Rhode Island 100 mile

Today marks the first anniversary of RI100MI in cyberspace! It’s been a great year and we’re looking forward to our next 365 days…this month is especially busy- the markets are now all in full operation and we’re taking a culinary swing to New York City at the end of the month…and then it’s back to strict 100 mile format for August and September…so stay tuned and thanks for reading!

                                             -J+I

All this abnormally cold and dreary weather we’ve been having lately hasn’t been super beneficial to doing much outside, but it has motivated me to try a few things in the kitchen- one of them being a quiche. I settled on trying to make one from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon cookbook…it ended up taking multiple days to make, but it was well worth it. I sort of botched the crust by not using pie weights, so it shrunk and sank into the pan a little more than desired so we ended up with a 1″ thick model instead of a 2″…I used eggs and spinach from right here in Rhode Island to make it as local as possible. Seeing that this was our first go-around, I don’t think it  ended up too shabby!

                                                                                                                                           -Josh

It’s me Ingrid – and I am eating one of my favorite desserts.  I’m not sure I would have come across this particular dessert if not for our 100 mile challenge last July and August.  At the time, we were eating a lot (and I mean A LOT) of Narragansett Creamery’s ricotta cheese for lunch and dinner.  I really wanted something sweet one night and I remembered seeing, trying, and liking ricotta pie.  I had never made ricotta pie and I couldn’t make the real thing during the challenge because of the whole crust/flour thing but I thought, I’ll add some sugar to the ricotta ( I still had some sugar therefore I was playing by the rules) and I’ll put it over some fresh berries.  It became our favorite dessert last summer and I have served it over various berries throughout the year.

Well, with the pounds and pounds of strawberries mom and I picked last Friday, there were still some sliced berries in the fridge tonight.  And, I still had a little ricotta left from a previous trip to Goddard State Park.  So now I am happily eating (scarfing is probably a better description) fresh strawberries with some sweetened ricotta on top.  It really tastes like summer for me.

                          -Ingrid

So much for the first day of summer! It was cloudy, cool and gray here in Rhode Island again, so I used the weather to my advantage and tried out another food experiment. This time it was from the Alinea cookbook and it involved bacon, butterscotch, granny smith apples and thyme. I dehydrated some bacon and roasted apple puree (160 degrees in the oven for four hours) to create some “apple leather” and succulent bacon. The bacon was drizzled with the butterscotch which acted as the glue to hold the apple leather strips…a little snippet of thyme was attached to the bacon using the butterscotch as well…bacon was already good, but this recipe brought it to the next level!

                                                                                                -Josh

…so high water came and Ingrid and her parents headed out to Schartner’s to pick berries.  While her Dad smartly stayed in the car listening to an audio book, Ingrid and her mom managed to pick 19 pounds of berries while trying to dodge the raindrops.

 

 

All laid out to dry..

 

 

It took her a while, but Ingrid got all the berries washed, dried, cut and into the freezer. She even delivered a bunch to a friend!

 

 

 

Ready to eat!

…and of course, we saved some from the freezer to eat until the next picking session (next week).

Soft shell crab sandwich.

Later in the day, the sun finally did poke out of the gray skies and it dried up enough for us to eat outside…I had bought some bread earlier in the day over at the Goddard Park Farmer’s Market with the intention of cooking some mussels for dinner. I headed over to Di Mare Seafood in East Greenwich and saw that they had received a shipment of live soft shell crabs in from Maryland. I had cooked them before, but not live ones. I figured that they would make good appetizers- I thumbed through our cookbooks and came up with this open faced crab sandwich. I took two slices of the aforementioned bread, grilled them and then pan fried the crabs in clarified butter for a few minutes. I served them with a simple sauce of cooked egg yolk, oil, parsley and onion along with some fried capers…

Mussels and bread.

…for the mussels, I wanted to try something new. Usually, I do a white wine, dijon and saffron broth but we had some fennel in the fridge along with some frozen tomato pulp left over from another food experiment. I ended up using some onion and garlic in the broth as well, along with some vermouth and steamed the mussels in that for about five or six minutes. The broth was very light (no butter) and went extremely well with the sweet mussels (and was easily sopped up by the bread!).

….as the sun was setting, we noticed that there were a lot of bees taking advantage of the dry weather. We found this one in our Astilbe just hanging out collecting pollen…he stayed there long enough for us to grab a couple of close-ups.

                

                                                                                 -Josh

Come hell or high water (I have a feeling it’ll be high water), I am picking  strawberries tomorrow at Schartner’s on Route 2 in Exeter RI.  It seems like the strawberry season is only 2 weeks long so I need to get out there now.  Last year I picked over 20 pounds of strawberries and I want to get at least 30 pounds this year.  My five servings of fruit a day for a while will be fresh strawberries!  We’ll use the frozen ones for smoothies, strawberry sauce, . . . and I think that’s it.  I’ll have to find more recipes for frozen strawberries.    Ingrid

…we’ve decided to move the blog over to WordPress…hopefully the major transition went well. There should be more features and better content forthcoming, including the ability to comment without having the need for a gmail address! …the www.ri100mi.com address should redirect you here, so no need to look for another one! Keep visting and bear with us while we make the change.

                                                -Ingrid and Josh

Besides the radishes, some of our other plants are starting to pick up some steam which is rather surprising due to the cool, damp weather we’ve been having…

The Nasturtiums (edible) have bloomed…

We have our first pepper…

The parsley has started to fill in….

…along with the oregano.

…and most suprisingly, we have our first itty-bitty tomatoes!

-Josh

Last night we enjoyed our first “harvest” of the year- we picked some radishes from our garden and took some ideas from both Toby and the restaurant Evangeline that we went to on Monday. We left the greens on and dipped them in creme fraiche and salt and ate them raw…they were perfect- not too spicy or hot and full of flavor. Hopefully this is the precursor of things to come from our garden! -Josh

…so for those of you who guessed Portland, ME- you’re right! (The establishments in yesterday’s post are Hugo’s, Duckfat, Fore Street and Standard Bakery…) Ingrid had a Sunday night/Monday conference up in Portland so I headed up there with her Sunday afternoon. Portland has become quite the food mecca recently- Hugo’s/Duckfat owner and chef Rob Evans is a recent James Beard Award winner and Fore Street has won some accolades as well. This time around, we wanted to branch out a little bit and explore some new places…all of which turned out to be fantastic.

On our way up to Maine, we stopped at the Ice House on route 1B in Rye, NH for some ice cream. We think that it’s best that we’ve had up to this point and we miss it dearly…we used to ride our bikes over there for a treat when Ingrid lived in Portsmouth. It’s good to see that not much has changed and it’s worth the stop if you’re ever in the neighborhood.

Upon arriving in Portland, we found out pretty quickly that the Old Port Festival was happening. The center of town was jammed with people and most of the streets were blocked off to vehicles…supposedly the highlight of the festival was the construction of the world’s longest lobster roll. Since that happened at 11 AM, we missed it…but it measured in at 61 feet, 9 inches! With some crafty driving and navigation, we circumnavigated the festival and found our hotel. We kind of freaked out with all the people in town, so I hopped on the computer to make dinner reservations- we didn’t want to get shut out of the restaurant we wanted to try. After the Red Sox game finished up (and Ingrid awoke from her nap), we headed down to the festival to check it out. It was winding down, but the usual festival fare was still being offered…and somehow we resisted the temptations (especially the kettle corn)! We checked out a few stores and then wandered over to a new beer cafe that has recently opened. The lines were absolutely huge at the cafe, so we decided to check back on Monday. Our reservations were for 7:45, but we decided to go to the restaurant to see if we could get in earlier…

…and we were able to! We went to 555 (555 Congress Street) which was far enough from the festival throngs. that they took us right away- we ended up sitting up in a “balcony” area which looked down on the dining area and kitchen below. The menu was full of tasty things but not overwhelming. The highlight was a 5 course tasting menu- for you guessed it…$55 (they’ve got a thing for 5’s)…but we decided to go off on our own. For starters, Ingrid had stuffed figs and I had the mussels- both were incredibly excellent. The mussel broth was creamy but not heavy and the added pickled peppers added a nice touch. The figs had a nice blue cheese spread on them that added some salty bite to the sweetness of the fig. Following that, I had a roasted beet salad and Ingrid had an artichoke and bacon salad. I’ve become a lot more fond of beets in the last year or so- I always thought that they tasted like dirt- but they’re pretty versatile and they’re actually pretty sweet when done right. Both salads were very, very tasty! We decided to forgo the entree and instead we ordered a couple of cheeses that came with home made crostini and jam. We had two from VT- the Willoughby was washed with Allagash Curieux beer and the Jasper was a nuttier, firm cheese. Both were great, but Ingrid and I agreed that we liked the Willoughby a tad better. For dessert Ingrid ordered the chocolate brownie cake which was a rather large, dense chocolate-ly mass of goodness…I ordered a cone of six mini chocolate cookies (which turned out to be totally unnecessary) but we were able to take them home…all in all, this place was a total find- the server(s) were very nice and the food was excellent!

…on Monday, Ingrid headed downstairs to the conference and I worked out of the hotel room. I took a break in the morning and headed to the Standard Baking Company for coffee and breakfast to take back to the room. Located in the space below the Fore Street restaurant, this bakery is pretty impressive! There was lots to choose from- everything is made right there…I ended up getting a ham and cheese croissant. It was a nice, fluffy croissant with just enough ham and cheese to make it savory, but still light…I managed to hold off long enough to enjoy it back in the room…

Later on for lunch I headed over to Duckfat on Middle Street. This place is known for it’s panninis and fries (which are fried in duckfat!)…prices are very reasonable and they also offer some select beer and wine choices. I had to resist going nuts on the fries and ended up getting their version of the eggplant parmesean…eggplant, red sauce, pesto and onion pressed on bread from Standard Baking- perfect!

This end of Middle Street has a bunch of cool little shops and eateries, one of them Miccuci Grocery. This is a full deli/specialty food shop with a cafe out back. They carry a bunch of different items in the grocery section- lots of specialty oils and gourmet items…it’s a pretty decent market for its size.

Just down the Street from Duckfat and the market is Rabelais books. These guys only carry books that have to do with food. Their stock is pretty extensive and their rare book section is like time-travelling through cooking history. If you’re looking for a book that has anything remotely to do with food they probably have it or can get it for you. Ingrid is glad this isn’t right around the corner…we would never see her!

When Ingrid was done with the conference, we went with a friend down to Fore Street for drinks…they have a nice, comfy lounge area to relax…they cook some of their food on open fire so the smells of the kitchen were wafting around…this is also an excellent restaurant…the kitchen is wide open, so it’s entertaining as well!

After Fore Street, we went back to the beer cafe that we checked out on Sunday but was too crowded to get in. Set inside a little plaza in the center of Old Port (a little tricky to find) Novare Res Bier Cafe has indoor and outdoor seating and a ton of different beers to choose from. The menu is simple- you can build your own cheese and meat board by making choices off the menu. The place kind of reminded me of a monastery cellar with all its nooks and crannies with rooms to hold the bottled beer and patron’s glasses…

Finally, we ended up at our last destination- Evangeline, which is on the corner of Congress and State. This is a French Bistro type restaurant- nice and open, serving french staples and twists on New England fare. Since it was Monday night, there was only one menu to choose from- a $25 fixed price menu where you have the option of choosing from one of two entrees.

Ingrid chose the halibut and I had the chicken…but we started off with surprise- local radishes with goat butter and sea salt. The radishes were cut in batons which you can dip in the butter and then the salt. These were excellent and we’ll have to steal the idea to try with our own radishes…the halibut and the chicken were fabulous- but what stole the show were the white beans and peas that came with the chicken…they’re almost too good to describe- the beans were tender, yet firm and the peas were so fresh and vibrantly green that they almost looked fake! There was a light sauce on the bottom of the plate that brought it all together- simple yet sublime! The halibut was on a bed of white asparagus…while also excellent, it paled in comparison to the beans and peas. Next, we opted for the $5 cheese supplement and ended up with another surprise- a gooey goat’s cheese along with the Winnemere that was scooped out of the rind and served on a spoon. We’ve never had anything like this cheese before- it was almost like they left it someplace warm and it melted…but it wasn’t- that’s how it naturally comes…to finish we had a simple dessert of rhum cake, berries and chocolate mousse…very light and just sweet enough to top off the best $25 meal that we’ve ever had! An excellent way to end our 36 hour Portland adventure!

-Josh