We got a little carried away. (Click the photos to read about what we got.)
Morning Edition
09 Saturday Aug 2008
Posted in Uncategorized, weekend eats and drinks
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Salad Days III
31 Thursday Jul 2008
Posted in bacon, corn, lobster, quick and easy, salads, tomatoes, Uncategorized
Lobster chopped salad. With bacon. Because a ridiculously bad day at the office calls for a little luxury, don’t you think?
See you all next week.
Salad Days II
30 Wednesday Jul 2008
Posted in potatoes, quick and easy, salads, squid, Uncategorized
I think I’ve spoken before of my fondness for Rhode Island-style calamari, but did you know that most of the squid served in restaurants in this country is actually from the waters off little Rhody? I didn’t until I read an article about it in the Spring 2008 issue of Edible Rhody magazine, and since then I’ve happily indulged in this local treat whenever possible.
I’ve lamented the fact that, to my surprise, fresh local seafood can be difficult to find in stores around here, but our nearby Whole Foods often has plenty of Point Judith squid available. It’s inexpensive and plentiful, and I picked up a pound of it recently hoping to make it the focus of a meal.
I had originally planned to go in a slightly different direction here, but I settled on a salad infused with Spanish flavors, mixing up a smoked Spanish paprika and sherry vinaigrette to dress the smoky grilled squid and warm potatoes. Chopped shallot and celery added some crunch, and plenty of fresh celery leaves and parsley provided an herbal bite. The finishing touch was a few slivers of fresh red chile pepper, which imparted a gentle heat and pop of color.
Salad days
29 Tuesday Jul 2008
Posted in eggs, meatless, okra, quick and easy, salads, Uncategorized
Every time I think the market can’t possibly have more beautiful summer produce to offer, I’m proven wrong – it’s almost too much of a good thing. It’s hard for me to exercise restraint with so much bounty before me, and when I bring it all home it’s important not to let it go to waste.
Luckily, we love our veggies, and this time of year it’s easy to load up on them. This salad was the first of many main dish versions I have planned for the week, and it features two southern favorites: fried green tomatoes and fried okra. I did a basic dredge, first in a mixture of buttermilk and beaten egg, then coated the tomatoes and okra in seasoned flour and cornmeal, and fried them in batches until crisp and golden. I arranged them on a bed of young, peppery arugula leaves, drizzling them with a buttermilk-Tabasco vinaigrette. A smattering of halved yellow and red grape tomatoes came next, and to gild the lily a wee bit more, I topped each plate with a poached egg.
One of the things we both loved about this salad was the interplay between the tart and crusty green tomatoes and the sweet fresh ones. The dressing was a total experiment, but a successful one, providing a little bit of heat and becoming creamier as it mixed with the egg yolk.
Kick it up a nach
15 Tuesday Jul 2008
Posted in meatless, Uncategorized
I’ll admit it – I’m a sucker for bar food. Rings, wings, Buffalo-style anything, if it’s deep-fried, salty, gooey and generally bad for you, it’s probably something I love. I indulge on occasion, but more often, I think of ways to make those treats at home, preparing them in a way that is more in line with our typical way of eating.
Generally, when I roll out an interpretation of this type of food, it’s for one of our cocktail parties, or for a small gathering of friends – I generally don’t think to make a meal out of it. But I wanted to do something a little different for our meatless Monday dinner, and when I thought of the things we had around – the extra ears of grilled corn from Sunday night, the corn tortillas, radishes, cabbage and salsa from the farmers’ market, some leftover cooked rice, the beans we’ve always got on hand, and of course cheese – my general direction was clear, but none of my usual preparations were sending me. But then I thought: nachos.
Deep-fried, salty, gooey nachos. Oh, yes. Cutting the tortillas into wedges and frying them would be simple, and we had an abundance of good stuff to top them with, but I didn’t want to turn on the oven to melt the cheese, so I decided to make a cheese sauce, instead – a little butter, a little flour, a little milk and a variety of odds and ends of cheese which were lingering in the fridge, spiked with cumin and Tabasco. It would be pourable, dribbling into all of those nooks and crannies and layers of toppings, so much nicer than plain old melted cheese, and a lot more flavorful than that microwave-in-a-jar cheese “product”.
The nachos were built on a base of homemade chips, with layers of black rice and beans reheated with a bit of salsa, then the grilled corn, cut off the cob and tossed with diced roasted red pepper and some of my pickled chiles, the cheese sauce, shredded cabbage, sliced radishes, and a little salsa and creme fraiche on top.
Now tell me you don’t want a bite of that.
Weekend Eats (and Drinks)
14 Monday Jul 2008
Posted in fava beans, Uncategorized, weekend eats and drinks
This was one of those weekends that was kinda perfect. We had beautiful weather, great times with friends, and of course, great food.
There was so much to choose from at the farmers’ market Saturday morning, with corn, blueberries, potatoes and hardneck garlic all making their first appearance, and an abundance of favas, heirloom tomatoes, and other summer goodies, that it was very, very hard to exercise restraint, but we tried.
Okay, maybe we weren’t terribly successful, but hey – a good friend from New York was coming to town, so rather than meeting somewhere for dinner, we invited her over to help us work through some of our bounty.
This was one of the best things I ate all weekend. I love fava beans, and I’ve had my eye on a recipe in Sunday Suppers at Lucques for a while now – a puree of favas, served with feta and olives and garlicky toasts – so I put my own spin on it.
As Suzanne does, I gently stewed my shelled favas in olive oil with garlic and chile and summer savory in place of the rosemary in the original recipe, then I whizzed them in the food processor. My twist was to add a dollop of fresh ricotta in place of some of the olive oil, and instead of serving an olive-feta salad on top of the puree, I spread the mixture on grilled slices of Seven Stars’ olive stick and sprinkled a bit of flaky sea salt on top. Bliss.
Our main course was grilled lamb skewers with a lemon-garlic scape sauce for dipping, creamy white beans and heirloom tomatoes with feta and mint, all washed down with a smoky Spanish red.
Mike’s gearing up for Tales of the Cocktail later this week, and as such he has been mixing a lot of the classics, one of which was this delicious and incredibly refreshing Ramos Gin Fizz to go with our Sunday brunch of steak and eggs.
The thing about egg white drinks, though, is that you’re left with leftover yolks. But I couldn’t very well let these beauties go to waste. What to do…
I whisked those yolks and olive oil into an aioli, which became the base for a dressing for coleslaw, which as a general rule, I don’t like.
This time was different.
As Mike reminded me, cole slaw doesn’t *have* to be bad, it’s really all about using super fresh ingredients and making sure the veggies and dressing are in balance. Which I think I achieved. The slaw had a nice amount of crunch, and the dressing had a bit of richness from the aioli but was still light and zippy from the addition of fresh garlic, dijon mustard and champagne vinegar. It was good – surprisingly so – and as a matter of fact I just polished off a big helping for lunch. Yum.
Light and bright
03 Thursday Jul 2008
Posted in beets, halibut, quick and easy, Uncategorized
When temperatures rise, our whole way of eating changes – we often make dinner out of nothing but a good, lean protein and a whole mess of veggies. Again, it’s about stripping things down, simplifying flavors so that the freshness of the good stuff we bring home from the market shines through.
Last night was another of those meals. A couple halibut filets, seared in olive oil until golden, and served on top of a beet “carpaccio” – red and golden beets sliced as thinly as possible (and since my mandoline slicer has disappeared since our move, I did it the old fashioned way), steeped briefly in vinegar (champagne vinegar for the golden beets; sherry for the red), then layered on our plates. They got a sprinkling of lemon thyme, some thinly sliced purple scallions, Maldon salt, freshly ground pepper and a drizzle of grassy olive oil before the fish went on top, and I finished the plates with a salad of baby mustard greens and picked flat-leaf parsley.
The flavors were fresh and vibrant, and dinner was ready in minutes, with minimal cleanup – leaving us more time to enjoy the warm evening. Isn’t that what summer cooking is all about?
Weekend Eats (and Drinks)
30 Monday Jun 2008
Posted in Uncategorized, weekend eats and drinks
Another end to a busy weekend, but it was a good one, if a little hot and sticky at the end. I can’t complain too much – after all, it is summer, and the heat is helping bring forth all sorts of good things to eat. Like these raspberries, for example. They are bursting out all over our yard, ripening as quickly as we can pick and eat them. Not a bad problem to have.
Speaking of berries and things that go with them, I really need to tell you about this salad I made earlier in the week. It doesn’t technically fall under the “Weekend Eats” category, but since I didn’t get around to doing a proper post I want to mention it here. I brought home some rhubarb from one of the farmers markets in Boston, and Mike cooked it down to a puree. We figured that way he could use it in cocktails and I could incorporate it into meals, and I did just that, combining it with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil to dress a salad of tender spinach, strawberries, crushed hazelnuts and lots of black pepper. It was lovely – tart and creamy and really delicious. We had the salad alongside simply sauteed Bomster scallops, but the salad would be an awesome main course with a little feta or goat cheese crumbled on top.
But back to the weekend, which we kicked off with another beautiful bird from Pat’s Pastured, expertly grilled by my guy. He made another compound butter, this time seasoning it with plenty of garlic scapes, thyme and summer savory, and he also chucked a couple of foil-wrapped baking potatoes right onto the coals to cook while the chicken grilled.
My contribution was a simple salad and sparkling conversation (ha). Mostly, I ooohed and aaahed and licked my fingers, happily munching away on my meal.
Oh! But I did bring home the wine for Friday dinner – and funnily enough, it was the second Chenas we drank this week. Not a common varietal, at least not for us, but we really loved both of the versions we tried.
Saturday morning came and again we made our way to Hope High, not as early as we would have liked, but still in plenty of time to pick up what we needed: another chicken for later this week, various veggies, and six (count ‘em) more bunches of garlic scapes, destined for pesto.
We also picked up another fresh, gorgeous lobster from Matunuck, which turned into lunch:
I’d been craving a lobster roll since our ill-fated attempt to get into Summer Shack in Boston on Thursday evening with friends visiting from Brooklyn, so I figured I’d make some myself. I boiled the lobster for 10 minutes in salted water, removed the meat from the shell, and when it cooled a bit I chunked it up and bound it with a mix of mayo, creme fraiche, lemon juice, salt, pepper and summer savory. I divided the mixture and spooned it into two buttered, toasted whole wheat hot dog buns, lined with a little soft buttercrunch lettuce. They were a little drippy, but divine, particularly with cold Amadeus white bier.
Mike took the reins after that, with a lovely round of Blue Moon cocktails and an even lovelier pork butt, slow-cooked for hours in our new Weber Bullet smoker.
He also put together a delicious vinegar sauce for the pork, and I provided the sides: my basic potato salad, subbing in some garlic scape pesto and (yes, again) summer savory for the usual dill, as well as a tomato and cucumber salad over more of that buttercrunch lettuce.
Just looking at this makes me want to eat this meal all over again.
The only thing we ate at home on Sunday was breakfast – we had a full day of errands ahead of us, and a Zipcar to take us around, so I wanted to fortify us for our travels with something substantial:
My spin on croque madame, a simplified version with grated gruyere mixed into a spread rather than a sauce Mornay.
I’m still completely dazzled by the eggs we can get here – Wishing Stone Farm‘s are probably the best we’ve gotten anywhere.
Tired from our day and struggling in the oppressive heat, we decided on a late lunch/early dinner at El Rancho Grande. A couple of cold beers and several plates of food later, we headed home full and happy, already looking forward to our next visit.
a change of seasons
22 Sunday Jun 2008
Posted in Uncategorized
I said to Mike the other night that I want my old life back. Which isn’t exactly true… in fact, it’s mostly false. I adore where we live – both the city and the dwelling. I love working in Boston again, rediscovering old haunts and staking out new ones. I am incredibly happy with how this move has helped me physically, and how the clean air, slower pace and quieter surroundings have been for our mental health. Making this move was the right thing at the right time, and I have no regrets. But it has come with a price.
I step out the door in the morning, and I don’t arrive home until almost 13 hours later. It’s a long day for me – for both of us. And I still cook, most nights, and there have been so many meals over the last couple of weeks that I have wanted to share here, but I just can’t seem to make the time. Heck, I can’t even keep up with comments, email, any of it.
My new laptop is great, but I’ve been less than impressed by the MBTA’s free wi-fi. Service is spotty, if it works at all, and the time I thought I could carve out at either end of my commute to process photos, draft and publish blog posts, and generally keep up with life on the internets just hasn’t materialized. And I miss it.
It’s funny, this thing we do. You read someone’s blog, look at their photos, get a glimpse into their homes and their lives. You comment and reply to comments. You make connections. And being away from it, not having the time that I would like to have to keep up with this little part of my life has been difficult and frustrating. And yes, I suppose the fact that when I get home at the end of the day, I’m mostly interested in sitting with my husband and the cats, having a cocktail while we talk about our day and prep dinner rather than rushing off to get online means that my priorities are where they should be, but I miss having the time to fit it all in. I wish there were more hours in the day, even just one, so that I could fit it all in.
I hate to complain, because in the grand scheme of things, this is so very minor. When I started this blog, it was a way for me to catalogue what I was cooking, and in a way, to keep track of what was going on in our lives at the time. When we decided to move here one of the first things we did was scope out the food scene, and eating our way around our new city has been a wonderful experience that I wish I were keeping a better record of.
Summer’s here, and as we all know, it goes by far too quickly. Here’s hoping I can save a few snapshots of it for posterity.
Gone to the birds
12 Thursday Jun 2008
Posted in chicken, Uncategorized
Since we got Pollan-ated, buying humanely raised, free roaming chickens has been a priority for us. When we still lived in NYC it was easy – we could rely on “the bearded guy” (in our case, Mike of Tamarack Hollow Farm) or a few other trusted Greenmarket purveyors for the good stuff, and while we pay far more than for a supermarket bird, we have found it to be well worth it in terms of quality and flavor. That we were spending more also meant it was imperative to use every bit – one whole roasted or grilled chicken would yield a great dinner the first night, then remaining meat would be shredded and incorporated into soup or pot pie or taco/enchilada filling or chicken salad, and the bones and trimmings would be frozen and used for stock.
When we moved, we hoped we would be able to find chicken of the same quality that we had grown accustomed to. We had heard great things about Antonelli’s on Federal Hill, but the birds we brought home, while unarguably fresh, were lacking in the flavor department. We were incredibly disappointed, and though we knew hat in a pinch we could (and did) fall back on the air-chilled, organic free range birds sold at Whole Foods and the like, we missed the whole connection of being able to talk to the person who actually raised those chickens. It may sound hokey, but it’s true, and it’s important to us.
The Hope High farmers’ market kicked off in full force last Saturday, and as we have done for the last several preview weeks, Mike and I made the short walk down to get there bright and early. Though we had always brought home good things to eat from the pre-season market, the offerings were a bit sparse, so we were thrilled to see so many new stands when we arrived. Among them was Pat’s Pastured, selling grass-fed ground beef from Watson Farm, and pastured pork and chickens from their own Casey Farm. We waited our turn and made our selections, then we waited for our beautiful bird to thaw in the fridge (apparently local laws prohibit them from selling fresh meat, so everything must be frozen).
Yesterday, our chicken was finally ready to cook, and while I was on the train home, Mike got the grill going, spatchcocked the bird and rubbed it down with a compound butter spiked with his chile powder and smoked paprika. We enjoyed a cocktail on the patio while it cooked, and from the smell of it we knew we were in for something good.
When the chicken was nearly done, I prepared the sides – black-eyed peas, doctored up with shallot and smoked paprika, and collards from the farmers’ market, stemmed and chopped, quickly sautéed in olive oil then covered and left to steam through, and finally hit with a splash of sherry vinegar before serving. Mike warmed up a little of the barbecue sauce he made over the weekend to serve on the side, and once he carved the chicken into serving pieces, we sat down to give it a taste.
It was exactly what we’ve been missing – ultra-crispy skin, juicy and richly flavored meat, absolutely delicious. We all but forgot about the sauce since the chicken was so good on its own, and we hadn’t even finished our meal before we were talking about what to do with our next bird, and about stockpiling some in the freezer when the market season nears its end in November. I can’t wait to walk up to the guy at Pat’s Pastured on Saturday, introduce myself and thank him for the first of what I’m sure will be many great chicken dinners.
