I remember Halloween...

Happy Hauntings from The Salted Cod!

I’ve enclosed a slightly embarrassing picture of my radical costume this year, "Cosmic space dude." Every year we embark on a zombie trolley ride around the city of Boston to go party hopping and try to spook the general public.

The highlight for me is wolfing down as many Halloween treats as I can at manage to eat at each party. I had way too many spooky shrimp, devious deviled eggs and other tasty Halloween treats. Not to mention plenty of devil's punch which may have caused me to space dance with my snazzy silver space cape.

We will be heading out to Salem Massachusetts to take in the festivities tonight, maybe we'll see you there!

A special Misfits Halloween treat

Cider

This month, we were lucky enough to try our hands at a favorite New England tradition, apple cider pressing.

The idea first came about when our good friends in Shelburne Falls obtained a cider press which was built years ago but apparently had been "forgotten" about. We were shocked to discover this, but later learned the press was shared with a family friend who also took part in the building process and had been hiding it in their garage.

If you've never had the opportunity to visit Shelburne Falls, we highly recommend you do. Its small town New England at its best with everything you could ask for- glacial potholes, candle making, kayaking, foliage, sugar shacks, the bridge of flowers, an obscenely old bowling alley, the elderly and everyone's favorite shop Mo's Fudge Factor.

In order to make a significant amount of cider, we realized early on it would be quite expensive so we used our Shelburne connections to work a deal with the owner of a local apple orchard. Instead of picking perfect apples from the trees with everyone else, we followed a man in a golf cart to the back of the orchard who directed us to our ground apples. Sure the apples were full of bruises, bumps and other imperfections, but faired wonderfully for the cider (especially since they had higher sugar content from all that sitting around.) We heard tree apples are for snobs anyway. No time was wasted and quickly grabbed every apple we could cram into a Chevy Malibu. Don’t worry though; no members of The Salted Cod actually drive a Chevy Malibu.

I was given a lot of flack from the rest of our crew (particularly from a fellow Cod) for wanting to wash the apples before grinding them into a delicious juicy pulp. Apparently dirt on the apples provides character to your cider. Bull.




In the end, we compromised by hosing the apples down on the grass. After our short set back, we finally began grinding the apples. Although fun at first, grinding was far more labor intensive than we expected. It turns out that food bloggers are weaker than most folks, including large five year-olds. Luckily, one female member of our crew had a blue ribbon arm for grinding apples. When she became tired from cranking she’d simply switch off with the five year-old. It seemed like a good system.
















In case you were wondering, the ground apples were being caught and filtered by some old cheesecloth found in a junk drawer. I was skeptical of this at first but must admit, it really did the trick. So basically, once you’ve ground as many apples as you can fit in the barrel lined with cheesecloth, the press is then lowered and the cider begins to flow. If the press is lowered too quickly the cider flow will change from a fountain trickle to a small waterfall so we had to keep testing its limits until the right pressure was found.

We also discovered during this step (to no one's surprise) that bees love cider. We tried our hardest to shoo any cider-loving bees away from the press but one or two may have reached their fate and passed through. Of course, most of our crew didn't mind dirt in their cider so obviously a few bees didn’t phase them.


The cider was then filtered through cheesecloth one more time and poured into clean gallon jugs our Shelburne friends apparently bartered for from a local farmer.

We repeated these steps of washing, grinding, pressing and bottling the apples for the next three or four hours with relaxing kayaking breaks throughout the day.

In the end, we used every ground apple which produced around twelve gallons of cider. Because our cider was unpasteurized (with a fridge life of around one week), most of the cider was frozen for later enjoyment. I’m looking forward to sipping hot mulled cider this winter. We also provided the compost with large amounts of apple pulp.

A helpful hint when picking ground apples; wear clothing with long sleeves…especially if there is a nasty patch poison ivy surrounding your apples. It will really help prevent two long weeks of having to explain to your friends why you only have poison ivy on your forearms.

We have some cider surprises in store for the very near future, so stay tuned. Seriously.


Click here to view the complete photo set from our day on our flickr site

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.

Pretend You're Local.

The Salted Cod is never one to turn down a roadside stand. We’ve spent a lot of time in Maine this summer and this is the one establishment that we kept hearing and reading about but never had a chance to make it there. Finally we did.

Flo’s Hot dogs in Kittery Maine has been in operation since 1959. Flo dogs have been revered by locals, tourists, truckers and food critics alike. This is a one woman operation working out of a simple shack serving up dogs, soda, and chips. The floor slants upwards as you get closer to placing your order. We heard rumors that the older lady behind the counter has been compared to the soup nazi in Seinfeld, turning away customers who don’t order fast enough or leave the door open. One story goes a trucker stopped in to get a cup of coffee; she asks “how about a dog?” The trucker says “I ate down the street.” She says “you can get your coffee down the street too.” We unfortunately did not see her on our trip.

Inches away from hitting the ceiling at 5’8, the line was long and crowd was hungry. One larger (honestly large) man in line ahead of us suggested we order the house special. This consists of a steamed dog and bun topped with mayo, sauce and celery salt. We ordered 2, our friend ordered six.

The dogs were quite tasty and very soft, we were hesitant to order mayo on a dog but it worked quite well and we will never turn down the advice of a man of that stature. As for the sauce, from what we could take it was onions reduced in a molassesey sauce giving it the taste and look of Boston baked beans.

Our belly was quite happy and was actually barking for one more. This is a great stop for some classic American road food.

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.

With a Name Like "Kick Ass.."

The Salted Cod has made it known we have a weakness for cupcakes. We've been eagerly awaiting the opening of Kick Ass Cupcakes in Davis Square since that eye-catching sign first appeared some months ago.

Arriving late in the evening, the door was just minutes away from being locked so our selection was minimal. We purchased two cupcakes. The Lucky was our first, a lemon cake with white chocolate frosting and a few small pieces of candied ginger. As an added bonus, it comes with a small fortune on top, similar to one found in an actual fortune cookie. Also purchased was The Super Chocolate, a chocolate cake (obviously) with a dollop of rich chocolate on top, reminiscent of a thumbprint cookie from childhood and a few chocolate shavings to complete the look.



Over all, both cupcakes were much smaller than we hoped for the price of $2.75 each. They were also on the dry side but this might be due to purchasing so late in the day. Both had great presentation but fell short on flavor and consistency. With a name like "Kick Ass," we were really anticipating a tastier product.

The highlight for us was the fresh milk for sale from Shaw Farm in Dracut, MA. We'll be more likely to stop by again soon just for some milk.

The Salted Cod understands they are a new local business and we plan on giving Kick Ass Cupcakes another shot down the road. Next time we'll be sure to arrive earlier in the day and try a few different flavors, hopefully a Red Velvet if they have one.

Through the mill

We’ve had wild Concord grapes on the mind for a good week now. While riding bikes around the city we came across a patch with literally hundreds. Unfortunately they we’re just out of arms reach. After trying to hatch a scheme to acquire these we finally moved on and decided to look for others.

Yesterday it was just too nice to sit in traffic after work so we decided to go on an expedition in the woods. We had a few spots in mind out side of the city to check for grapes and sure enough they were ripe for the picking. We spent 2 hours picking wild Concord grapes from 3 different locations outside of Boston. We were so excited with our booty we brought our bushel right to the bathroom scale. We walked away with 10 pounds!

This begin phase 1 of wild Concord grapes.

We’ve taken 5 pounds of our grapes for jam making.

Very simple recipe

· Simmer 5 pounds of cleaned wild Concord grapes with 1 cup of water
· Run the simmer reduced product through a food mill. This will remove all the seeds and any tough skins.
· You should have about 6 cups of grapes after the mill. Simmer this with one box of pectin.
· Once dissolved add up to 7 cups of sugar.
· Can away…

This was actually quite labor intensive from vine to canned jam we spent around 6 hours. After the jam sets we will know if it’s worth it.

Some tips for finding wild grapes in your area. We’ve actually been finding them close to sources of water such as streams, ponds and swamps. They have also been on the edge of the wooded areas in sunny locations. Look high and look very low. Don’t be afraid to use your nose to follow the scent.

Just like Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Two of our favorite things are coming together this holiday season.

Our favorite badass celeb chef Anothony Bourdain is bringing in the QOTSA boys for his holiday special. Honestly, it doesn't get much better than this. In the past, Bourdain has rambled on about his love for Swedish greaser rock bands such as The Hellacopters.

Emeril take note...

Josh Homme and his Queens of the Stone Age crew give off badass rock'n'roller vibes like it's their job, which it sort of is. So if seeing them dressed to the nines in holiday sweaters best suited to little old ladies doesn't totally contradict their image, it at least complicates it. Truth told, who among us doesn't like to get in touch with his or her inner octogenarian once in a while?

But for what occasion did these hard rocking dudes don such festive duds? A holiday television special, of course. Specifically, an episode of chef Anthony Bourdain's Travel Channel show "No Reservations", according to a report from Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Daily blog.

The forthcoming episode finds Queens rocking the basement of Bourdain's Connecticut home while he is upstairs cooking a holiday feast for them to enjoy together. In addition to their own tunes, the band also performs a version of "Silver Bells", renamed "Turkey Bells".

The report goes on to say the episode will include "karaoke, surly adolescents, and a Japanese businessman." As for those sweaters, Homme said, "I think someone Googled the word 'horrible,' and that's how we found them."

Above text and photo courtesy of Pitchforkmedia.com

Forage!

The Salted Cod recently decided to go wild and see what we could forage. We arrived at Blue Heron Farm in Lincoln, MA to meet up with Russ Cohen.

Russ Cohen is the regions foremost expert on wild edible plants. He is a self proclaimed “landscape nibbler” who tries to find something edible everywhere he goes. Russ lead our group of around 35 through out the edges and woods of Blue Heron farm. Organic farms are a great place to find edible species because they do not use pesticides and use only minimal fertilizers. Most farmers don’t mind you roaming along their perimeter looking for species if you ask for permission. The majority of the species we found are considered invasive.

Upon arrival, Russ greeted us with two snacks. First, a homemade fruit leather made from the autumn olive berry. It tasted tart, much like a good cranberry. The consistency was equavilent to the fruit leathers we remember from our snack cart days in school. Russ boiled the berries down with some sugar. The result was put through a sieve then poured onto a baking sheet to dry. After tasting, we then washed the leathers down with some staghorn sumac juice. A tasty and tart tea-like drink reminicent to lemonade. Fairly simple to create, just grab a few staghorn berry clusters and let them steep in water.

To the left is Queens Anne’s Lace. The root of this plant is actually a wild carrot. Amateur foragers beware because the leaves of this species do resemble the poison hemlock.





Further on we came across Sweetfern. The Sweetfern has many uses including insect repellent and poison ivy relief. Colonials steeped the leaves as a tea during the tea party era, wikipedia also lists this species as redneck reefer.





We also found Wood Sorrel which looks like heart-shaped clover and tastes like lemon; a great addition to salads.






We came across immature Concord grapes and learned that grape leaves are excellent for pickling by helping to keep things crisp.








I spotted a huge chicken mushroom , also known as a sulfur shelf, that was just starting to decompose.







Finally, on the way back we came across husk tomatoes , or ground cherries. Deliciously sweet like little candies.

We learned a lot and found quite a few edible species in a small amount of space and time. We even picked up Russ’ book, "Wild Plants I Have Known...and Eaten" to help us identify species on our own on future foraging expeditions. Russ leads many walks throughout the year and if you have any interest on this subject, we highly recommend partaking in one.

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.

Wilson Farm

Week 11 brought some excellent produce, maybe a little too good because we blew through the weeks share by Saturday. On a recommendation by our mom we hit up Wilson Farms in Lexington. We’ve known about this place for a while but for some reason or other have actually never been. Sure enough it is located conveniently about a mile of rt.2.

We’ve picked up a nice brandywine tomato for another caprese. No picture sorry.

We ended up picking up some San Marzano tomatoes, 2 Japanese eggplants, a zucchini, and 2 small summer squashes and 2 ears of corn and basil. We’ve made a fresh ratatouille of summer goodness. We even snuck in our last Parker onion into this batch. We baked this at 350 for just over an hour. We topped some fresh baked Italian bread which was grilled over the flame. The flavors screamed together and melted into the nice bread.

$1.98 for a huge bushel of basil! We actually had a random customer tell us we’d never use this much and it would go to waste. We made more pesto to freeze…

We also picked up a quart of fresh blackberries, 5 nectarines, shortcake and awesome homemade whip cream. We made a little blackberry sauce for the shortcake and topped this with a sprig of mint.

All in all we spent close to $40 for a 3 course meal for two. We are very happy we are part of a CSA program; they are a huge value and well worth it.

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.

kombucha brings good things

So after every batch of kombucha you end up with scooby's or kombucha babies. The Salted Cod posted a free ad on craigslist, we ended up with over 20 people looking to start brewing kombucha themselves. When we met up with one fellow to pass on our kombucha babies we were pleasantly rewarded with some freshly picked blueberries!

Our friend did say kombucha brings good things when we first recieved our kombucha baby.

We made blueberry muffins with our new gift. We used a very simple recipe from Bittman's "How to Cook Everything." They came out great, we enjoyed them two ways. First straight up as pictured above.

We also whipped up a fresh blueberry compote. Our compote had a bit of fresh lemon juice to help cut the sweetness. The muffins were grilled old school diner style with our compote drizzled on top.

The Salted Cod would also like to take a minute to share some muffin humor.
Check out Cunninghams Muffins on youtube.

Site updates

Just want to share a few updates with everyone.

We have a new logo which we're digging. The picture is from our most current post about fresh blueberry muffins. We may update our logo again depending if our artsy friends want to give us a hand.

We also have a bit of new formating.

The most exciting update is our new RSS Feeder! You can now subscribe to The Salted Cod through a RSS Feed. Just click "Subscribe in a reader" on the right hand side. Our subscribers will have our blog posts sent automatically to your RSS reader of choice.

Pretty cool.

As always we love to hear suggestions from our readers, so don't be shy.

Here is our Share!Week 9

Starting at the top from left to right: napa cabbage, spring onions, carrots, mizuna, corn, potatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash.

Let me state right now that week 9 makes us feel good inside. The Salted Cod had a half work day on week 9's pickup date so we took our bike down to central square to make the pickup. Little did we know that it would be this large.

Corn, this was some great corn, very sweet with small kernels. We almost ate a weeks worth of corn in one sitting. Steamed for a 5 minutes lots of good butter, sea salt and black pepper.Made a quick lunch of sauteed squash, spring onions and rice for lunch.

We've also attempted to make kimchi with our napa cabbage. Unfortunately we had a bad recipe and it's not looking too good.

A great Sunday breakfast with our potatoes and onions.

Finally we made a nice fresh sauce with our squash, onions, mizuna and corn. We even threw a corn cob in the sauce for extra flavor! Very nice!