I'm a fan of good food made with high quality ingredients that grow locally. Fancy ingredients rarely make it to the farm kitchen. I also like 1 or 2 pot meals that I don't have to tend over AND leftovers are desired!
Many years ago when I first started cooking our own grassfed and pasture raised meats I found many recipes didn't work for our high quality product. Also many "modern" cookbooks used convenience ingredients like canned soup or dried onion mixes or sauce in a bottle. It took me a bit of experimenting to make things my own and search out older cookbooks using real ingredients. I then had to figure out that it's easy to overcook our really good meat. Those "modern" cookbooks were based on grain fed and finished conventional feedlot meats, not our fresh air grazing free ranging animals.
If you have ever cooked a roast and it's tough you more than likely blamed it on the farmer- maybe that farmer was me. I'm sorry that I didn't explain the cooking process and make sure you had the right cut for your recipe. I here to fix that and share what I've learned and help you eat delicious healthy meats.
I've been there cooking a roast using the wrong method, to high a heat and too short a cook time. Yup, this farmer is not a trained chef but is learning more every day. It's been a journey and one that's personal.
Nothing like raising the mom cow for 2 years on the farm, breeding her, waiting 9 months for a calf then raising the calf for 2 years- so almost 5 years of work to get the most nutritionally balanced meat only to ruin it in a few hours because the recipe stated to high a heat with to short a cooking time. I often just cooked roasts simply with garlic, salt and pepper in the crockpot. It quickly gets boring but sometimes boring is just a good honest meal that satisfies everyone.
Many years ago at a local conference I met a woman that has literally changed my life and what comes out of my kitchen. She is not just a mom, wife, daughter of the farmers but a farmer herself, outstanding cook, one of my favorite writers and just a wonderful person. I call her friend even though I may only see here every other year. We speak the same language (FarmHer!) and have similar goals. Not just raise the animals outside on grass with a high quality of life but those animals are to nourish our bodies in the end and we need to do it right from birth to plate. It's responsibility and our obligation to honor their lives.
We eat meat in our family and years ago made the choice that we could responsibly raise the meat for our family, we then slowly grew that into the business we are so proud of today.
We take a lot of pride in raising clean, healthy, nutritious safe food for our family and yours. It's a huge responsibility and one our family is devoted to for a long time.
Her cookbooks have really helped me understand cooking different cuts of meats from our animals. One thing you may notice is some cuts of meat we offer are not what you often see in the grocery store so you may not be familiar with cooking them- I've been there too! I here to share what I've learned so you to can cook our meats correctly.
So was this woman? Her name is Shannon Hayes. Her family farm is Sap Bush Hollow in Schoharie County, NY. Literally back in the hills.
I own all of her cookbooks and have them at the farm for customers.
The Grassfed Gourmet
Farmer and the Grill
Long Way on a Little
Farm Girl Cooks Grassfed Beef
This recipe comes from her first cookbook The Grassfed Gourmet.
It takes a few pounds of humble sausage and elevates it to an elegant but simple budget friendly meal fit for impressing company if you need to. I'm a fan of prepping meals then letting it cook an hour or so while I catch up on other things.
The ingredients are ones you most likely already have on hand and it's a one pot meal!
Sausages with Potatoes and Rosemary
from The Grassfed Gourmet serves about 6
4 Tablespoons lard or butter
2 pounds Creekside Meadows Sweet Italian Sausage in the casing/rope. Cut into 8 pieces
1/4 cup chopped onion
8 medium sized baking potatoes cut into large wedges. I use russets but fingerlings would work nicely
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup dry white wine. Stop in at JS Hight and sons in Caz and ask her some!
4 sprigs fresh rosemary Or 1 tablespoon dried.
Preheat oven to 350F
heat 2 tablespoons of the fat in a large non-reactive oven proof pot/pan or dutch oven. Brown sausages 3-5 minutes per side. Remove and cut into chunks similar in size to the potatoes so they cook evenly, set aside. Add 2 more Tablespoons fat to the hot pan, add onion and saute until transparent, add potatoes and cook 5 minutes on high heat stirring often to prevent sticking.
Return sausages & their juice to pan, add salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Stir in Wine and rosemary. Cover and bake about 1 hours until potatoes are tender.
Serve with fresh hot apple sauce or roasted butternut squash or salad.
I've done this with our Creekside Meadows Hot Sausage and skipped the cayenne pepper. It had just the nice kick that my son loves. Wine can be replaced with vegetable or chicken stock if you prefer. Maybe even some watered down apple cider? yum.
So how was that for easy? Simple ingredients that you are likely to have on hand in the kitchen.
Tomorrow?
Oven Roasted Spare Ribs and a bonus recipe just in time for New Years.
Yes oven roasted and you can still wow everyone when it's only zero outside!
Stop at the Creekside Meadows store Saturday 12-2pm
Purchases over $20 get a free package of Spare Ribs (1 3/4-2 pound pack!)
or
Spare Ribs and Baby Back Ribs are now only $5 a pound
and sign up for our email list for more recipes plus directions to the farm.
A word about sausages. Our farm raised sausage is much different than what I long ago purchased in the grocery store and still is different from customers telling me. It's a fine grind with no big chunks of fat or grizzle. It is also pure meat with just small amounts of fat so you get MEAT and will see little liquid coming from them when cooking.
Our animals go to a USDA inspected processor/butcher that we've used for 15 years now. It's what we have to do in order to sell our meats to you the way we do. It also guarantees both of us it's done safely and of high quality. The seasonings they use are either a mix or a custom blend. None contain gluten or milk. They do contain minute amounts of sugar for depth of flavor and in my opinion necessary for good tasting sausage. Most sausage you can buy is made with scraps of meat, ours isn't. We often grind the ham and shoulder and sometimes parts of the loin for our sausages so you get more high quality meat and better flavor.
The sausage is hand mixed and hand stuffed in casings and this costs us to have it done this way and to have it done by trained individuals that is part of the cost of our sausage. It's better meat to start with from our pasture woodland raised pigs plus high quality safe processing.
I'm always confused why some farms offer their sausage so cheaply when in reality it costs alot extra for the processing but then they are using lesser quality of meat.
We know you will taste the difference and notice that not all packages are the same because they are done by hand but done the right way.
If you enjoy making your own sausage or want to give it a try check with us about larger shoulder roasts, or fresh hams you can grind for your own sausage or try some of our ground pork for small batches. It's fun to play around with spices on your own.
Has more about our farm, where to purchase and our online store for quick ordering!
I deliver to Cazenovia every Friday and outside the area once a month plus our Farmstore is open most weekends all winter!
