Good Eats and Good News!

First the good eats.  We went to the Wayland Winter Market for the first time this season, despite the snow and scored some awesome stuff.

Fresh Chard!

Blue Oyster Mushroms

These lovelys are from a new vendor, which we were thrilled to see!  We love us some mushrooms, and being to find them locally always makes us happy.  These are from Laurelwood Farms in Paxton.

We turn those lovelies into a super dinner of mushroom ragu over fresh ground polenta.

Mushrooms and shallots and garlic waiting for dinner

Pretty side salad with spinah, also from the market

I can’t find the picture of the actual dinner, but it was good.  I’ll post a picture with the recipe later this week.

In the meantime, be distracted by our lunch, including cute birdy in the upper left who has discovered, surprisingly, that he likes people food.

Bean soup toast with cheese, pickled radish and hot tea. Yum.

The market was also special in that it was a fiber day, and lots of wool vendors were there.

Laura is learning to spin, and bought some lovely wool to help her along with her new hobby.  Theresa didn’t buy anything, but scoped out the good for the next wool day in February.

Laura’s swag.  I expect to be the one knitting this up into something lovely, someday.  Maybe when she graduates up to a proper spinning wheel.

And now to good news!  We got on the waiting list for a plot at the Brookline Community Gardens, and actually got a plot this year!  We had a choice of 30 x 15 feet or 15 x 15 feet.  We (I) opted for the smaller, to get our feet wet in this gardening a larger space thing.  So exciting!  We are perusing seed catalogs for heirloom varieties that will be interesting to grow.  We’ll be posting about our garden adventures from here on, so look out for that.

With that, I leave you.  Disjointed post, true, but it could be worse! Cheers!

ONCE in Valhalla Coming Up Tomorrow

Even though we can’t make it this year, we wanted to give a last shout out for Cuisine En Locale’s ONCE in Valhalla.  We went last year, and I must say, it was a divinely tasty mid-winter locavore treat.  Highly recommended! This year’s ONCE in Valhalla Feast is happening tomorrow, and I believe there might still be tickets available.  Here’s the scoop:

ONCE in Valhalla Returns to the Armory for a Night of Locavore Viking Feasting and Mythological Hijinx

 

SOMERVILLE, MA, January 3, 2012 – The renegade locavore chefs and personalities of Somerville’s own Cuisine in Locale (enlocale.com) are at it again, this time with a deep winter ONCE (One Night Culinary Event) that blends locavorism and lore in one unforgettable four-hour food fest featuring ancient live music and inspired theatrics directed by Allegra Libonati of the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.).

On Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 7 p.m., the 2nd ever ONCE in Valhalla will bring together feats of derring-dining in the form of all-the-meat-you-can-eat (and veggie sacrifices, too), as revelers mix and mingle with Aesir Gods, trolls, gnomes and Valkyries in Odin’s Mighty Hall (the Center for Arts at the Armory). This savory Scandinavian saga will feature locally sourced courses incorporating fish, oats, grains, oysters, game, lamb, ham, turkey, cheese, and an array of overwintered fruits and roots. Tickets are $75 at brownpapertickets.com.

Featured local delights include Slumbrew Beer, Green River Ambrosia Mead, freshly shucked Island Creek Oysters, gorgeous meats from Hardwick, MA’s Stillman at the Turkey Farm, Four Star Farms grains, Sherman Market pantry staples, and a smörgåsbord of storage crops from Red Fire Farm, Winter Moon, Northstar Farms and others.

All proceeds from this event go towards the cost of production and supporting local businesses by purchasing directly from farms and producers whenever possible. For additional queries about Valhalla or Cuisine en Locale, please contact Angie Gaimari, angie@enlocale.com, 212-961-7560.

WHO: Cuisine en Locale (enlocale.com), the area’s premiere all-local cooking company

WHAT: ONCE in Valhalla – a locally sourced all-you-can-eat 10-course Nordic feast, featuring theatrical performances and live music.

WHEN: Saturday, January 21, 7–11 p.m.

WHERE: The Center for Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA (map)

WHY: To celebrate, showcase and support local food culture and to transport Greater Bostonians to distant foreign lands in the dead of winter

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $75 at brownpapertickets.com, cash bar

WHAT TO WEAR: Artisanally knitted Valkyrie and Viking Helmets are available for purchase from Short Army, a Cambridge-based accessories company.

 

ABOUT CUISINE EN LOCALE

Cuisine en Locale (enlocale.com) is a locavore personal chef, catering and consulting service, based in Cambridge and Somerville, MA. Our team of creative cooks is dedicated to using only locally and regionally sourced ingredients to create deliciously seasonal meals all year round. Working directly with farmers and producers, we bring their food to table, making it good for them and the community at large. In addition to throwing grand scale, all-local food parties, we do a shared food program – think of it as a cooked CSA – called ONCE a Week; bringing healthy, wholesome meals to busy folks, and supporting local food systems at the same time.

 

ABOUT VALHALLA

The Vikings believed that when they fell in battle they would be swept up by Valkyries and carried up the rainbow bridge to Valhalla- Odin’s hall in the Aesir ‘heaven’, Asgard.  In Valhalla the fallen heroes would fight all day, honing their battle skills, but at night they embraced and headed to the hall’s long tables to eat, drink, sing and dance.

Local Nachos

Well, we’ve been enjoying local bounty quite nicely over the past couple of weeks.  It seems like the winter months are actually really easy to eat locally if you have prepared correctly.  I kept on wondering why I felt that way… and then our inventory reminded me- oh yeah, I spent most of the summer preserving stuff…. that’s why it seemed so busy….

Anyway, we’ve been enjoying an indulgent local meal a couple of times now.  Local nachos. Now, I know that Tex/Mex inspired dishes with creative New England locavore tendencies will not please the purists, but I will share, because it deserves sharing.

Radishes! Black, regular red, and green chinese.

I like radishes, but Theresa isn’t the biggest fan.  For some reason, I feel like mexican inspired meals need radish.  Go figure.  So, my best solution for this situation: quick pickled radishes.

Radishes hanging with brine. I love the confetti of colors with all the varieties of radishes.

I used our trusty recipe for a radish brine, found here, and then just popped the sliced radishes in and let it hang out in the fridge for a few hours.

What else do you need with nachos?  I mean we’re making a meal out of this.  Beans, of course.  We have been really enjoying the black turtle beans from our Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain CSA.

Black beans, with onion and garlic.

I also stewed some okra in roasted tomatoes (all put up during the summer in our inventoried freezers) with creole seasoning as a side.

And then, of course, corn, cheese, and corn chips…. yes, local tortilla strips-Number 9 from Paino Organics. Layer the chips, corn, beans, and cheese and broil, till lovely.

Nachos without the fixins.

And then you add the fixins, pickled radish, scallion, homemade salsa, and some sour cream like substance (that’s Sophia’s Yogurt for us). And you have something just dreamy.

Oh, yes. Local Nachos, in their full glory.

Add some local hot sauce made by our friends and you are in heaven.  Local nacho heaven.

What local fixin’s would you add to your local nachos?

Local Nacho Ingredient Sources:

• Tortilla Strips: Number 9 from Paino Organics (carried by Sherman’s Market)
• Cheese:  Shelburne Farm Cheddar
• Black Turtle Beans: Pioneer Valley Heritage Grain CSA
• Corn, radishes, salsa ingredients, hot sauce ingredients, okra, onion, roasted tomatoes: Red Fire Farm
• “Sour Cream”: Sophia’s Greek Yogurt
• Salt: Maine Sea Salt
• Scallions: Our patio garden

Coasting Along in Early January

Nothing too much happening here, just coasting along the first week after the holidays and prepping for the rest of the winter.  We are tapping into some of our beans and grains.

The black beans from our CSA are divine.  Look at that purple color!  The weird looking thing next the beans is a piece on Atlantic Kombu, a form of seaweed, courtesy of Iron Bound Island.  Inside tip of the week, adding kombu is a great way to decrease the gassy end result of eating beans.  Soak the beans at least 8 hours with a piece of kombu, rinse and cook with the seaweed.  It really helps and the seaweed adds a ton of trace minerals that we might not get.  Not eating enriched foods is great, but we need to make sure we eat food from all soucres to get plenty of stuff like iodine, selinium and B vitamins.  That slimy gray thing? Nutrient powerhouse.  Even better, in pureed soups, it disappears completely!

This is the perfect bitterly cold day soup.  Beans cooked with garlic and onion, dried pepper and tomatoes, all pureed to perfection when everything is tender and falling apart.  Served with winter coleslaw and roasted squash, it was super.  This was one occasion that the quality of the beans really elevated something simple to the next level.

Same thing with these corn fritters.  They are mostly corn, held together with enough egg, yogurt and cornmeal that they don’t fall apart.  Served with aged cheddar and apple butter we got as a gift over Christmas, it makes a great breakfast (and puts a dent in our freezer storage!)

Speaking of storage, we did an inventory to kick off the new year on the right foot.

It’s blurry, but this is the list of our food in both freezers.  It is a LOT of food, and we are going to be putting a moratorium on shopping for anything besides cheese and apples for a while as we work through this mess and try to keep up with our Deep Winter CSA share.  Maybe we’ll get some fresh greens here and there, but damn, we have a ton of food to eat.  This list doesn’t include our canned goods (lots and lots, we put up more than last year) or our root storage (not quite as bad).

Luckily, we will have help eating it all.

Hope you are enjoying the strangely warm weather as much we are.  The arboretum is still splendid to visit, and we are loving every brisk day we can go and enjoy the park.  Enjoy it before mother nature drops the other shoe!

A New Year

And may it be lucky for you too!

I’m a little superstitious.  I like to do (read ‘eat’ here) lucky things for the New Year.  New Year’s Eve for us was particularly calm.  We went to Henrietta’s Table for a divine late lunch and then we had a quiet evening at home for reflection.  We finally broke open the one jar of holiday spiced cherries that we made at the beginning of our preserving this summer and served it over cake.  Nom.

Holiday spiced cherries and their delicious syrup over cake.

Then, on New Year’s Day, we made sure we had a very lucky day with lucky food.  For breakfast, we had coin sized pancakes with butter and maple syrup.  Anything that looks like coins or money is generally considered lucky.

Coin pancakes for prosperity for the new year.

For dinner, we chose a more Southern approach with beans and greens.

Yellow eyed beans from Maine. They also resemble coins for prosperity.

Greens of any type symbolize money.  Usually collards are the traditional pairing, but we only had green cabbage for greens, which I cooked up with some bacon and our home-made apple cider vinegar.

Cabbage=money. Who'd have thought.....

We also used a ham hock to cook the beans and vegetables with.  Two uses of pork in the meal is very lucky.  Pigs only root forward, which symbolizes a forward view to the year- not looking back on the past.

Cornbread out of the cast iron skillet. Nom.

Lastly, I made cornbread.  Is cornbread lucky?  Dunno.  It felt appropriate for the meal, though.  Maybe the corn kernels that I ground into meal also symbolize coins?  Either way, I think it went well with the rest of the meal.

New Year's Day Meal: Yellow eyed beans with vegetables and ham hock, wilted cabbage with bacon, and cornbread.

And thus our new year was started on the right gastronomic foot: lucky local food. 

What else have we been up to?  Not too much, the same old winter local cooking right now.

A lovely medley of carrots, potato, celeriac, and parsnips getting ready for roasting for a winter vegetable salad.

We got quite a few awesome winter eating cookbooks as presents for the holidays that we’ll be trying out in the next months. We will certainly keep you posted on those developments. I’m certainly excited!

Wishing you all a very lucky 2012.