant which I would call nouveau Italian- being down the street from WD-50 probably has it’s influence. The head chef trained at Le Cirque and was quite adept at both cooking and the art of elegant plating. The tasting menus were unavailable, but we were able to choose anything from the menu as a whole. We both split a baccalao antipasto which was very untraditional- sort of “deconstructed” but very tasty and inventive. For the main course, I had a monkfish, scallop and red snapper dish and  Ingrid had the Gnudi- a flourless gnocchi served in a broth- both were excellent! The biggest surprise came when we were treated to a couple of complimentary desserts…a fine fitting for the end of our meal! We rounded out our Clinton Street experience with breakfast on Sunday at Clinton Street Baking…just a small piece of advice- get here early- it opens at 9AM and fills up quick! We had no problem getting a seat due to Ingrid’s diligence and it paid off! I had a smoked salmon benedict and Ingrid had brioche french toast with carmelized bananas- both were excellent and a perfect send-off for our trip back home…more on our trip to NYC to come…

-Josh

 

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