December 2016 - Winter Is Officially Here

     This is our final meat delivery of the 2016 CSA season and our pastures are quieting down.  This week we saw the first dusting of white covering our green, grassy pastures. The animals (and farmers) were grateful for the warm, mild weather we had in October and November.  Our pastures continued to thrive and the cattle were still able to forage enough grass until just recently when we started supplementing their diets with stored hay.  They are still out grazing and snacking on what is still remaining, but we are accepting that winter is here and it’s time to transition them to their winter diet.
     Just before Thanksgiving, we got 11 new Red Angus beef cattle.  They are only about 7-8 months old.  It took them a few days to acclimate to their new home, but they quickly became friends with our other cattle who graciously showed them out to the pasture and made them feel welcome.  All of our cattle made their way around our hillside through the pasture to their “winter camp.”  While they still spend most of their days and time outdoors, they are now close to the barn which we’ve prepared for them to use this winter.  They are cold-hardy animals and can withstand the cold of winter, but we like them to have a dry shelter to retreat to when the winter storms blow through.  We normally feed them their hay outside in their pasture, but on stormy or cold days Richard convinces them to stay inside by feeding them his special “Chocolate Hay.”  This is how we describe the best hay we have….the stuff the cattle would like to eat every day, but we have to make it last until spring so feed it sparingly.

Angel (Left) & Juan Pablo (Right): Our Animal Care Team

     We’d like to thank Juan Pablo and Angel for their help with caring for our animals this year.  These two gentlemen are responsible for feeding the pigs twice a day, maintaining the paddock fences for the cattle, moving the cattle to fresh grass as needed and making sure the mineral feeder got moved with them.  Farmer Richard and Captain Jack “The Dog” will be taking over animal feeding chores in about 2 more weeks when Angel returns to Mexico for the winter.  They don’t mind feeding animals through the winter and enjoy checking in on them once or twice a day.
     As we move into the cold of winter, I can’t help but crave warm comfort food…soups, stews, chili, etc.  I have a stack of about 15 cookbooks that were published by Taste of Home magazine.  My Mom used to give me one of these cookbooks every year for Christmas, long before I ever went to culinary school but enjoyed cooking for my family.   These books are filled with simple, down-home Midwestern recipes.  My brother used to flip through the cookbooks and mark the recipes he wanted me to make.  I haven’t cooked from them for many years, but just recently decided to look through them again to see what I could find.  Lots of simple, filling recipes!  This week’s newsletter features four simple, family friendly recipes using beef and pork.  They’ll guide you in making tasty, nourishing meals for your family this winter…and leave you with a little time to sit and sip some hot chocolate.  We hope you have a relaxing and nourishing winter.  We’ll see you in the spring!
–Your Farmers Richard & Andrea

Chili Casserole

Yield: 6 servings

Photo Borrowed from Taste of Home website

1 pound ground beef
½ cup chopped onion
1 can (15 ½ oz) kidney beans rinsed and drained
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 can (14 ½ oz) stewed tomatoes
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 cups cooked bow tie pasta

1. In a skillet, brown beef and onion; drain.  Stir in beans, tomato sauce, tomatoes, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Stir in pasta;  heat through.

This recipe was featured in a cookbook entitled The Best of Country Cooking 1999, by Taste of Home.  It was in a section of the book entitled “Meals in Minutes.” Our Midwestern bookkeeper, Kelly, would argue that this is not really a casserole but rather a “hotdish.”
Whatever it’s called, it’s quick, simple and hearty!

Breakfast Patties

Yield: 8 Patties

Photo Borrowed from Taste of Home website

¼ cup water
2 tsp salt
2 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp pepper
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
⅛ tsp ground ginger
2 pounds ground pork

1. In a bowl, combine water and seasonings. Add pork and mix well.
2. Shape into eight 4-inch patties.
3. In a skillet over medium heat, cook patties for 5-6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the center.

This recipe was featured in the 1999 Taste of Home Annual Recipes cookbook.  It was submitted by reader Jeannine Stallings from Montana who says “This homemade sausage is terrific because it’s so lean, holds together well and shrinks very little when cooked.  It’s incredibly easy to mix up a batch and make any breakfast special.”

Hungarian Goulash

Yield: 6-8 Servings

Photo Borrowed from Taste of Home website

1 pound stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound lean boneless pork, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 cups water
2 Tbsp paprika
½ tsp salt
½ tsp dried marjoram
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
Hot cooked noodles

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, brown beef, pork and onions in oil; drain.
2. Add the water, paprika, salt and marjoram; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 1 ½ hours or until meat is tender.
3. Just before serving, combine flour and sour cream until smooth; stir into meat mixture.  Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly. Serve over noodles.

Recipe borrowed from the cookbook, 2002 Taste of Home Annual Recipes.

Barbequed Pot Roast

Cookbook Photo Borrowed from
Eat Your Books Website

Yield: 12 servings

1 boneless chuck roast (3 pounds), trimmed
¼ tsp pepper
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
1 cup water
3 medium onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup ketchup
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp ground mustard

1. Sprinkle roast with pepper. In a Dutch oven coated with nonstick cooking spray, brown roast on all sides.
2. Add the tomato sauce, water, onions, and garlic. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Combine remaining ingredients; pour over meat. Cover and simmer for 3-4 hours or until the meat is tender.

Recipe borrowed from Low-Fat Country Cooking published by Taste of Home.

A Pasture Walk with Farmer Richard

By Richard de Wilde

     This article was originally printed in our vegetable newsletter in September 2013. After a recent walk through our pastures this fall, Richard and I were reminded just how important it is to continue to manage our land, including our pastures and woods. It’s a big job, and one that is never finished. It takes a diligent effort to keep things “under control,” but the result is healthy pastures that are pleasant and desirable for our animals to live in and graze. We find joy and fulfillment in watching our cattle graze and live peaceful lives on our lush pastures while the pigs keep us entertained with their pig-like behaviors. Thank you for supporting us in our efforts to do the best we can to raise meat in the most respectful manner we can. 

--Farmers Andrea & Richard

     Our farm, like most farms in the Driftless region, has land along creek beds, dry washes and steeper hillsides that is not   suitable for farming and has traditionally grazed animals. Our hillside pastures were cleared and planted to wheat in the late 1800’s and it was an erosion disaster! The scars are now healed and grass covers the hillside, preventing erosion. This month’s Edible Madison magazine (September 2013) has a very well-written article on the birth of soil conservation and contour farming which started in the 1930’s in our own Vernon County, Wisconsin. The present day NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) was started and Aldo Leopoldo was actively working in the field with them to turn around 70 years of disastrous farming, which had destroyed the productive capacity of most of the county’s farmland. Animals, grass, and strips of non-erosive hay between cultivated crops saved the land. Now our county is experiencing a new crisis as animals leave the farms to go to big feedlots and confinement dairies and contour strips and grass waterways are being torn out to accommodate only two crops, corn and soybeans. As a result, erosion is on the rise once again.

     I milked cows on this farm from 1984-1986, but sold the herd to devote my time and resources to full-time vegetable farming. In the years that followed this transition, we saw the results of abandoned pastures. Prickly ash, willows, box elder trees, black locust, honeysuckle, multiflora rose and garlic mustard took over and choked out the hillsides. Our beautiful little Spring Creek disappeared in a tangle of brush and the stream no longer flowed openly. With the grass overtaken and the stream banks eroded, the trout were choked out. In recent years, we have spent considerable time and resources working towards reclaiming our beautiful Spring Creek, as well as learning from our mistakes and working hard to maintain other waterways and river banks on our property. We have removed huge patches of prickly ash, multiflora rose and invasive honeysuckle by pulling them out and then grading and reseeding these areas to establish new grasses and clovers. We built new fences and brought animals back to our hillsides to graze these areas to help us maintain them. We have cleaned the trees and brush out of the creek and fixed stream bank erosion with large limestone rocks lining the banks. Many areas we can now mow once a year to keep down invasive plants and prevent trees from taking over. Despite all our efforts, the single biggest help in maintaining our improvements are now the cows, pigs and goats that graze our pastures. 

     While we realize that not all of our customers choose to eat meat and our focus is on vegetable production, we’ve chosen to include animals on our farm because they have a very important purpose. Unlike feedlot cattle and pigs that exist solely to gain weight and be taken to slaughter, our animals have a greater calling. Their purpose is to graze and fertilize our hillside pastures, thereby maintaining them and improving them for years to come. This is a very different lifestyle for these animals in comparison to industrial animal production.  

     Farmers are stewards of the land, but we can’t forget that part of that calling is honoring and respecting the land and animals we care for. As we walk through our pastures and look out across the hillsides, we see the beauty that is the result of all of our hard work. We are blessed to live in a beautiful, unique location and will continue to strive to maintain our land.

Meatballs in Pineapple Sauce

Yield: 10 as an appetizer or 4 if served as a main entrée

Photo Borrowed from Shannon Hayes' blog

For the Meatballs:

½ cup dry breadcrumbs

2 Tbsp finely chopped onions

½ tsp salt

½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 pound ground beef

2 Tbsp olive oil

For the Pineapple Sauce:

½ cup packed light brown sugar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 can (13 ¼ ounces) chunk pineapple, in natural, unsweetened juice 

⅓ cup apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 small green bell pepper, coarsely chopped

1. Mix all the ingredients, except the olive oil, in a large bowl.  Shape into 1 ½-inch balls.  

2. Saute meatballs in the olive oil over medium heat, turning occasionally, for about 15 to 20 minutes, until browned.  Pour off the fat, remove the meatballs from the skillet, and set aside.

3. Mix together the brown sugar and cornstarch, and add to the skillet used for the meatballs.  Pour in the pineapple and juice, and add the vinegar, soy sauce, and chopped pepper.  

4. Over medium heat, bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat immediately, add the meatballs, and simmer 10 minutes longer.

Recipe borrowed from Shannon Hayes’ book, The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook.

Slow-Cooker Chipotle Beef Tacos with Cabbage-Radish Slaw

Yield: 6 Servings

Photo Borrowed from the Real Simple website

2 ½ to 3 pounds stew meat (May also use round steak or chuck roast, cut into 2-inch pieces)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 to 3 Tbsp chopped chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
Kosher salt
4 cups thinly sliced cabbage
4 radishes, halved and sliced (may use fresh red radishes or beauty heart radishes)
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice, plus lime wedges for serving
12 6-inch corn tortillas
Sour cream, pickled jalapeño peppers and hot sauce, for serving

1. In a 4 to 6 quart slow cooker, toss together the beef, onion, garlic, chipotles, bay leaves, oregano and 1 tsp salt.  Cover and cook until the beef is very tender, on low for 7 to 8 hours or on high for 3 ½ to 4 hours.

2. Twenty minutes before serving, heat oven to 350°F.  In a large bowl, toss the cabbage, radishes, and cilantro with the lime juice and ¼ tsp salt.  Wrap the tortillas in foil and bake until warm, 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Transfer the beef to a medium bowl (reserve the cooking liquid) and shred, using 2 forks. Strain the cooking liquid through a fine-mesh sieve into the bowl and toss with the beef to coat.

4. Fill the warm tortillas with the beef and slaw.  Serve with sour cream, pickled jalapeños, hot sauce and lime wedges.

Recipe borrowed from Easy, Delicious Home Cooking by Real Simple.

The Easiest Ribs You’ll Ever Make

Yield: 2-3 servings

Photo Borrowed from Alexandra's Kitchen 

1½ to 2 pounds pork spare ribs 

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Smoked paprika 

¾-1 cup brown sugar

Heavy Duty Foil

1. Preheat oven to 275°F.

2. Rinse off the ribs and pat dry.  Liberally coat the ribs with the kosher salt, pepper and the paprika.  Pack on the brown sugar.

3. Lay out a piece of heavy duty foil that is large enough to fully wrap the meat in.  If your spare ribs are in more than one piece, you can wrap each piece individually if it’s easier.   Wrap the ribs into a packet and make sure it’s closed on all sides.  Place the ribs on a sheet tray and place in the oven for 2 ½ hours.  

4. Remove the tray from the oven.  Let sit for one hour.  Do not open the pouch during this hour.

5. When ready to serve, reheat the ribs in the oven for about 10-15 minutes at 350°F (this is assuming the ribs have not been refrigerated) or open the pouch, baste the ribs with the juices and place them under the broiler for five minutes.

6. Serve immediately with cornbread and a simple salad for a yummy yummy meal!

Chef Andrea Yoder’s Note: This is the easiest method I’ve ever used to cook spare ribs and they come out tender and delicious.  The prep time is very minimal, so I often prepare these the night before or first thing in the morning and put them in the refrigerator.  If I have enough time in the evening after work, I’ll cook them for dinner that night.  If we’re hungry and don’t want to wait, I’ll heat up the oven and cook them anyway while we’re eating dinner.  Then they’re ready to just reheat for the next night’s dinner!

Recipe adapted from the blog, Alexandra’s Kitchen: alexandracooks.com

What To Consider When Cooking Grass-fed Beef

The way in which animals are managed and raised does directly impact the qualities and characteristics of meat.  It is important to realize this because it will directly affect how you cook your meat to get the best quality end product.  Grass-fed beef from animals that have led stress-free lives grazing on pastures tends to be more lean and flavorful when compared to conventionally raised, grain-fed beef.  If you are accustomed to cooking conventional, grain-fed beef, or have had less than delicious results cooking or eating grass-fed meat previously, there are a few things to consider that might make a difference in your end result.

DO NOT OVERCOOK THE MEAT…TIME & TEMPERATURE ARE IMPORTANT!

The first thing to remember, and possibly the most important, is do not overcook the meat!! Grass-fed beef is more lean and has less marbling than grain-fed beef.  Since fat is an insulator, and grass-fed meat is so lean, it will cook faster than grain-fed meat and may be less forgiving without the fat to cover up a little bit of overcooked meat.  When you are reading recipes, take the guidelines for how long to cook a piece of meat with a grain of salt.  The time it takes to cook a piece of meat will depend on other variables including the size and thickness of the piece.  There are other ways to test the doneness of a piece of meat as well.  One way is to test the doneness of some pieces of meat, such as a chuck roast or stew meat, to see if it is “fork tender.” When a fork is inserted into the piece of meat, the meat should slide off the fork easily.  If it does, the meat is done.  If the fork doesn’t come out easily, the meat needs to cook longer.  Other ways to judge the doneness of meat include touch and temperature.  Learning to judge the doneness of meat by touch takes practice and time to master.  If you’ve ever wondered why chefs are always poking meat on a grill, it’s because they are feeling the resistance the piece of meat gives to touch.  The more the meat is cooked, the more firm the meat will feel.  This is something you will just have to practice and master over time. 

Checking the internal temperature of a piece of meat while it is cooking is a more reliable way to monitor the degree of doneness.  The USDA recommends cooking beef to a final internal temperature of 140-170° F, however most chefs would recommend a range of 120°F for rare meat and an upper range of 165°F for well-done meat.  You can use a simple meat thermometer or meat probe to test the internal temperature.  Insert the thermometer into a thicker, more centrally located place on the piece of meat.  If the piece you are testing contains a bone, make sure the thermometer is inserted away from the bone.  Also, remember that meat continues to cook even after you remove it from the heat source.  This is called carry-over cooking.  Don’t forget to take this into account when you are cooking and remove the meat from the heat before it reaches your final desired temperature.  Smaller pieces of meat, such as a rib steak, will continue to carry-over cook for about 5 to 10 minutes and the temperature can increase another 5 degrees.  If you are cooking a larger piece of meat such as a roast, the meat can continue to cook for an additional 15-30 minutes after being removed from the heat source.  The temperature of a larger piece of meat can rise as much as an additional 10-15 degrees. 

The next thing to remember is that you control the flame.  What I mean is that you have control of the temperature at which you are cooking your meat.  Remember, grass-fed meat doesn’t have as much fat to insulate it so it will cook more quickly.  If you are cooking grass-fed beef over a high temperature, you can cook the meat too quickly and cook the moisture and fat right out of the meat, making it dry and tough.  

COOKING METHODS:

Another important factor is to choose the correct cooking method for the cut of meat you are preparing.  Cuts of meat that come from a part of the animal that is used and exercised more will be tougher.  To tenderize these cuts you should use a moist heat cooking method which will use a longer cooking time and added moisture or liquid to help tenderize the meat. 

• Moist Heat cooking methods include braising, stewing, boiling or cooking in a crock-pot. 

• Tougher cuts of beef include the following:  Chuck Roast, Arm Roast, Rump Roast, Round Steak, Stew Meat and Short Ribs.

Cuts of meat that come from muscles of the animal that are not as active will be more tender.  These cuts of meat can be prepared using dry-heat cooking methods

• Dry Heat Cooking methods include grilling, sautéeing, roasting, broiling, stir-frying, pan-frying, and deep-frying. 

• More tender cuts of beef include the following:  Rib Steak, T-bone Steak, Sirloin Steak, Sirloin Tip, Flank Steak and Skirt Steak. 

FLAVOR:

Finally, lets talk about flavor.  Yes, it will ultimately come down to a matter of personal preference.  Grass-fed beef has been described as having more of a juicy, rich, robust “beefy flavor” in comparison to grain-fed meat.  The flavor of grass-fed meat has also been described as “clean” in comparison to grain-fed meat.  The higher fat content and marbling in grain-fed meat may leave more of a coating in your mouth and an after-taste that you won’t experience with grass-fed meat, which may be why some people describe the flavor as “clean.”  Animals that are grass-fed have a distinctive, sufficient flavor that can stand on its own without a lot of additional seasonings and sauces.  Let the natural flavor of the meat stand out by using simple salt & pepper seasonings or simple herb rubs for starters.   For braised dishes such as pot roast, the flavor of the meat will be infused into the cooking liquid creating a flavorful rich stock or sauce.  As you begin to experience the flavors of grass-fed beef, we encourage you to keep it simple so the true flavor of the meat comes out and you can taste the difference for yourself.

 

This video clip from The New York Times and Mark Bittman discusses and shows you some of the differences between cooking with grass-fed and grain-fed beef. This video does a great job of  highlighting some of the differences that we have mentioned in this post.

There are a lot of resources available to guide you in your endeavors to cook grass-fed beef.  One of our favorites is Shannon Hayes’ book called The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook.  You can also check out her blog, The Radical Homemaker.  She offers a lot of really simple, down-to-earth and resourceful ways to successfully prepare grass-fed beef.