et cetera

We haven't made any mitchmeaty meals lately, but I thought I'd share these tidbits:

#1 I love graphs! We are all clearly in the ideal place on this graph this summer.

 from seriouseats.com

#2  Phil inquired about the haggis at the Seward Coop meat counter, and the very nice butcher wrapped up a free sample for him!  Apparently Seward is one of the 2 places in the US (or was it North America??) that makes haggis.  We have enjoyed haggis in the past at Andrea and Greg's Robbie Burns parties.  Or, at least I enjoyed it the last time... the first time I was too intimidated by the looking-like-a-gigantic-grey-slug thing to try it.  Those were large haggises (haggi?) with a diameter larger than a grapefruit.  The Seward haggis was more like a big long bratwurst. 

Here's the haggis, sliced and cooked up with egg.

After the dinner, Phil sang a song that went "Haggis/Egg/Drunken goat cheese/These are the foods of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife" and commented, "I'm so glad I'm not a vegan." Amen. 

Where did I go wrong?

Yesterday it was chilly here in the house but I was reluctant to turn on the furnace. So I thought I'd both warm up the house a bit and cook dinner by using a technique I found on the internet for cooking a roast from a frozen state. I put one of Mitch's chuck roasts, a chunked up onion, potatoes and carrots, as well as a can of diced tomatoes and some water in a dutch oven pot. My internet source said that it would take four hours of cooking in the oven at 250 degrees for this mixture to produce a tasty roast. After three hours at 250 degrees I checked the pot and found that things were moving slowly toward the goal but maybe not as fast as I thought they should. I turned up the oven temp to 325. Left it all in there for two more hours. It's smelling very good at this point but I was kind of disappointed in the results. Potatoes done, carrots still kind of firm, meat done but didn't fall apart in as tender a state as I'd hoped it would. To be honest, my roast cooking experience is not deep so perhaps my expectations were not appropriate for this cut of meat or maybe this technique is not optimal. Any wisdom out there for me?

Post script: the house temperature went up one degree in the five hours the oven was on.

Saints Tailgate

Here was the first big meal I made with the hamburger - 4 pounds of beef made into 16 patties, combined with brats, hot dogs, corn, beans, and plenty of beer, was just enough to feed our group of 19 at the Saints game memorial day weekend.

Grilling was a blast and the game was awesome, from what I remember. There's been many more afternoons grilling since this, and will surely be many more to come this summer!

Home of the Beef!!

Wow this blog is amazing! Or crazy...I'm not sure yet...I think I'm still a bit disturbed by the title :)

Anyways, we randomly took some pictures of the cows this Easter, and looking back I think the one in the picture looking at the camera with the white face is "Number 16" though it could have been her sister. The other picture is of a bunch of the cows hanging out by our ponds in May.

But thank you to everyone - I'm so glad it all worked out and everyone likes the beef!! Its super tasty so far, and its going faster from my freezer than I ever thought it would, so thinking will have to do this again next fall!

I'll try to add some meals up here, and for sure will get pics next weekend when I plan to grill the tongue with some friends!

Cheers!

The Meat Man Speaks

A couple of months ago my friend Mitch sent around an e-mail to his friends asking if they were interested in pooling together to buy some beef. Mitch grew up near Green Bay, and his folks were thinking about slaughtering one of their cows. Mitch's folks have had our cow since it was a calf. It was pasture fed. No rgbh, hormones, steroids, etc. In the past, they had just sold whatever left over meat to their local butcher, but this time around they decided to see if they could find buyers themselves. The extra money earned is going into their son's college fund.

Photo of Mitch & folks creepily stolen from Facebook. Sorry Mitch.

After considering the local/organic bent of many of my friends and petitioning for interest, I told Mitch we would be in. He explained we would be buying about a quarter of the cow and would receive over 100 lbs of beef. Over the next couple months he and I traded e-mails and phone calls about exactly how much beef we would be getting and when it would arrive. As the days and conversations passed, I learned our cut of the cow would be around 140 lbs hanging weight with the cost at $2.50 per hanging weight lb.

For us to actually get the cow Mitch's folks had to drive down from Green Bay with the back of their truck packed full of frozen meat. This trip was delayed once or twice, but an estimated weekend arrival was set. Mitch emailed me about it on the preceding Monday, however due to my internet system being down I didn't hear of the arrival until that Wednesday. Mitch's folks were only able to find one additional buyer, so they slaughtered one of their smaller cows to be split in three. Or rather, cut into many parts and then split into three.

Thus began a frantic search on my part for people who had expressed prior interest or were new to the arrangement but still wanted some beef. Thankfully within a couple days I arranged 9 partners in cow to help get most of this beef off my hands and share the $415 or so bill. Our meat eaters are Stu, Mo, Katie & Chris, Amanda & Neal, Kari & Martin, Andrew & Julie, Rynda & John, Andrea Eves & Jason, and Phil & Cate.

When I picked up the meat Mitch's parents mentioned they may do this again in the fall. I told them right on the spot we would definitely be interested, just based on the excitement I felt from all of you. I also know that a few more folks were interested in getting in on the action, but due to my last minute arrangements were unable to. (I know Julia and Rachel are in this crowd)

So keep on posting, keep on eating beef, and hopefully we'll get to do this again soon!


P.S. Miss Piggy is very pleased that Mitch's surgical knives are only used on cows...