Rhode Island 100 mile

 Caution- this post may cause a little queasiness in some people…

…we went on a little food adventure this week by experimenting with some beef tongue. Simmons Farm had one at the Farmer’s Market a couple of Saturdays ago, so of course, I bought it. I found a recipe in Fergus Henderson’s Head to Tail cookbook and it didn’t look too hard to get this otherwise forgotten piece of the beast into some edible form. I brined it for a week in a sugar and salt concoction and then boiled for three hours with some carrot, onion and some herbs and spices…then came the nasty part- getting the “skin” off the outside. It really wasn’t too bad- but it did seem a little wierd (all I kept thinking about is my own tongue). The meat was then sliced thin and grilled a bit with some canola oil. We ate it on top of some leftover toasted French bread rounds with some mustard and local greens. The verdict? A richer corned beef…not something to do too often, but we might revisit this someday…and no, it won’t be fed to any unexpecting guests!               -Josh

Wow – cabbage really can go the distance!  Josh and I just finished the first batch of the cabbage soup.  Though I guess we didn’t really finish it all as there are at least two more servings in the freezer.  But we finished the soup that was not frozen.  One of the things that surprised me the most was how much I like it.  Before our whole local challenge, when I thought of cabbage all I pictured was limp, light green leaves with very little taste or texture.  The way we have been eating it, especially the cabbage and apple salad – it great.  It has a fair amount of crunch and snap and we get the purple cabbage so it adds a nice bit of color to the plate.  Yes – we still are getting the potatoes in on a regular basis (50 pounds goes a long way!) but we’ll be getting our fair share of cabbage this winter!

 We picked up a head of cabbage at the market a couple of weeks ago and it’s been sitting in the vegetable drawer of our refrigerator ever since…so I pulled out the cookbooks and found a couple of good uses for it- cabbage with apples and onions (pictured) and a nice hearty soup with the rest. I always forget how much cabbage there is in a head- once you start slicing and dicing, it adds up pretty quick! Roughly 2/3 of the head went into the cabbage/apple dish which was onions sauteed with apples then mixed with the cabbage and a little vinegar. The cabbage stays nice and crisp, which I prefer over boiled any day. This went perfectly with the Simmons Farm country style pork ribs we were lucky enough to grill before the big snowstorm that wasn’t that came through here on Wednesday. The soup was tonight’s mission…a whole bunch of stuff ended up in there- onion, yellow-eye beans, some turnip, potato (of course), carrot and the remaining cabbage. The soup turned out very hearty- one bowl will do and now we’ll have leftovers for the weekend! Don’t be afraid of the cabbage!

                                                                                                                                           -Josh

…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

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

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