This Week's Food

Get in my (Pork) Belly!

This week we have Pork Belly on the table. Tad from Feather Brook Farm (he's basically a superhero in overalls) was positively giddy to send it to us. Pork Belly is a boneless cut of meat from the underside of the pig. It's also the genesis of bacon - the second greatest thing under the sun... next to pork belly. This meat is incredibly tasty and is the darling of many cuisines from Columbia to Korea.

To figure out what to do with this gem, we asked our friend and long-time Family Dinner member Christine Liu for a few recipes. Christine is the Executive Editor for Web at America's Test Kitchen and knows a thing or two about whipping up delicious dishes. She also is wickedly funny, a competitive Olympic Weight Lifter, and has an enviable sock collection. Oh, and she plays the violin. Our members are so cool.

From Christine:

"I don't really have much to say about pork belly except it's delicious and fat is FLAVOR. And why pay like $9 for 2 pork belly sliders in some resto when you can do it yourself?"

We agree. Recipes ideas from her and the great folks at ATK below.

Posted on January 20, 2018

Erin Baumgartner

The Circle of Life

Wasting Food is the worst. To avoid it, Tim will eat things well past their sell-by date and deep into the time where your produce starts to looks like its been mummified. But sometimes there is just no way around it-you find yourself sadly throwing food in the trash. Wipe away those tears of sadness, friends. There is another way.

Bootstrap compost is here to save the day. Their service will deliver you a lovely 5 gallon bucket into which you can throw your fruits, veggies, bread, teabags, hopes and dreams and egg shells. They will come and pick up your full compost bucket and replace it with a new one either weekly or bi-weekly. Your goods are composted and every four months they deliver you 5 pounds of soil so you can start the circle all over again in your garden. They have composted over 2.1 MILLION POUNDS OF FOOD that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. We love these guys!

If you're keen to give it a go, Bootstrap will give Family Dinner Customers 2 free weeks of pickups when you enter "Family Dinner" in the Heard About section of their new online form.

Let's save the world one rotten banana at a time.

Posted on January 13, 2018

Erin Baumgartner

A vacation far, far away.

Hey friends!

Family Dinner is getting a face lift from our wonderfully talented, hilarious friend Amanda-who is also a Family Dinner subscriber. She's been noodling around on a few ideas and will be settling in on a new logo in the coming weeks. It feels somehow fitting that our logo should be a giant cleaver. Stay tuned!

Its how damn cold out?
We know that the bitter weather has us all feeling down and seriously considering changing zip codes to something slightly less arctic. We're all dreaming of places where the words "Bomb Cyclone" don't exist and digging your Honda Fit out of a polar ice cap for two hours seems like a distant nightmare. But here we are.

Food to the rescue. With this week's share we went back to our friends at Mi Tierra Tortillas begging them for their delicious, organic taco shells that would transport us to a warm and distant land. At least for the duration of dinner.

In our house, everything can become a taco. Or go into a pizza, frittata or fried rice. We are all for culinary traditions and preciousness- but when it comes to those Four Food Groups- anything goes. We will have you off to a wonderful start with the tortillas, Beef from Tad at Featherbrook farm and cheese from Luke. What ever you add from the fridge of pantry that tickles your fancy and allows you to think you're somewhere toastier for a few hours- is your call to make.

We only wish we could have brought you drinks with little umbrellas in 'em for the sake of authenticity.

Posted on January 06, 2018

Erin Baumgartner

Your Lettuce Takes the Blue Line

The folks at Corner Stalk Farms are growing lettuce year round (yes, year round, even in this weather!) in recycled shipping containers nestled in East Boston. Its a super energy and water efficient environment that produces over 20 varieties of heirloom lettuce and herbs. And it begs the question:

Where does your produce come from?

When you're walking around the grocery store, take a look, its a fun little game of Geography Bingo. California, China, Mexico, or Yuma, Arizona might pop up on your radar. Chances are that your greens traveled across the country, or the world, to land on your plate. These leafy jewels that we have to offer you came from East Boston, Massachusetts. These little guys could have taken the Blue Line to be delivered to your house.

How the heck does that work? Here's a bit of background from Corner Stalk Farm:

"We specialize in using Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). LED lighting, temperature control and automatic water flow within insulated shipping containers creates the ideal environment that leafy greens need...Hydroponics is a soil-less growing method that allows the cultivation of plants using recirculated water with optimum nutrient inputs. Compared to the harmful chemical and grey water runoff created by industrial farming and urban pollution, we have no runoff and use no pesticides or harmful chemicals. To top it off, we leverage vertical growing technology to grow 20 plants per square foot of farm space per month."

How cool is that? Who knew anything but our grumpiness and animosity could grow in New England in January?

Posted on December 30, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

Feast of the Seven Fishes

Ok... it's just Two Fishes. Seven would have seemed excessive.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian American celebration typically held on Christmas Eve. In Italian its called La Vigilia, the Vigil. This all day Bonzana can have 7, 11, or even 13 courses ranging from anchovies, whiting, sardines, lobsters, clams, eels (no thank you) and salted cod. Recipes for this day often call for the dishes to be accompanied by homemade wine - and we are all for that.

While we don't have 7 fishes to offer, we bring you two beautiful selections from Red's Best. Pollock, an under-appreciated but delicious white fish and scallops, which our friend and longtime Family Dinner Member Renee refers to as "mouth candy".

We hope you have time to enjoy the Feast of the Two Fishes with some homemade or store-bought libations while watching Love Actually for the 64th time. 'Tis the Season for Liam Neeson.

Posted on December 23, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

Curry in a Hurry.

We brought you a warm Curry Spice in this week's share with incredible Chicken from Tad at Feather Brook Farm and Sweet Potatoes from Luke at Brookford, to dust off the winter weather blaaahs.

We went back to Claire at Curio Spice for the second week in a row asking for her Jedi Spice Mind Tricks. She sent us away with the Comfort Curry and we can't stop eating it; in soups, on veggies, coating almost any meat or fish. But (Spoiler Alert) Curry Powder is not actually an Indian Spice:

A Culinary History Lesson From Taste @ HuffPo

"Curry powder can be a lot of different things. Actually, that’s exactly what it is: curry powder is a combination of a bunch of spices. It can range from five ingredients to more than 10, and it can include spices such as: cumin, coriander, turmeric, ginger, dry mustard, fenugreek and black pepper.

The idea of "curry powder" . (It resembles the North Indian spice mix garam masala, but it isn’t a spice mix most Indian cooks would recognize.) British manufacturers came up with curry powder in an attempt to create a ready-made flavor that could recreate the flavors of South India that British colonists came to love.

In fact, the term curry for Indian cooking is also British in origin ― they lumped all the savory, spiced Indian dishes into one category called curries. You can't go to India and order "a curry" ― it just doesn’t exist. There are several possibilities for where the word British word “curry” comes from, one being that it was derived from the word Kari, which is the word for sauce in Tamil, a South Indian language. "

This spice has a complicated origin story. It's not quite the authentic Indian spice mix that most of us might think it is, but it is incredibly versatile and delicious.

Posted on December 16, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

Spilling the Beans.

One of our absolute favorite things at Family Dinner is introducing our members to new products and the wonderful people who make them.

In addition to bringing back a Spice mix from our friends at Curio Spice Co, this week we traveled to Maine to meet with some of the folks from Baer's Best and learn about their love of heirloom beans. We toured the farm, checked out some crazy bean machines and brought you home some delicious souvenirs. We know that beans can seem annoying and time-consuming. However, Baer's Best crop is always fresh harvest and cooks quickly, without the need for pre-soaking. And they are super tasty.

In Charley Baer's own words:

"For over 25 years our farm has been growing dry beans, mostly heirloom varieties that have grown here in the Northeast since colonial days. These types include Jacob’s Cattle, Yellow Eye, Soldier and others. Dry beans originated in Central America, and as with other staple crops such as corn and potatoes, were brought here by Native Americans.

"These days only a few New England farms still produce dry beans, most of them small operations in Central Maine. I learned to grow beans in this region, and at the same time began collecting unique local varieties from farmers that had been growing them for generations. These days many of these beans are rarely if ever seen in markets. Most bean production has shifted to the West where only a few common types such as Navy and Pinto are produced on huge acreages. Lost in this transition were the wide range of beautiful range of colors and shapes of this highly nutritional food that these days are seldom seen."

We love working with guys like Charley and his team to bring you these rare little gems. Enjoy!

Posted on December 09, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

No more turkey, please.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got to enjoy delicious food and time with folks you love. Thank you all for the love and kind words that you shared about Andy Baumgartner. We were lucky to spend the holidays surrounded by friends and family while celebrating Andy's awesome life and everything he did to make this world a better place.

From our side we are still working our way through a metric ton of leftover stuffing which has been re-used and re-purposed about 7 different ways. It is always awesome. We assume that you also overdosed on turkey last week, so we decided to pump the brakes on poultry this weekend. We turned to our friends at Red's Best for some magnificent Salmon fillets to switch up the flavor profile.

In the coming weeks we are planning for comfort food recipes to warm your belly and soul. We know we can't locally source everything for your pantry and we'd recommend stocking a few items that are always great to have on hand:

Stocks - We tend to make ours and freeze it, but the store varieties are great. Bullion works too if you are short on space.
Canned Tomatoes - Chopped San Marzanos are delicious. They are a little more expensive but the flavor is worth it. These plum tomatoes add a welcome sweetness and slight acidity to any vegetable soup, chili, or stew you cook up.
Rice - Whether its a comfy bed for a curry, a bit part in a vegetable soup, or the starring role in the Kale Rice Pie (below), it always makes makes sense to have a versatile white rice on hand. Basmati or Jasmine can work their way into a lot of dishes.
Parmesan Cheese - The Good Stuff. We put that sh*t on everything and throw the rind into our soups and stews. Buy yourself a microplane to grate this extremely finely - it's like fairy dust made out of cheese. And if you've got spare cheese rinds, you can store them in the freezer until you're ready to use 'em.

Posted on December 02, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

Remembering Andy Baumgartner

It's with a heavy heart that we write to let you know that Andy Baumgartner, Erin's dad, passed away this Tuesday afternoon. Andy was an incredible person and father. He dedicated his life to helping others, providing services for children with Cerebral Palsy for his long 40+ year career. He poured his entire heart and all of his love into his friends, family, and the kids he cared for.

As a small family business, we believe it's important to take time to focus on family. We'll be thinking of Andy this weekend and giving thanks for all of the friends and family in our lives who we love so dearly. We will be canceling deliveries for this week (Saturday, November 25) and refunding those who put in orders. We're very sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

For those of you who still have some cooking to do, Cook's Illustrated and the New York Times both have excellent Thanksgiving cooking guides. The folks at Hurd Farm (some of you received their turkeys earlier this week) wanted you to know that farm fresh turkeys cook faster than frozen or store-bought turkeys and recommend checking the temperature of your bird regularly during cooking. Aim for 165 F, but know that the breast meat will cook faster than the dark meat. Don't be afraid to carve the breast meat off to let it rest while the dark meat cooks a little bit longer.

Bon appetite and happy Thanksgiving! Please give a big hug to someone you love this weekend.

<3,
Tim and Erin

Posted on November 22, 2017

Tim Fu

Thanksgiving Turkeys!

Thanksgiving is just a few days away. Turkey is the quintessential local meal and we have been working to source turkeys for everyone's feasts. Luckily, in New England you don’t have to look very far to find incredible ingredients! For this holiday we are partnering with Steve Hurd from Hurd Farm in Hampton, NH. The farm has been family owned and operated since 1923 and pasture raises their poultry without antibiotics or hormones. They sell out every year!

You don’t have to be a Family Dinner subscriber to order! Place your order by Sunday evening (Nov 19) and we will deliver right to your door on Tuesday, giving you plenty of time to prepare these beautiful birds.

Posted on November 17, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

Winter is coming.

The seasons they are a-changin'. That crisp little edge to the air definitely turned to a bite in the past week and cold fronts are sneaking up on us. For us that means scarves and pom-pom hats, for our produce the change is a little more serious. Our more fragile summer veggies like lettuce, tomatoes and fruit can't handle the frost. We've transitioned to their more robust counterparts, like squash, beets and parsnips for the season.

These beautiful Chestnut Mushrooms from MycoTerra, pictured above, are ready to go all season long. According to Julia at MycoTerra: " Chestnuts are an attractive mushroom having a pleasant nutty flavor with peppery hints, not spicy but a nice seasoned flavor."

As the bounty of summer fruit and vegetables shifts to a hardier fall crop, we will still bring you a beautiful array of local meat, fish, cheese, grains, and yes produce, all through the winter.

Posted on November 11, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

Falling in Love with Vinal.

This week we are thrilled to bring you treats from Sarah Murphy at Vinal Bakery. We love both Sarah and the English Muffins she bakes. For these English Muffins it doesn't matter if you toast them, grill them or make English Muffin Pizza for breakfast - just get them in your face. They're amazing. Here's a bit more on Sarah and Vinal Bakery:

Vinal Bakery creates baked goods highlighting the local flavors and traditions of New England. Vinal is just getting its start as a weekly pop up featuring English muffins every Tuesday and Wednesday at Bagelsaurus in Porter Square, where owner/pastry chef Sarah Murphy works as a baker. Her pastry experience includes six years at Flour Bakery + Cafe, as well as time in the kitchens of Somerville favorites Sarma and 3 Little Figs. Her New England roots inspired her to start a New England focused bakery. She grew up in rural New Hampshire on the top of Birch Hill, where she spent her early days begrudgingly collecting eggs from the family’s chicken coop and happily stealing bites of her mom’s freshly baked bread. More info at vinalbakery.com and on Instagram and Twitter @vinalbakery

Posted on November 04, 2017

Erin Baumgartner

WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!

You might ask: "You guys know a farmer who produces dope chicken. Why haven't you hooked us up with dope recipes for fried chicken? What the hell is taking so long?"

The time has finally come. Pictured above is Korean Fried Chicken cooked by Christine Liu, a member of Family Dinner and Executive Editor at America's Test Kitchen. Christine hooked us up with an amazing recipe for Korean Fried Chicken and the beautiful picture above. Thanks, Christine! OM NOM NOM.

You might also notice a giant stalk of Brussels Sprouts in this week's share. The Brussels Sprout is an under-appreciated and often misspelled member of the cabbage family. People in Brussels in the 13th century loved them for their edible buds that look like mini cabbages. They're adorable!

The large majority of US production of this vegetable is in California and over 80% of production goes into the frozen food market. We feel lucky to be able to showcase these beauties that are locally grown for your immediate enjoyment! If you're feeling adventurous, the stalk can be roasted and eaten as well!

Posted on October 28, 2017

Erin Baumgartner