April 9, 2011
There is finally some activity out in our garden (unlike this blog recently…or the Red Sox!)…the radishes which we planted in our raised bed three weeks ago have broken ground and are starting reach skyward. Hopefully winter has finally left and we can get on with Spring for good…now what to do with those Sox (and we’ll promise to post more!) ?
-Josh
March 28, 2011
…signs of life are starting to peek through in corners of our yard…the tulips have broken ground, the forsythia are starting to bud and the hostas are poking through. In response to these signals, I built a pea trellis in one of our raised beds to see if we can get some early season peas…along with some radishes. Of course, as soon as I put the seeds in the ground the temperatures cooled off a bit and the nighttime air has been below freezing. With the strong sun, however we’re hoping that the seeds will germinate and before long we’ll be eating our first vegetables of the season…but in the time being, we’ll have to settle for what’s available at the local markets (who do much better with greenhouses!).
-Josh
March 21, 2011
First of all, happy Spring everyone! We left for Portsmouth, NH on Friday afternoon with 70 degree temperatures and woke up on Saturday AM with snow squalls! Although they were minor, they were a quick reminder that the winter coats can’t be packed away just yet…and it’s a good thing we brought them on our little weekend getaway. While the majority of our trip was focused on visiting some friends in Portsmouth, we wanted to highlight a little slice of food goodness right over the bridge in Kittery, ME. Ingrid used to live within walking distance of the “Big Three”- Carl’s Meat Market, Golden Harvest and Beach Pea Baking. We would strap on our backpacks, make the trek across the bridge and get all of our supplies for the week. Beach Pea is primarily a bakery that has a small amount of seating that focuses on bread and baked goods. The fougasse is one of our favorites…and make sure you’re not there on a Sunday because it’s closed! Golden Harvest is a throwback green grocer with the added amenities of dairy, dried/canned foods and a decent wine selection. Their herbs are quite a bargain- be sure to go to the back door inside the building and ask them to cut some for you…you’ll be surprised. The last of the group is Carl’s Meat Market…a full service butcher with a decent beer section and prepared foods that you can buy and eat outside (or elsewhere). The prices are reasonable and the meat is of great quality…plus the staff is very helpful of you have questions. So next time you cross the border into ME, head over to route 1 and check these places out!
-Josh
March 4, 2011
As some of you may or may not know, I’m into homebrewing and a lot of things that revolve around beer (judging competitons, general consumption, etc, etc…) and one of the problems with us doing the 100 mile challenge here in RI is that the grains used for brewing are not generally grown here. Most of the grains grown on American soil come from the upper Midwest and our foreign supplies mainly come from Germany and England. Well, thanks to a small producer out in Hadley, MA (within our 100 mile radius) called Valley Malt we now have an option to acquire locally grown and malted barley to make a fully local beer! I just acquired some the other night and I’ll be doing a test run with the product on Sunday…I’ll let you know how it turns out!
…in other beer-related news check out Idle Hands Craft Ales, a nanobrewery project that our friends Chris and Grace are launching in Everett, MA!
-Josh
February 17, 2011
This past Saturday, I cooked up Ingrid her Valentine’s Day dinner…I know it was a little early, but doing it on a Saturday allowed for more time and we got to walk it off on Sunday. We started and ended with chocolate- toasted rye bread with melted chocolate and sea salt to begin with and homemade salted truffles to end. I used Italian sea salt, Swedish flaked salt, ancho salt, hibiscus salt and himalayan salt to dust the truffles. In between the chocolate courses we had a puff pastry ham and cheese with homemade honey mustard (ham was prosciutto and cheese was gruyere) and a RI braised short rib with chard, mashed potato and roasted onion. Below are scenes from the meal:
-Josh
February 8, 2011
…so it looks like the results of the poll are a tie. Only three people voted, spreading their votes over all three answers. For that one lucky person that voted for “homemade bucatini”- you’re correct! Ingrid gave me a pasta extruder for the kitchen aid mixer which has a whole host of pasta shapes that you can make. I tried the bucatini because you really don’t come across them too often. I made a simple egg and flour pasta dough and then fed walnut-sized chunks of dough through the extruder. A nifty wire cutter is connected to the bottom of the attachment, so all you need to do is pull that across the die when the pasta is at its desired length. A little bath in boiling water and smothered with some curried squash blossom sauce from this summer was all it needed. We’ll have to continue through all the shapes to see what’s our favorite!
-Josh
January 26, 2011
Last year for Christmas, Ingrid’s parents gave us a little fryer to add to our repertoire. In an effort to use it more, I decided to try doing some fish and chips in it. I grabbed some potatoes out of storage, scrubbed them up and then sliced them on the mandoline. The sliced potatoes then went through a couple of soaks in cold water and then were dried on a dish towel. Following that, I cooked them twice- once at 320 degrees for 5-6 minutes and the second fry was at a warmer 375 degrees…the first to cook the potato and the second to crisp up the outside (while keeping the inside fluffy). The potatoes were drained on paper towels in between the frying sessions and then after the second one to keep them from soaking up excess oil. The fish (haddock) was dipped in a beer batter and fried at 325 degrees for 6-7 minutes to give it enough time to cook and its golden color. The fryer worked perfectly- the best part is that there is a small charcoal filter in the lid to cut down on the smell…the bad part is the cleanup!
-Josh
January 18, 2011
This past Sunday, we celebrated Ingrid’s grandmother’s 93rd birthday in the form of a Sunday brunch. We’ve cooked brunchy stuff before, but nothing really too formal, so this was a new challenge for us. I chose to center the meal around David Chang’s homemade english muffins from the Momofuku cookbook. We started the muffins the night before by making the dough. Early on Sunday, I coaxed each muffin to form it’s nooks and crannies by meticulously heating them over a bed of cornmeal on a slightly warm cast iron griddle. Once risen, the heat was pumped up, the muffins were toasted on both sides and then sent into the oven for finishing. Quite the process, but the result was fantastic (Ingrid’s grandmother approved whole-heartedly!)…here is a slideshow of the process:
-Josh
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January 7, 2011
We had a little gingerbread and frosting left so I decided to bake them all off and Josh helped me decorate them for some friends. There’s an overview of most of the cookies and then two of Josh’s best! The man is supposed to look like a fish – the new (edible) abstract art?
Can you guess which one is trying out for Blue Man Group?
