Lunch routine?

We just wanted to take a minute to share our lunch with you. It’s rare that The Salted Cod gets stuck in a lunchtime routine but we seem to be handling this okay.





We have been making a small salad with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and shaved carrots (everything but the tomatoes came from our CSA) and topped with a quick lemon vinaigrette.


We also purchased three year barley miso from South River Miso here in Massachusetts. Just plop an over sized table spoon of miso into a coffee mug with a lid and add some furikake for extra flavor. This is a Japanese seasoning which consists of a mixture of sesame seeds, bonito flakes and seaweed. To finish, we add fresh tofu and chopped scallions. This has worked out to be a quick and easy lunch at work. When ready to eat, just go to the water cooler and add hot water. Talk about instant soup, take that ramen noodles!

We're not one to eat at our desk or be chained indoors at lunch so we usually take it to the streets.

Tomatillos!

Red or green? Those 3 words make up the offical New Mexico state question. With the Balloon Fiesta around the corner and 2,230 miles between us we can’t help but think about green chile harvest season in New Mexico. Luckily, we received a nice batch of tomatillos from Steve at Parker Farm and decided to use these as a base for our pork chile verde. Given we did not have green chilies to make this truly authentic, we found poblanos to be a worthy contender.

The first step to a great chile verde involves lots of roasting. We grabbed our largest baking pan and threw in our tomatillos along with four jalapenos drizzled with oil.

We roasted our pepper pan at 500 for a good 20 minutes until the skins were slightly charred. While those were roasting in the oven, we utilized all four burners on our gas stovetop as a make-shift chili roaster for the poblanos. The chilies finished around the same time and the house smelled SPICY!

In our over-sized Le Creuset we slowly browned four pounds of pork shoulder and to this we added a puree of the roasted tomatillos and peppers, four cups of chicken stock and cumin to taste. Set to low heat, we walked away and let our stew simmer for 6 hours.

After the stew was done simmering, we had delicious filling for our enchiladas topped with fresh cilantro and jack cheese.

The Salted Cod is not one for showboating but this was an excellent chile verde and we couldn't have been prouder. It brought us right back to our stay in New Mexico.

Here is our Share! Week 12

Starting at the top from left to right: arugula, mizuna, celery, corn, potatoes, cherry tomatoes.

The Salted Cod gets excited when Steve opens his truck door and corn is pilled high, practically bursting from the seams. We can only imagine what it must be like growing up in the Corn Belt where these ears are everyone's source of income. The scent was sweet with a hint of the farm, something Midwesterners must be all too familar with during those hot summer months. It also reminded us of our favorite regional scent when we traveled to Hatch New Mexico. In Hatch, chilies are drying and roasting everywhere you turn (including rooftops). The scent was so thick in the air you could smell it on your clothes and hair the next day; a delicious combination of smokey, sweet and spicy. We are trying to think of what a true New England scent would be to represent summer. Maybe low tide or rotting cod from the fisherman’s catch...

Anyway, back to week 12:

Week 12 is all about corn chowder! We made LOTS of corn chowder…

In our wonderful Le Creuset dutch oven we cooked 6 slices of bacon (we like our chowda smokey here). Once cooked, we removed the bacon and left about 2 tbs of the grease to sauté our onions, celery, and a few celery leaves. That right, we said celery leaves. Once softened and translucent we added 6 ears worth of corn kernels, 4 cups of whole milk and 2 cups of chicken stock. We also added halved cherry tomatoes and precooked and chopped potatoes. A little salt & pepper and you are good to go.


We had enough for dinner and to freeze for the colder months.

Here is our Share!Week 11

Starting at the top from left to right: purple basil, arugula, celery, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions, red potatoes

Tomatoes, tomatoes, finally week 11 brings tomatoes. We received a nice pint of plump cherry tomatoes. The Salted Cod was popping these babies like candy on the way home from the drop.

Week 11 also brings us a great harvest salad. Maybe we were a bit overexcited this week; it feels like most of the produce went into this salad. (We aren’t complaining)

We made mustard vinaigrette with a good grainy French Dijon. The vinaigrette dressed our arugula greens as seen in the middle. On top we have some quick pickled onions which were a nice zesty addition to this. Notice our new sea salt on the cherry tomatoes! Green peppers, purple basil and fresh mozzarella are also coming to this party.

This is a caprese omelette! Fresh mozzarella, tomato and purple basil fill this big guy.

Another very quick caprese, only this time we are out of basil, both from the share and home grown.









Finally, we made celery soup with our red taters and onions.

Here is our Share!Week 10

Starting at the top from left to right: carrots collards, baby bok choy, basil, corn, baby potato, green peppers, and zucchini.

Keep the carrots and potatoes coming! The carrots have been getting us through the work day, great snack. We used our potatoes again for an awesome Sunday breakfast. We can’t get enough of them.

Another batch of pesto is tucked away in my freezer for those chillier months. The Salted Cod is whipping through olive oil this summer. We need to start buying in bulk.

The baby bok choy was a great addition to a stir fry, it so fresh and tender.

It looks like it’s a two stir fry week, we sautéed down some green peppers, zucchini, and an onion from week 9. Put in a little but of soy, garlic, and hot sauce with a side of rice.

Good living.

Here is our Share!Week 8

Starting at the top from left to right: carrots, superstar spring onions, beets, cucumbers, basil, cauliflower, broccoli, red bliss potatoes.

Week 8 is summer vacation week for The Salted Cod. This week we took a road trip out to Lancaster to pick up our share at the farm. It was a fun morning, I got to see the where all my great produce is grown and had a bit of time to hang out with Steve as well.


The star of week 8 is our veggie roast! The Salted Cod loves roasted vegetables. We had a nice selection of the great sweet onions with tops, extra creamy potatoes, carrot and lots of fresh basil.

The veggies were mixed lightly with olive oil and seasoned aggressively with black pepper and lightly with sea salt. We let it roast at 450 until the potatoes were just crispy on the outside. This roast took right around an hour.
MMM…

Here is our Share!Week 7

Starting at the top from left to right: yellow carrots, "superstar" spring onions, beets, cauliflower, cilantro, basil, cucumbers.

This summer is flying by. We were so excited for more basil that we whipped up a batch of pesto to freeze for later use. The yellow carrots were an awesome snack for the work week as well as the sauteed beets for use in salads. The cilantro was excellent in some homemade guacamole.

We've roasted our cauliflower with lemon, fresh balcony grown dill, garlic and olive oil. The oven was set to 450 and let it go for about an hour. The cauliflower came out nice and crispy. It had a deep nutty roasted flavor but the lemon and dill kept it fresh which was a nice offset.






15 minute pickles!

We have adapted this recipe from The Salted Cod's favorite cookbook How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.

We sliced one cuke into chips, which were then put in a strainer and heavily salted. Toss them around to make sure each chip gets salted.

After 10 minutes the chips should have released most of their water content. Go ahead and wash the chips under running water, you want to remove all of the extra salt. In a small bowl big enough to hold your chips pour 1/4 cup of white vinegar over the cuke chips. Mix in 1 tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of dried dill. Eat them quickly because they actually don't last all that long. They have been a favorite treat of many of The Salted Cod's companions this summer including confirmed pickle haters. It's a nice salty/acidic balance. Good stuff.

Here is our Share!Week 5

Starting at the top from left to right: carrots, broccoli, mustard greens, spring onions, romaine, arugula, baby bok choy , boston lettuce.

Steve was kind enough to take time out of his 4th of July holiday to do the Wednesday drop. Much appreciated. This weeks fresh greens arrived just in time for a last minute independence day bbq . We made a HUGE salad with the boston, romaine and arugula then mixed with some homemade lemon vinaigrette and spring onion greens.

The Salted Cod loved the chicken & broccoli so much we've made it again this week with more of our sauteed spring onion greens. Man, those were sweet and tender. We're hoping for more next week.

Carrots carrots carrots...mmm bugs would kill for these. We brought them camping and had a few each day. Excellent.

Sorry for the lack of pictures this week. Our camera is making us sad.

Here is our Share!Week 4

Starting at the top from left to right: Beets, Red Chard, Red Russian Kale, Fennel, Lettuce, Broccoli, Baby Bok Choy.

Week Four is here!

Ziti, chicken and broccoli pasta












This is roasted fennel potato salad with a mustard vinaigrette base. The Salted Cod thinks the fresh fennel frawns on top is a nice touch.

This is the Salted Cod's first attempt at a quiche. Red chard with some other kitchen veggies.

The Salted Cod thanks the Parker Farm CSA Members

Live Jornal community for some great ideas this week.

Here is our Share!Week 3

Starting at the top from left to right: Red Chard, Broccoli Rabe, Arugula, Beets, Sugar Snap Peas, Japanese Turnips & lettuce.

With week three upon we are starting to receive a more diverse share. Things are looking up and tasting good!

We could not wait to get our hands on the broccoli raab. I have to admit I was jealous last week when I heard that the larger shares were receiving some. We gave the raab a quick steam bath to loosen them up and make them feel good before stewing them in some fresh sausage sauce. The raab and sauce went over some fresh gnocchi from Capones.

We couldn't stop popping the sugar snap peas au natural.

Sauteed red chard, grilled salmon and lemons.

The last honorable mention this week;
The Salted Cod has pickled some baby beets to save for a later date.

Here is our share! Week 2

Starting at the top from left to right: Swiss Chard, Collard Greens, Lettuce, Arugula, Red Russian Kale, & Pea Tendrils.

Another week of greens! Steve promised some "non greens" next week. Either way another week of great salads with the lettuce and arugula.


Kale and Collards: Southern style with ham hocks







We also had a little Father's day grilling action!

Lemon garlic sauteed pea tendrils, grilled nectarines, grilled bbq chicken and red bliss potato salad.

Here is our share! Week 1

We are happy to announce a new weekly series entitled, “Here is our share!” These specific posts are going to follow our CSA share from Parker Farm in Lunenburg, Massachusetts through out the summer and into the fall. Every Wednesday we meet up with Mr. Parker in Cambridge where he drops off weekly vegetable shares for us urban people who buy a share in his farm for the season. We receive a great variety of different items that are currently in season. It’s a great value which goes to a noble cause and it's super fresh! You can even talk to the farmer who grows your food (how many of you can say that?) We will post a picture of what was received for the week, and an entry or two of the more exciting things we have made with the share.

WEEK 1

Starting at the top from left to right: mustard greens, turnip greens, mizuna, spinach, lettuce, and bok choy.



After making a nice salad with some of the mizuna and boston lettuce greens we quickly turned out attention to the baby bok choy in share number one. The greens were chopped off the top while the bottoms were halved and braised with some wild mushrooms. We paired these tender greens with teriyaki chicken and brown rice. Next time we would suggest caramelizing the bok choy just a bit more.

Other tips after week one; let the greens soak in a large bowl then a few times around in a salad spinner. Not that we mind, but there is significantly more sand and dirt in these greens than the mega mart variety. It’s still a nice trade off.