Meatventures
Posted by Lauren on 22 Jun 2008 at 09:42 am | Tagged as: comestibles, local food
A while back, I emailed in response to a post over at (not so) Urban Hennery about needing folks to share a cow with, not expecting much response, since her post was a few weeks old at that point. But she replied almost immediately to say that they had three folks, and would love a fourth as that would let everyone get a quarter of a steer for cheaper than if there were just two. The beef would be coming from On the Lamb Farm in Arlington, where it seems like they got livestock because they loved training herding dogs so much. (Look at all the good dogs!) Laura at Urban Hennery knew and liked the butcher, Del Fox Custom Meats in Stanwood.
So we sent off our deposit to Laura, who was collecting all the checks and coordinating with the farm. She also coordinated with the butcher, sending them all our forms that we filled out with preferences like how many steaks per package, do we want various forms of roast left intact or ground, do we want stew meat and soup bones … (answers: 2; intact, as we can grind them ourselves; yes and yes). It was very nice to have her wrangling all that information. A few weeks later she forwarded an email from the farm, saying the steer, no longer a steer but now a beef, had gone off to the butcher, where it would hang for a while, then get chopped up and frozen and be ready for pickup. At this point we panicked a bit as we realized we needed to get a new freezer sooner rather than later, so, thanks to the many parental types who have provided us with Lowe’s gift cards over the last year!
Yesterday morning, packed up and headed off to Stanwood to the butcher. It was quite easy, it turned out; someone wheeled out some trays with my name on them, we dumped a whole bunch of packages into coolers, paid them for the butchering, and drove off.
On the way back to I-5, we stopped at a cute farmstand, Mossyback Farm, where we stocked up on eggs raised by their friends and neighbors (”the free-range-est ones you’ve got, please,” when she asked which ones we wanted), some Rainier cherries, and some other staples.
Then freezer pickup at Lowe’s in Lynnwood, about which the less said, the better. Places like that wear me out.
Beef stats roundup time!
Cost: $150 deposit + $218 more after weighing + $95 for the butcher = $463 total
Hanging weight of a side: 297lbs and we got half so ~150lbs (with bones and all), so about $3 per pound of hanging weight
I don’t know the total weight of the butchered meat, but the receipt says:
- T-bone steaks: 4
- Sirloin steaks: 3
- Top round: 3
- Flank steaks: 1
- Pot roast: 3
- Rump roast: 1
- Sirloin tip roast: 1
- Boneless crossrib roast: 1
- Stew meat: 5
- Short ribs: 2
- Brisket: 1
And then there’s a big stamp that says “BOTTOM ROUND.” Not sure what that means. And the receipt doesn’t mention the at-least-2 packages of soup bones we got, too. AND there is probably about 30 pounds of ground beef. Which, combined with some green onions from the garden and some fresh market garlic, and topped with sharp cheddar, fresh market garlic scapes, and home garden lettuce, made an excellent burger last night.
So yeah, I think we’ll be doing this again in the future. I’ll put out a call when it’s time.
In the meantime, please share ideas for ground beef, other than burgers! Shepherd’s pie and spaghetti sauce are in our repertoire, but we welcome recipes for those and anything else you’ve got.
So glad you got your beef! We picked up ours yesterday as well – can’t wait to break into it but of course we’ve got to finish off the last couple pounds of ground beef from last year first.
The bottom round is a roast – does quite well in the crockpot cooked all day long.
I like to braise bottom rounds or make bouef bourguignon with it. It is a little leaner than other roasts, but I like how lean it is.
Ground beef? Stuffed cabbages, borscht made with ground beef, and piroshkies! Stuffed peppers, stuffed tomatoes. The other day John said he likes stroganoff made with ground beef (I’ve never tried it with ground beef). Don’t forget about Chili, although I’ve taken to preferring Turkey Chili.
I need to get a grinder because I want some steak tartare.
This has always looked good:
http://orangette.blogspot.com/2004/08/flurry-of-fingers-and-cupped-lettuce.html
She makes it with pork here and I don’t know if it’s sacrilege to substitute, but the flavors all sound really good…
K: Borscht! Brilliant. We’ll see how the beets do. Garth doesn’t really like dill, which impinges on our ability to preserve, since he won’t eat pickles … but maybe I can work him up to it with some lightly dilled borscht. Stroganoff is a great idea, too. Does he have a recipe? Or just brown it and proceed as normal?
Do you have a KitchenAid? The meat grinder/sausage stuffer attachment is about $50 (on Amazon, at least) and is pretty worth it, especially for self-grinding any meat you want to eat not-fully-cooked in any way. We have not made sausage yet, but I’d really like to someday. I’m a bit intimidated by the idea of purchasing empty sausage casings though.
Shan: YUM that looks good. Not sure if the flavors would be right with beef? Might try chicken, though, if we can find it. We just emailed one of our favorite farms (http://www.skagitriverranch.com) to see about getting several frozen chickens to stock in the freezer, and they said they are not doing broilers this year due to increased organic grain prices. Suck.
Borscht in all its many forms is wonderful. Dill it seems is most often used as a garnish before serving so it can easily be removed entirely from the recipe or pasley or something else could be substituted.
Does he not like dill or does he not like things pickled at all too? (Doesn’t Garth like olives? They have go through pickling process in order for them to even be edible.) Because 98% of pickling recipes do not use any dill. Are you teaching yourself how to preserve foods or were you taught by someone? I grew up canning and pickling with mom, grandmothers, and parents’ friends (I can barely say I am one generation removed from the farm since my parents still raise food in the backyard and they do the same things they were raised to do with food on the farm). I can give you some recipes if you want. Maybe John and I will eventually move back to Seattle and we could start canning together. You might also want to check with Washington State’s Department or Agriculture, because I know that the Alabama Extension Cooperative System (www.aces.edu as Garth pointed out–state program headquartered at Auburn and Alabama State) offers classes in each county on gardening, food preservation, etc. for free, and they might offer something similar.
I do indeed have a KitchenAid, and I’ve been lusting after the grinder and sausage stuffer for years. However, that purchase is postponed until John and I finish replacing all the plastic storage containers and pitchers with glass (and get enough extra for us to make our own frozen meals for work).
Wow, I followed you all the way from Pasedena (PtF’s blog) back to the Seattle area. Funny.
Great blog. Looks like you all are having a blast up there! Sounds like a lot of fun. For now I’m on a 1/4 acre and just starting gardening for the first time.
Thanks for sharing!
Well, I just got back from Egypt where everyone eats kofta, which is pretty yummy & is something I suspect you could do with ground beef. Reminiscent of meatballs, because they basically are meatballs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofta
Other things I like with ground meats are moussaka; dolmas (yum); tacos (for that greasy nostalgic feeling); larb (or thai salad with lettuce, lots of lime juice & chile, like this), so delicious. Also some recipes for spicy eggplant dishes also call for ground beef, though I prefer mine vegetarian.
meats. yeah. hmm. that’s a lot of cow in your freezer, dudes.
phoebe: Larb is what Shan suggested, actually — does it work with beef? (also: hee! larb! larb larb)
Dolmas is a great idea. We have grapes, too, so I should see about pickling (?) the leaves. I read a post about that somewhere recently but it didn’t turn out well for that person … I should find a recipe.
One that I forgot about that we have enjoyed on more than one occasion (though not with this cow) is Russian meat patties called kotlety. Tasty.
[...] garden. Artichokes: garden. Cabbage for coleslaw: garden. Bread: homemade. Burger: from our cow. Ripe Green Zebra tomato on the burger: [...]