Monthly Archives: September 2007

farms

Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner

1 Comment

Deciding to eat locally and sustainably does not (for me) preclude meat. I am an omnivore and make no apologies about it.

Meat gets a bad rap in the organic food community because of the methods used in raising animals and bringing them to market. For example, to quickly fatten cows (and increase profitability), conventional commercial operations feed them corn and grains and give them growth hormones. Corn and grain-fed cows gain about 5 pounds a day versus the 1.5-2 pounds a day a grass-fed cow gains. Since cows don’t naturally eat corn and grains and live in very tight quarters, they also need antibiotics, which get passed on to the consumer.

Since those cows are not eating grass (their natural diet), there are nutrients they aren’t getting and therefore, nutrients they aren’t producing. Grass-fed beef is higher in vitamin E and Omega-3 Fatty acids as well as beta-carotene and conjugated linoleic acids. It is also lower in calories and fat than conventional grain or corn-fed beef.

The question is, where can I find locally raised and humanely produced meat products?

In a previous post, I mentioned that a natural foods store carried locally raised beef from Stuart Family Farm in Bridgewater, CT. I bought some to perform some cooking and palate experiments.

The price was high (a rib eye steak was about $20 a pound). You can get it significantly cheaper by going to the farm yourself, but even then, it’s more expensive than supermarket beef. The high price is due to the additional land required to rotate grass fed beef and the quality of that land. Also, it takes seven months longer for a cow to come to weight naturally.

In the end, it comes down to taste. And as promised, I’m ready to share my results. We cooked the rib eye on the grill and the steak was fantastic! It was not gamey or strange tasting. There was less fat on the steak and it tasted less greasy. But it was tender and juicy. It was delicious. I would definitely do this again.

Now, where can I find chicken and pork?

Uncategorized

Like Peapod, but not

2 Comments

In a previous post, I expressed envy that a particular supermarket has a delivery service. You order groceries from their Web site and they bring it to your door. That’s one of the perqs of living in the 21st century. Oh that local, sustainably-grown foods came with the same convenience.

As it happens, there are a few such services:
My Personal Farmers works with a number of local NY farms and will deliver anywhere in Westchester County, NY. Since I don’t live in Westchester County, I cannot use the service and am therefore unable to provide a review or any guidance whatsoever. It does seem like a very cool thing. I invite anyone with any experience with this service to share their experiences in the comments.

Organic Connection in Brewster, NY delivers to Westchester and Putnam counties in NY and Fairfield County in CT. How excited am I?!
More on this service once I’ve had a chance to try it out.

farms, foraging

Another Foraging Adventure

Our second (deliberate) adventure in foraging brought us to New Morning Natural and Organic Store in Woodbury, CT., about 10 miles away.

It’s a fairly large store (as natural foods stores go), but they carry so many items, the place seems small. This is a good thing since they are building a new store with lots more space!
They have a wide variety of products: organic/local produce, dairy products, meat products, prepared foods, boxed and frozen foods, household items, hygiene and heath care products, baked goods, coffee, and more.

I thought the produce section was rather small (comparing it only to the size of the farmer’s market). And I wish their signs would have been more specific about the food origin-Connecticut Grown seems rather generic to me. For a small state, it’s pretty big. (Happily, the entire state fits into our 100-mile local radius.)

The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, answering all kinds of scientific and sociological questions about their products.

Among many other items, we bought some locally raised beef from Stuart Family Farm in Bridgewater, CT. This is an experiment. Long ago, I bought some free-range beef from elsewhere to check it out and found it to be tough, gamey, and generally not tasty. I feared my palate had been socialized into corruption over the (many) years of my life. This is another chance. I bought a rib-eye steak and some ground beef. I plan to do the steak up on the grill and to make my much-loved meatballs out of the ground beef. (I’m having visions of chasing free-range meatballs around the kitchen.) I promise more information on this beef once we cook and taste it.

We bought Hautboy Hill Farm creamline milk, but I can’t find a Web site to link to.

And finally, the sweet potatoes we bought were the sweetest sweet potatoes I have ever eaten.

farms, recipes

Pumpkins

The first local pumpkins of the season appeared on the scene. I found mine at Mason’s Farm Market. (They don’t have a Web site, but they’re on Route 25 in Monroe, Ct. at the Bradford Drive intersection. Map here.)

It turns out that pumpkins are quite nutritious; they’re rich in beta carotene, potassium, Vitamin C, calcium, and fiber.

I decided to attempt the pumpkin soup recipe (PDF) from Kingsolver’s book, which calls for cooking the soup and serving it in its own shell.

I was very careful scraping the inside flesh and I am quite certain that I did not breach the skin/shell, but alas, the pumpkin did collapse and I was unable to use it as a tureen.

As for the taste-delicious, though not exactly what I was expecting; this is pumpkin herb, not pumpkin spice.