Farming How Nature Intended

Consider Animal Welfare Approved farms the next time you buy meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. It makes a difference to the animals, the environment, the farmers, and to you.

One of my favorite local AWA farms for meat is Crane Dance, in Middleville, Michigan. And I love Grassfields for eggs and raw milk cheeses.

What about yours? Here’s where you can find farms near you.

How to Eat Healthy on $5.00 a Day: Day 2

It’s Day 2 of Bill’s and my experiment for this week: How to eat healthy on $5.00 a day. And I admit: I’m hungry. I couldn’t wait until tonight’s dinner, pictured above. This experience has been an interesting process so far in a number of ways:

1. Calculating quantities and prices per ounce really creates awareness for the food we’re buying and eating. Who knew our local CSA lettuce would be so expensive and that cumin from India would be so cheap?
2. It makes you think about how much you eat during the day just from habit. I’m not even talking about someone who has a bad day and binges on food, but just the idea that, oh, there’s a banana that’s ripe so I’d better eat it.
3. Sometimes it really does cost more to eat healthy, but sometimes it doesn’t. For example, check out the juxtaposition between today’s lunch and yesterday’s lunch.

Fulton Street Farmers Market in Winter

Last month I was excited to learn that Michigan ranks in the top ten states for its number of winter farmers markets. Even though the Holland Farmers Market, my most local one, isn’t open in the dead of winter, the Fulton Street Farmers Market in Grand Rapids is. Generally, it’s a bit of a drive for me on a Saturday morning, but Bill was planning to be in town today so he paid a visit, picked up some produce from Visser Farms as well as some bratwursts from Crane Dance Farm, and took these photos. For now, the market is temporarily located in the Salvation Army parking lot while construction is underway to expand and upgrade the current site, including the addition of permanent roof structures to provide shelter for this open-air market.

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Thanks to these hardy folks for enduring the elements each week to provide us their local goods!

Grassfed Beef Rump Roast

The last, lonely cut of beef from our 2010 mixed quarter from Lubbers Farm became tonight’s dinner: Rump Roast. One of my favorite recipes for rump roast is a Tuscan version that I learned at Chef Claudio’s cooking class near Florence, Italy, but tonight I opted for a different approach: Oven Rump Roast from Cooks.com.

As always with grassfed beef, it’s important to be conservative with the cook time because grassfed meat is leaner than factory farmed so it cooks quickly. Our cut of meat was 3.28 lbs. so I halved the recipe and reduced the cooking time to one hour and ten minutes.

It’s an easy recipe. You just rub some fresh garlic on the meat and then mix salt, pepper, and dried mustard together, which you rub on the meat before putting it in the oven.

Then you mix together some Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, and dry red wine, and baste the meat with it.

While my digital meat thermometer read medium rare when I took the roast out, it looked more like medium after letting the meat rest, covered, for ten minutes.

To accompany the roast, I simply roasted a vegetable medley of Yukon gold potatoes, carrots, celery, and garlic cloves in a skillet with olive oil while the meat cooked at 325 degrees F. When I took the roast out, I bumped up the oven temperature to 375 for another 20 minutes to finish cooking the vegetables.

Yummy, happy, Sunday dinner.

Grassfed Beef Sirloin Tip Roast

With our fresh mixed quarter of beef ready to pick up this fall, I wanted to make sure Bill and I used up any remaining cuts from last year’s store. One of those was a 3 1/2 pound sirloin tip roast, a cut that I rarely make. In fact, I had never bought one in the grocery store before switching to local grassfed meat.

My Joy of Cooking book, by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, claims the sirloin tip roast needs a moist heat method for cooking. But I came across several recipes online that did not give directions for covering the meat. So I decided to forego Irma’s and Marion’s suggestion and tried this recipe called Savory Herb Sirloin Tip Roast.

I like recipes that call for a rub, and this rub was similar to the one we use on our grassfed ribeye steaks. The preparation and cooking are simple. It turns out like the traditional roast beef you might see at restaurants, something we don’t often eat since we get lots of chuck roasts, steaks, and ground beef in our mixed quarter.

As I’ve mentioned before, cooking grassfed beef is totally different from factory farmed beef. You have to be cautious with the cooking time because it’s much leaner. It’s best to err on the side of undercooking because beef will cook further as it rests. I only had this 3.5 pound roast in the oven for 90 minutes.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 sirloin tip roast, about 3 to 4 pounds
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons cracked black pepper or about 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary, or about 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried leaf rosemary
• 1 tablespoon grated onion
• 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf thyme

Preparation

Remove roast from any netting and place in a foil-lined roasting pan. (I used a shallow Le Creuset baking dish with a lid because it came in handy both during the prep stage in the fridge and in the resting phase when it came out of the oven.)

Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl, mixing well.

Rub roast all over and tie with twine to keep it together if necessary. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.

Heat oven to 325°. Uncover the beef and place in the oven. Roast for about 25 minutes per pound, or until the roast is tender and done as desired. (As mentioned above, I did 1 1/2 hours for a 3.5 pound roast that was medium rare in the center and medium in the outer pieces.)

For medium-rare, the roast will register about 140° F. Remove from the oven and cover with foil (or lid). Let stand for 15 minutes before carving.
 Serves 6 to 8.

This time of year, what goes better with roast beef than roasted root vegetables?

Thanksgiving Dinner Without a Plan

I’m telling you, it’s been a long summer with lots of travel, work, and other activities keeping me quite busy. So I’ve been looking forward to winding down a bit at Thanksgiving. It means I’ve made all my deadlines, I can rest for four days, and I can cook. And this is the first year I didn’t plan a menu.

What?! A planner without a plan? That’s right. And it sure is liberating. I’m no Martha Stewart, but usually I ponder Thanksgiving dinner for at least a week or so before the event. It’s my favorite holiday because of all the cooking involved. But this year, I decided to wing it.

For one thing, I could count on what’s available in the house because I knew there were a few chickens from our CSA, Mud Lake Farms, in the freezer. Plus, Bill and I just picked up our pork and lamb from Lubbers Farm. Except for our mixed quarter of beef, we are set with our meat for the year. And, I’ve been consistently cruising the Holland Farmers Market for things like squash, root vegetables, leeks, and apples–stowing them away in the garage and basement. So I knew I could throw something together from our stash. The only special trip I made (okay, I guess there has been some planning going on behind the scenes) was to The Berry Bunch, the organic cranberry farm where I picked up fresh cranberries last Thanksgiving, too.

So what was on the menu? Well, for two people, you don’t need much. Usually, I like having a large sampling of side dishes but this year it’s all about simplifying. We started off with goat and sheep cheese with flax chips, Bosc pear, and Prosecco for appetizers.

I decided upon a chicken from Mud Lake Farm, which I roasted according to Bon Appetit’s Lemon-Herb Roast Chicken (a favorite at our house!).

The only substitutions I had to make to accommodate Bill’s allergies to wheat, corn, and cow-dairy were olive oil instead of butter for the rub, and oat flour instead of all-purpose flour in the gravy.

We also tried the Potato-Celery Root Mash recipe from the December issue of Bon Appetit. I omitted the sour cream and substituted chopped shallots for horseradish, since I didn’t have any. Oh, and no butter, of course! I used olive oil instead.

We also had roasted butternut squash with leeks and sage and Red Harvest Quinoa from Betty Crocker Whole Grains. For the quinoa, I substituted Pecorino sheep’s cheese instead of Parmesan and threw in some walnuts in lieu of pine nuts since I didn’t have pine nuts on hand.

For dessert? Apple-Cranberry Crisp. You can check out my improvisations to the recipe in my previous blog post.

Was it simple? Yes. I started cooking at 3:00 and we were eating dinner by 7:00. Basic, wholesome, traditional autumn fare. Thank you, farmers, for making it so easy for us to eat good, fresh, local food.

Dijon-Rosemary Lamb Steak

Bill and I picked up our lamb meat that we ordered from Lubbers Farm and there was a new cut in the collection: a lamb steak. I remember the first time I got a pork steak and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Turns out, it’s basically like a chop. So I decided to use a lamb chop recipe with the lamb steak we got for dinner this week.

I’ve had this recipe called “Dijon-Rosemary Lamb Chops” in my cookbook for a long time. It’s from a chef at the Bentwood Country Club in San Angelo, Texas. I had to adapt it since Bill can’t have wheat flour or cream. So here’s what I did:

I weighed the steak, which turned out to be two pieces. It was about two-thirds of a pound, which also meant doing a math adjustment for the recipe that called for four pounds of meat.

Then I spread Dijon mustard all over the meat.

And added chopped fresh rosemary from the pot on my breezeway.

Then I dredged the meat in brown rice flour and sprinkled it with salt and pepper.

In a skillet with hot olive oil, I seared the steaks on each side for four minutes.

Then I added some dry white wine and deglazed the pan, and put it (covered) in the oven at 300 degrees F for just two minutes. I let the meat rest for two more minutes.

The original recipe called for cream in the gravy, but I thought it was perfectly fine without!

Served with a side of canellini beans and braised lacinato kale, it was a simple, delicious meal. And, only a third of a pound of meat (or less, because that weight includes the bones) per person. We just don’t need to eat a lot of meat. A little good quality, local pastured meat is adequate–and healthy.

The Perennial Plate: Episode 66

The Perennial Plate Episode 66: On A Northern Farm from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.

It’s ironic. After cooking up lamb steak for dinner tonight (recipe coming tomorrow), I watched this episode of The Perennial Plate. It made me feel really good about the lamb I had just eaten. Not only does this episode focus on a lamb farmer, but her message is also in line with my philosophy about eating meat. I won’t eat meat unless I know its source and feel confident that it’s been humanely raised in a pasture. And I know where my lamb came from: farmers I know and trust at Lubbers Farm in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Oh, and if you’re a dog lover, check out the border collies in this video. They’re amazing workers, and gorgeous dogs!

Lavash Pizza with Bratwurst and Kale

I’m always looking for ways to whip up something quick and easy for dinner. My lavash pizza obsession is one way to solve the dilemma because the frozen Millet & Flax Lavash that Bill and I buy from Sami’s Bakery thaws quickly. So it’s just a matter of figuring out what to put on it.

We had a package of bratwursts from Creswick Farms that we recently got at the West Michigan Co-op. And I still had some curly kale in the garden. So here’s what I did….

First I braised the brats in a skillet to cook them through.

I let the water burn off in the skillet and added a little olive oil to brown them.

Meanwhile, I chopped the kale from my garden and steamed it, covered, in the microwave for one minute.

Then I sliced the brats and browned them again in the same olive oil and skillet.

Once they were done, I put them aside and sautéed half a large yellow onion, sliced, in the same pan.

When all the ingredients were ready, I browned the bottom side of two lavash pieces on a griddle.

Then it’s just a matter of assembly: First the onions, then the kale, then the brats, followed by some grated manchego sheep’s cheese.

The pizzas were browned under the broiler (set on low) on a cookie sheet for about 2-3 minutes. The idea is to brown the cheese and heat the pizza through.

Once it’s ready, just place the pizza on a cutting board and immediately cut into quarters.

One pizza makes a nice meal for one person.

Real Food Farm: Where the Chickens Are Happy

Ben Bylsma listens for sounds of distress among his chickens while we stand a distance from the shelter they live in. That’s the kind of farmer I want raising the chickens I’ll soon roast in my oven this fall.

For me, it’s all about animals living in a stress-free environment, which is a far cry from the factory farm meat you find in a grocery store. It’s not just because I’m an animal lover (which seems hypocritical, I know, since I’m happy to roast the chickens I visited); it’s also important to me to consume meat from animals that have lived a happy life. It’s simply healthier.

Last week I took a ride out to Bylsma’s place, Real Food Farm, to see how he raises his chickens. I first heard from him when he contacted me as a member on an email distribution list from Tom Carey, the chicken farmer that Bill and I used to get chickens from at Lubbers Farm.

I like what I heard from Ben. A college grad with a major in International Development, he has spent time in third world countries (Tanzania and Guatemala), including a stint in the Peace Corps with his wife.

Ben believes that the major road blocks in the development of countries always seem to be about food–how to find the most nutritious calories to sustain a population.

And it’s not like raising food is new to Ben. As early as fifth grade he had a garden. As an AmeriCorps volunteer he moved into large-scale gardening with multiple bed and sites through his work at the Blanford Nature Center. Then he got hooked up with Trillium Haven Farm while awaiting his assignment for the Peace Corps. Finally, it was on to Guatemala where he and his wife kept their own animals: a pig, turkeys, and chickens. And he spent a lot of time reading about permaculture, composting, and the nature of chickens.

A chicken farmer who has actually read about the nature of chickens!

Since March of 2011 he’s been raising pastured chickens for meat the way Joel Salatin does: by moving them through a pasture every day.

You can see where the grass has been matted down from moving the chicken house.

In addition to the bugs and grubs in grass, the chickens are fed organic grain with a mix of minerals and fish meal.

Because organic feed isn’t cheap, the cost per pound to the consumer has to be higher. But, honestly, as Michael Pollan says, wouldn’t you rather pay the grocer (or, in this case, the farmer) than the doctor? I am happy to spend more on pastured chickens fed organic food in a green pasture than to buy the stressed-out meat from factory farmed poultry you see in the grocery store. Oh, and don’t forget the chlorine bath those chickens get before they’re packaged up in styrofoam and shrink-wrap just to sit there waiting for you to purchase.

In addition to broilers (for food), there are egg layers on the way.

And baby broilers!

For my friends in West Michigan, I wanted you to know that I’ve done the work of paying Ben a visit, checking out his farm and reporting on it. Why not sign up for chickens this fall? For the rest of my readers, I hope you’re able to find a farmer like Ben where you live. If not, try searching on EatWild.com or AnimalWelfareApproved.org to find an ethical, humane farmer in your area.