A Matter of Trust

So, you’ve decided to buy some local meat in quantity. How do you find a good farmer? How do you know whether or not their food is any good without having any federal government inspection? Whether or not you’ve found a good deal?

The first time we bought cow in quantity, we heard about it from a friend and bought the meat from our friend’s uncle. We took her word for it that the meat was good and it was! This time around, I heard about Grass Fed Foods on the local Weston Price yahoo group when I searched the archives for “grass fed beef.”

So, you’ve found some farmers and their cows sound wonderful. You compare the prices and choose one that you can afford. How do you know the farmer is on the level? You can always visit the farm and talk to other customers, but what if that’s not an option?

Well, the first thing to remember is that a small local farmer is not like a giant corporation. Local farmers depend heavily on word of mouth advertising and depend on having excellent product in order to stay in business. They don’t have a large profit margin and they don’t have a very large customer base either. If a local farmer has poor quality goods, people will hear about it and that farmer will likely go out of business.

The thing to ask yourself is also, what would a local farmer gain by being untrustworthy or by misrepresenting his/her goods? The answer is: Nothing. A farmer would gain nothing by misrepresentation or by ripping someone off. A local farmer’s very livelihood depends upon having a quality product at a reasonable price.

This is one type of business transaction that it is reasonable to enter in based on faith. It is certainly still a wise decision to visit the farm personally if you have the chance or to find a neutral third party who has visited the farm, but if you don’t have that chance you can still be reasonably sure that you’ll be getting a quality product. We have never yet been disappointed when buying sight-unseen from a local farmer. It’s just a matter of trust with no USDA inspection necessary 🙂

~B.

Betsy’s First Liver Attempt

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity! I suppose holiday weekends usually are 🙂 Anyhow, we had a lovely time with friends and family and we ate some wonderful beef along the way! This past weekend we ate some T-bone steak, short ribs, and one pound of ground beef. My parents and siblings (who split a 1/4 cow from Grass Fed Foods with another family) ate some of their ground beef and some nice T-bone steaks. All grilled by Phred and he should have some pictures and tips up soon!

Last Thursday I decided to treat my mom to some good grass-fed beef liver. She likes chicken livers, but had never had beef liver before. I’d never made liver before, but I’d seen Phred make it on several previous occasions so I figured I could give it a go!

There were three good-sized pieces in the package I picked and I let them soak in lemon juice for about 5 hours. I’ve read that it helps to make the texture pleasant and to remove any impurities that might be present.

(will add a picture here this evening)

When I was ready to cook the livers, I dried them with a cloth and then dredged them in about a cup of flour with about a tablespoon of salt and about 5 turns of the pepper grinder.

(I have another picture to add!)

I had one Vidalia onion already cut up so I got it out of the fridge while the cast iron skillet was heating up with about two tablespoons of olive oil in it. I then started heating up a small frying pan with about a tablespoon of unsalted butter in it for the onions. I cooked the liver while the onions were caramelizing. I let the first pieces of liver cook on medium heat for about 3 minutes on each side and then put them in the toaster oven on warm while I cooked the last piece.

I had started some basic rice a couple of hours earlier – with added collard greens – and so I made a nice liver gravy to go with the rice. I started with some balsamic vinegar to help loosen the drippings after turning the heat down to low and giving the stove a few minutes to cool down. Once the vinegar stopped boiling, I added about a cup of milk and slowly began to sift in what was left of the dredging flour.

It turned out quite well! We had some leftover Milledgeville Cabbage as well as some stir-fried fresh green beans and baby squash to go with the liver, onions, gravy, and rice.

(Coming tonight: a picture of the finished product!)

This way of cooking liver did end up still tasting very liver-y which was fine for me because I like it. Phred prefers the way he makes it, which we’ll do next time so you can look forward to hearing about that 🙂 My mom ate all of her liver though and didn’t think it tasted half bad. Our children didn’t eat much of the vegetables for this meal, but they were more than happy to try and eat several bites of liver as well as most of their rice and gravy.

All in all, I think it was a success! Liver can be a tricky thing to cook since you don’t want to overcook it or it becomes tough. This liver was nice and tender and the flour crust on the outside was excellent.

Until next time, then!

~B.

A Few Words Concerning Squash and CSAs

Squash is both intimidating and versatile. In fact, it’s the most intimidating food I’ve ever gotten in my CSA box. During the first two years that we were CSA members, I wasted countless squashes. This is saying quite a bit since they do usually keep well for a while on the counter.

We were living near Seattle and getting our produce from Persephone Farm in Indianola, WA. During the fall months, we received a goodly number of squashes and I had no earthly idea what to do with them! Yes, we were given recipes and ideas from our wonderful CSA farmers, but for some reason, I was still overwhelmed and intimidated by the squash.

My only memories of eating squash as a child were when my mom would buy a yellow squash at the store and bake it in the oven with butter and pepper. She and I were the only two in the family who actually liked squash and that was almost the only way I’d ever seen it made. I had it in casseroles at family reunions and such, but those didn’t make as much of an impression on me since I never saw those actually being made.

Anyhow, at around our third year of being in the Persephone Farm CSA, something was missing in my fridge for the vegetarian chili recipe I had. I wanted to make chili and though I had the beans (bought in bulk) and the peppers, I’d forgotten to buy the carrots and celery. So, I figured, why not try the squash instead! It was a grand experiment and it paid off in an amazing way. The squash was wonderful in chili!

Well, that just opened the floodgates and I tried putting squash in nearly everything. The amazing thing is that the squash worked well in everything I tried!

You see, squash has this incredible property of soaking up whatever flavor you want it to. It takes on the flavor of the dish you put it in while adding just a nice hint of its own flavor into the mix. Squash has a delicate, and almost neutral, flavor that goes nicely with, well, almost anything! Now I frequently use it as a filler in whatever I’m making. It bulks dishes up nicely and doesn’t add any strong flavors that need to be reckoned with.

You may wonder then, why can squash be so intimidating at first? Honestly, I think the name has something to do with it. “Squash” just sounds… squishy or something. Squash can also be rather bland – if you’ve ever tried baby food squash, you know what I mean – since its flavor is very delicate it can easily be overcooked which sucks the flavor out of it, IME. It’s also just not a very usual thing to eat – it is largely unknown to most Americans. Not to mention, it’s cheap! Therefore it couldn’t be a wonderfully delicious food, right? Wrong!

This is just one thing that gives me my enthusiasm for CSAs because I have never bought squash from a store or farmer’s market and likely would never have experimented with squash had we not been in a CSA. Even being in a CSA, it took a while for me to really start trying new things with squashes.

In conclusion, both squash and CSAs are amazing and I encourage everyone to seek them out and give them a try!

For tonight, we plan to have beef liver with squash and green beans and rice. I’ll let y’all know how it goes 🙂

~B.

Update: This post is part of a tips carnival that you can find HERE 🙂

Minty Fried Rice

This isn’t exactly beef-related except that I made the rice with beef stock, but it turned out so well, I figure it’s worth posting!

We had leftover basic rice in the fridge from last night, so I took some olive oil and half an onion. While the olive oil was heating up on medium-low heat, I chopped the onion coarsely. I let the onion cook for a couple minutes before adding the rice and a bit more olive oil to moisten the rice.

I put about a tablespoon of tamari in the middle of the dish along with a pinch of sugar. After mixing that in well I added some lovely chopped yellow squashes and some fresh green beans from our CSA. About a cup of chopped squash and a cup of green beans with the ends broken off and snapped in half again to make bite-sized pieces.

After that, I put some freshly ground black pepper and three dried and crumbled mint leaves on top. After mixing those in well, I chopped up some unsweetened, dried cranberries – about a handful – and added them, being sure to mix those in well also.

We had some hard-boiled eggs that I sliced and we ate those on the top as well.

It was amazingly good! I credit that partly to the beef stock used to make the rice. It always seems to make rice extra tasty. Oh, I’d also added some raw, frozen collards to the basic rice recipe which was a very nice addition, in my opinion.

Phred loved it and so did I. Our 4.5 year old ate all of hers and asked for seconds. Our 2.5 year old ate most of hers. We didn’t have any other guests over, but this is certainly a dish I would feel comfortable serving to friends or family should the occasion arise.

The moral of this story is to experiment with spices and herbs! You never know when you’ll end up with a culinary masterpiece in your kitchen that would otherwise have gone undiscovered.

~B.

Food Prep and Plans

Okay – now I’m getting back in the groove after this past weekend! I’m processing some veggies and have picked out some meat to put in the fridge for the next week.

We’re going to try some liver this week! I love beef liver, but the stuff in the store makes me nervous since the liver is a filter and I know too much about what sorts of things it would need to filter out with industrially raised cows. I also picked out a very small package of t-bone steak. We have much larger packages too, but since we’re not planning on having company this week and our children tend to not eat much steak, I’ll use the small package. It’s nice to have a variety of sizes as well as cuts to choose from! Last, but not least, I pulled some short ribs.

I’m processing some cabbage today. We tend to get behind on using up cabbage. I’m not sure why because whenever we do eat it, our kids love it – especially on pizza – but maybe because there’s just so much food in one cabbage. It can get overwhelming. So, we ended up with THREE cabbages to use and I decided that it was about time to use them up!

So, with one of the cabbages, I’m making a lovely dish called “Milledgeville Cabbage” from the cookbook Georgia Entertains. It’s a very vague recipe, so right up my alley! It basically involves one chopped, salted, and boiled cabbage put into a casserole dish. Then a milk, butter, flour, salt, and pepper white sauce is poured on top, add some grated Parmesan cheese, and you bake the whole thing at 350 until it’s warm all the way through and brown on top. So good!

With the other two cabbages, I’m making some sauerkraut in a giant pickle jar we emptied a couple of weeks ago. It’s just chopped and pounded cabbage, salt, and one finely chopped small, spicy pepper. I might need to add a bit of extra water later tonight, but so far it’s looking really good!

For dinner we’re having rice, fried eggs, and cabbage! Doesn’t sound good does it? But it is. Really. I promise 🙂

~B.

Leftovers with Ground Beef

As far as ground beef goes, we’re not particularly creative. Ground beef is usually our go-to meal if we’ve forgotten to set out a different cut of meat for that day or if we need something quick and easy. This has, as you can imagine, happened a few times in the last couple of weeks. Phred has had some crazy work issues to sort out and I just took an intensive weekend doula course.

We love making just browned ground beef to go with spaghetti sauce or with rice and sauteed veggies. The possibilities are really endless! After all, what doesn’t ground beef go well with?

Anyhow, this week I tried something completely new. We had some leftover spaghetti noodles and leftover basic ground beef. So I took both and combined them in a frying pan with olive oil and a chopped, sauteed onion. Then I added some frozen peas, frozen cooked collards, and baby yellow squashes. I put about 2 teaspoons of tamari (fermented soy sauce – nice and salty! Great for stir-fries) and some black pepper for seasoning. It was amazing! The children loved it and so did we 🙂

The wonderful thing about leftovers is that you mainly just have to heat the food up. We like our veggies to be fairly crisp still – not cooked until they’re dead – so once the peas were thawed and the squash was nice and warm, it was ready to eat! It took about 10 minutes total from chopping the onion to putting the lid on after adding the noodles, beef, and veggies to removing the lid and serving.

I’m experimenting with cooking the fresh collards before freezing them and it’s worked pretty well so far. They take up half the space in my freezer and I only have to thaw them out instead of needing to cook them for a while to make sure they’re tender enough for my children to eat them. The one major drawback has been that they froze in a huge icy mass since they were wet after being cooked. I can break chunks off by pounding the ziploc bag on the counter, but it’s still an issue I’d like to avoid next time.

I do still prefer cooking them before freezing them since it makes cooking them so much simpler, but I love how easy it is to get the uncooked collards out of the containers even when frozen. Any ideas about how I can get the best of both worlds?

~B.

Slow blogging week…

It’s been a slow blogging week – I apologize. We had some fun times with our kitchen drain clogging which meant that we really didn’t feel like prepping veggies or cooking much of anything since washing dishes was quite a challenge.

There are two new and amazing recipes that will be posted by Phred very soon! Hopefully this evening 🙂

One is a beef hand-pie recipe and the other is a delicious meat loaf recipe that includes finely chopped collard greens and Vidalia onions just to give it a southern flair. Well, and also because we happened to have quite a few of them on hand!

The meat loaf was a huge hit at my parents’ house where my parents cleaned their plates and two of my three siblings tried it and ate most of what they put on their plates. My youngest brother declined to try it, but he hates meat loaf anyhow so we weren’t surprised. Our girls also loved the meat loaf which was wonderful! We just finished it off today by serving it cold on top of fresh salad greens. Perfect!

We will also figure out what meat to set out for the next week or so tonight. We’re getting a bit behind, but such is life!

~B.

British to Mexican

Yesterday we finished off the rest of the hand pies, but we still had some loose squash, meat, and greens left. So today we made a giant pot of beans and bought some tortillas, avocados, and sour cream (we keep salsa on hand routinely). The leftover hand pie filling is absolutely wonderful in a tortilla with beans, cheese, sour cream, avocado, and salsa!

Our daughters both enjoyed the tortillas with the leftovers as well. It’s nice to do something completely different and be able to go from British food to Mexican food without a hitch and without much preparation at all.

Phred heated the tortillas in a large frying pan. He put the cheese in the middle first so it would melt, added the beans, then the leftovers, then the toppings. Simple, quick, easy, and delicious!

~B.

Food for the Week:

I hope all the mothers out there had a lovely Mother’s Day yesterday! Mine went pretty well and I have a wonderful family ❤

Anyhow, that's partly why there was (yet another) delay in getting this post written. I will do my best to this next week's done on Friday or Saturday though! I'm still working on this blogging frequently thing.

So, on to the produce for this week!

*A nice bag of Spinach
*Sugar Snap Peas
*Strawberries (they made an amazing crisp a couple days ago)
*Kale
*A ton of Collard Greens (this is a good thing!)
*Beets w/greens
*Baby Yellow Squashes
*Vidalia Onions

Tonight we're using up the squashes, some collards, a Vidalia onion, and a beautiful steak. Phred is making a type of hand pie. It smells wonderful in here right now and we're all looking forward to a delicious meal! You'll all hear about it soon enough 🙂

~B.

Chicken-fried (cube) Steak, biscuits, roast potatoes, collard greens, and gravy!

If it's fried and covered in gravy, it must be awesome.

Ahh, chicken-fried steak, a positive delight of Southern cooking!  For those of you who have not been anywhere near a Cracker Barrel in your life or, like me, you were raised a Yankee, bless your hearts; you just don’t know what you’re missing.  Imagine fried chicken, except instead of bony chicken inside the breading it’s a tender, juicy steak, served with the tastiest gravy imaginable and a heaping mess of collard greens and an ice cold glass of sweetened iced tea or, colloquially, “sweet tea.”  In my opinion, there is no finer dish to enjoy on a sultry Southern summer’s eve.  My family and dinner guest agreed heartily, and there was nary a scrap left to put away for the next days’ lunch.

Oh yes, and this is the second round of phred vs. cube steak. Remember that cube steak, the one that defeated me in round 1?  TOTALLY PWN3D IN ROUND 2!

For the Chicken-fried (cube) Steak — follow Alton Brown’s most excellent recipe; my notes:

• “2 pounds beef bottom round, trimmed of excess fat” — this means “cube steak.”
• Dry the steaks with a paper towel before seasoning and dredging.
• Unlike me, use a gravy separator to remove excess oil from the gravy.
• I didn’t have thyme for the gravy (though it took no time to cook, ha!), but ground sage made an awesome substitute.
• Make sure the oil’s quite hot, or it the steak won’t fry up well.
• Instead of a wire rack, I used the second shelf in our toaster oven over a small metal pan.  Keeps the meat warm while the rest of the food finishes and catches the drips.

SOFTWARE
– 1-2 pounds small potatoes
– butter
– olive oil
– salt
– pepper
– rosemary garlic seasoning
– 1/3 cup chopped onion
– chopped collards, about 4 cups
– about 4 tbsp. tamari sauce

HARDWARE
– Medium steel frying pan
– 8×8 glass casserole dish
– tin foil to cover the glass dish

Chop potatoes in half, place them in the casserole dish. Pour about 1/4 cup olive oil over them, then sprinkle with rosemary/garlic seasoning, cover the dish with tin foil, and pop into a 350 degree oven.

These took about 45 minutes to cook total.  After 30 minutes in the oven, I stirred in about 4 tablespoons of butter, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper to kick up the flavor.  For the last 15 minutes, I let them cook uncovered to cook off the excess moisture and develop a nice light brown color.

After the potatoes are in the oven, it’s collard time.  You can actually cook these at any point, but I did it early on and left them covered on a back burner while cooking the steak and gravy.

Cover the bottom of the metal frying pan with olive oil, place over medium heat, and allow the oil to heat up before adding the chopped onions.  Fry for about a minute, until they start to brown, then add the collard greens and stir.  Once they’ve wilted, add the tamari, stir a little more, then remove from heat and cover.

Onto the steak and gravy!  And the biscuits!  Sorry, no biscuit recipe in this post, that’s Betsy’s area of expertise.  If you don’t feel like making biscuits from scratch, though, there’s always canned biscuits for a quick and easy addition to the meal.

When it’s all done, bring it all together onto lightly warmed plates, then serve with a copious amount of gravy.

Reactions

phred — loved it.

Betsy — loved it.

Mystery dinner guest — loved it.

The kids — ate all of their meat and asked for more.  This is unusual for them, so hooray!

Privately, I think this is one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked, and totally worth the time and effort to make.  Every bite was delicious and left me wanting more.