Our family is just returning home from seven weeks of travel adventures, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be back in my own kitchen, with my own good food.  We’ve been traveling and tasting our way through France, and while I gleaned a number of culinary lessons from this trip, I must tell you the most important one:  North American grassfed producers have the best meat.  Don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise!

While traveling, I received a message from someone telling me that one of my past articles that many of you like to re-print, about how to generate three meals from a single pastured chicken, has gone missing from the website.  I promised I would re-post, then realized that this particular story was generated at least two computer crashes ago, and is long gone from my archives.  Thus, I’ve re-written it and posted it here, including new recipes from my latest (forthcoming) cookbook, Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meats, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, which is due out this fall.

Okay, the grass is getting green and lush out there, and I’ve got a lot of clean-up work to do in the gardens before the real farm labors start….so off I go!   May this years’ growing season be full of joy and delicious pleasures at the table for all of you!

Best wishes, Shannon Hayes

A single whole chicken, used correctly, will generate several meals

Pardon the pun, but the one cut of meat I am most likely to see a new customer “bawk” at is a whole chicken.   Our price for whole birds last year was $4.95/lb, 35% less than a pound of grassfed ground beef.  Poultry is the cheapest meat at our farmers’ market booth.  Interestingly, it is also the most expensive for us farmers to bring to market, owing to the cost of grain and the amount of labor required to produce and process a healthy pasture-raised chicken.  Paying $25-30 for a whole chicken may feel like a stretch for someone who is accustomed to cheap* factory chicken from a grocery store, but truthfully, it is the best bargain at the market.   A single 4 ½-5 pound chicken can usually generate 3 different meals for a family of four, making a total of 12 servings.   Thus, a 4.75 pound chicken winds up costing $1.96 per serving, a modest sum when you figure that a side serving of  fresh local swiss chard costs $1.13 per serving, or that a side portion of decent quality potato chips costs $1.25 per serving.

The mistake too many people commit when purchasing a pasture-raised bird is serving it for one meal, then discarding the leftovers and the carcass, sadly assuming that they don’t have time to bother with the rest.  However, the subsequent meals that the leftovers and bones can generate are actually less time-consuming than that first initial meal.  Once you’ve gone to the labor to prep and clean up a roast chicken dinner, most of the work for your subsequent meals is complete.  Here’s how it is done.

1.   Remove your bird from the bag.  Examine how it was processed.  Most farmers in the United States do not leave on the heads and feet (many Americans are frightened to come into contact with this part of their food), but if they were included (or if your farmer will sell them to you for cheap), you’ve got a bonus.  Remove the head, the neck and the feet.  Toss them into a stock pot or, if you won’t be home much, into a crock pot.  If you find any giblets in the cavity of the bird, toss them in as well. Proceed with roasting your chicken and having a terrific dinner.  I’ve provided a recipe for a simple roasted chicken below.

2.  After supper, tell someone else to do the dishes, then grab a storage container and sit down at the kitchen table and get intimate with what remains of the chicken carcass.  Pick off any remaining bits of meat at this time.  Run your fingers along the breast bone to pull off the remains of the white meat; flip the bird over and discover the tidbits along the back and the “oysters” (the two luscious pieces of dark meat located on the back of the bird near the thigh).  Check your kids’ plates.  Did they leave a drumstick or thigh half eaten?  Don’t let that go to waste.  Pull them apart and salvage any meat.  Don’t waste a good meal simply because little fingers touched it at supper time.  By golly, those little hands and mouths have touched far worse before hugging and kissing you.  Pull off the wings and salvage the meat there, as well.  It is tempting to put all this leftover mess in the fridge and deal with it another day, but trust me.  The time to do it is right after supper.  The bird is a lot easier to pick at room temperature than when it is cold, and you are less likely to forget about it and lose a potential meal. Trust me: As one who has discarded too many rancid meat-laden carcasses that were “left til later,” I speak from experience.  Dice up all the meat you  have left over.  As long as you have a minimum of two cups, you are set for another meal.  You can use it either for a chicken salad, or chicken and rice, or a stir fry.  For some recipe ideas, check out the two I’ve listed below, Chicken and Wild Rice with a Sherry Cream Sauce, or Tomato Garlic Chicken Salad.

3.  Now that you’ve got a picked-clean carcass, it is time to turn your attention to those remaining bones.  Add them to the stock pot or crock pot, along with the giblets, neck and heads or feet (if you’ve got them).  Look around at your dinner mess.  Surely there are some other items remaining on people’s plates or on the kitchen counter that would help add nutritional density and flavor to your broth:  broccoli and carrot stems, celery leaves or stubs, lettuce or cabbage cores, onion roots and peels, cauliflower leaves, this list goes on and on.  Essentially, if it is a part of a vegetable plant, either raw or cooked, that was not eaten, it has something valuable to offer to your broth.  Got any egg shells leftover from breakfast? Add those, too.  If you’ve got any leftover gravy or pan juices, either from the chicken dinner or from some other meal, add that, too.  Pour in a few tablespoons of wine or vinegar, fill the stock pot or crock pot with water, cover, and allow it to rest for about half an hour before turning it on.  Allow the broth to simmer 24-36 hours before straining.

4.  Now that you’ve got a rich broth, you have the base for amazing soup. Skim off any fat and keep it in your fridge.  Drink it just plain (cold or hot) for a deeply satisfying and quick breakfast, or use it for your next supper.  This broth will be so nutrient dense, you won’t need to add a lot of ingredients to make a satisfying soup.  You might simmer some diced carrots in it, then add some tomatoes, followed by a few handfuls of diced greens just prior to serving.  If you want to make it extra-rich, float a soft cheese, such as camembert, on top, or try the recipe for Potato Cabbage Soup that appears below.

So there you have it. Roast chicken.  Chicken salad or chicken and rice.  Chicken soup.  All from one generous bird.  Three delicious meals, a well-fed family, and the deep satisfaction that comes from delicious frugality.  If you are totally new to roasting chickens, making chicken salad and making soup, here are a few recipes ideas to get you started, taken from my newest book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, which is due out in September. (More shameless promotion coming soon…)

*Note:  factory farmed chicken only appears cheap.  Learn more here.

CHICKEN DINNER 1:

No Frills, Straightforward (and really tasty) Chicken

Taken from: Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, by Shannon Hayes

Lately, this is the recipe I use to prepare 90 percent of the chickens I roast at home. It is fast, easy, delicious, and the minimal seasonings enable me to take the leftovers in any number of directions. The simplicity of this recipe also lets me use the delay-bake feature on my oven. On farmers’ market days, I prepare this chicken before I leave in the morning, then set the oven to begin roasting while we’re out of the house. When our family gets home, exhausted at the end of the day, dinner is ready.

Serves 6

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 4–5-pound chicken

1 to 2 tablespoons coarse salt

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

1 whole clove garlic, peeled

Preheat the oven to 350º F.

Thoroughly brush the melted butter over the surface of the bird, sprinkle the outside with salt and pepper, and place the garlic clove in the cavity. Put the chicken, breast-side-up, in a large cast-iron skillet or any roasting pan that can be transferred to the stove top when you are ready to make the gravy.

Roast the bird approximately 1 ½ hours until the juices between the cavity and the thigh run clear; the internal temperature of the breast should read 160 degrees, and the internal temperature of the thigh, taken on the inside at the meatiest part, 165 degrees. Serve the chicken au jus, or make the gravy recipe that follows.

Leftovers: This chicken recipe sets you up to use any number of the chicken recipes. The minimal seasonings make it compatible with everything … Don’t forget to save the bones for broth!

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Black pepper: 2.94 g

Total carbohydrates per recipe: 2.94 g

Total carbohydrates per 1/6 serving: 0.49 g

Pan Gravy for Roasted Poultry and Meat

This gravy recipe works for any roast meat … but it is pretty fun to make it with a roast chicken.

Fat and pan juices from the roast, separated with a fat separator

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ cup all-purpose flour

2 cups meat broth, such asShannon’s Meat Broth, Chapter 3, or chicken broth, preferably homemade (see Meat Broth, Chapter 3)

Coarse salt and ground black pepper

Remove the roast to a warm platter, pouring the fat from the roasting juices back into the roasting pan. Add the butter to the roasting pan and set it on the stove top over medium heat. Once it melts and bubbles, whisk in the flour to make a roux. Continue to whisk 1–2 minutes longer, until the paste has browned. Slowly whisk in the pan juices and broth, and allow the mixture to come to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow the gravy to simmer for 5–10 minutes, until it thickens to your preferred consistency, stirring often to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Butter: 0.02 g

Flour: 23.07 g

Meat broth: 2.8 g*

Total carbohydrates per recipe: 25.89 g

CHICKEN DINNER 2 (CHOOSE ONE):

Chicken (or Turkey) and Wild Rice with a Sherry Cream Sauce

Taken from: Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, by Shannon Hayes

This recipe is an easy-to-make treat in our household, giving us something to look forward to the day after we’ve enjoyed a roasted chicken.

Serves 4

4 tablespoons butter or lard

2 medium carrots, diced

2 medium yellow onions, diced

2 ribs celery, diced

3 tablespoons almond flour (or another flour of your choosing)

1 tablespoonDijonmustard

2 cups meat broth, such asShannon’s Meat Broth, Chapter 3

2 cups diced cooked chicken or turkey

1 cup heavy cream (or milk)

2 tablespoons sherry

Coarse salt and ground black pepper to taste

4 cups cooked wild rice or wild rice blend

Heat 2 tablespoons of the fat in a large skillet over a medium flame. Add the carrots and sauté 5 minutes, then add the onions and celery. Sauté until the carrots are crisp-tender and the onions are clear. Remove the vegetables to a bowl and return the skillet to the heat. Add the remaining fat and let it melt. When the bubbling subsides, whisk in the almond flour. Cook, whisking constantly, for 1 minute, then slowly whisk in the mustard and 1 cup of the broth, stirring constantly. Simmer until the broth has reduced by half, then slowly whisk in the remaining broth. Simmer 10 minutes, allowing the sauce to thicken further. Stir in the meat and vegetables, cook 1 minute, then stir in the cream. Cook until it is just heated through, about 2 minutes longer. Stir in the sherry, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and serve over rice in shallow bowls.

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Carrots: 11.68 g

Onions: 20.54 g

Celery: 2.38 g

Flour: 17.3 g

Meat broth: 2.8 g*

Heavy cream: 6.64 g

Sherry: 1.5 g

Wild rice: 139.99 g

Total number of carbohydrates per recipe: 202.83 g

Total number of carbohydrates per ¼ recipe: 50.58 g

* Number of carbohydrates in homemade broth will vary.

Tomato Garlic Chicken (or Turkey) salad

Taken from: Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, by Shannon Hayes

The whole cloves of garlic are a surprising ingredient for this salad with a pronounced Provençal flavor; but blanching them first turns their bite into a nutty and mildly sweet flavor.

Serves 4

2 large heads garlic

4 medium fresh tomatoes, diced

½ cup diced green olives (with or without pimentos)

2–4 cups diced cooked chicken or turkey

½ cup olive oil

¼ cup apple cider or red wine vinegar

½ teaspoon coarse salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoonDijonmustard

4 ounces crumbled goat cheese, optional

Separate the garlic into cloves and peel them. Bring a pot of water to a light boil over medium heat and drop in the garlic. Boil until they are tender when pierced, about 5–8 minutes. Drain and combine them with the tomatoes, olives, and chicken in a salad bowl.

In a separate, smaller bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard until it has emulsified. Pour this over the salad and toss to coat. Sprinkle with the goat cheese and serve.

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Garlic: 11.88 g

Tomatoes: 19.14 g

Green olives: 0.96 g

Cider vinegar: 0.56 g

Black pepper: 0.38 g

Dijonmustard: 0.33 g

Goat cheese: 2.88 g

Total number of carbohydrates per recipe: 36.13 g

Total number of carbohydrates per ¼ recipe: 9.03 g

CHICKEN DINNER #3:

Use the broth to prepare a simple vegetable soup as described above, or follow this easy recipe for something more filling.

Potato Cabbage Soup

Taken from: Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, by Shannon Hayes

Inexpensive, filling, colorful and tasty. This is a great soup that is easy to prepare, and a terrific way to use up some leftovers.

Serves 6

4 cups green cabbage, diced

3 medium potatoes, diced

2 medium red onions, diced

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme

¼ teaspoon allspice

2 quarts broth

1 pound diced cooked sausage or cooked lamb, pork, goat, beef or poultry (optional)

Layer the cabbage, potatoes and onions in a slow cooker. Add the salt, pepper, thyme, allspice and meat broth. Cover and cook on low until the potatoes are tender, about 6 hours. Add the cooked meat, cover and cook until the meat is heated through, about 15 minutes longer.

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Cabbage: 20.65 g

Potatoes: 101.60 g

Onions: 20.54 g

Black pepper: 1.47 g

Thyme: 0.45 g

Allspice: 0.34 g

Meat stock: 11.2 g*

Total number of carbohydrates per recipe: 156.25 g

Total number of carbohydrates per 1/6 recipe: 26.04 g

Shannon Hayes, host of GrassfedCooking.com, is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers. She works with her family raising grassfed meat on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in upstate New York. Her newest book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September. Copies of her books are available throughGrassfedCooking.comat wholesale and retail prices.

The temperature outside our door is a delightful, seasonal 10 degrees, perfect weather for some romantic Valentines’ day grilling.  Grassfed filet mignon comes to mind as the perfect dinner for two, so here’s a link to an article that will tell you how to properly cook it.

I hope winter continues to treat you well, that you find ample time to sit by a fire and allow your mind to rest, and that you will be ready with renewed energy for the coming growing season.

All best wishes,

Shannon Hayes

In the fifteen years Bob and I have been together, we’ve figured out how to orchestrate the perfect romantic evening.  Flowers and chocolates were long ago dismissed.  Jewelry goes largely unappreciated.  Fancy restaurants or elegant stays in romantic B&Bs are over-rated.  An amorous evening for us means staying home with a vodka martini in one hand, a plate of grassfed filet mignon in the other, and the romantic crackling fire of a hot grill just outside the kitchen door.

For years, filet mignon was a cut I shied away from.  Since it comes from the muscle on the animal that does the least amount of work, it doesn’t pack the same beefy intensity as a chuck eye steak or London broil.  I dutifully cooked it until it was medium rare, but found myself bored with the flavor by the third bite.

Then I read about the health benefits of raw or super-rare meat, how it is easier for the body to digest.  So I experimented with a piece of filet…and discovered a world of delicate flavor that I’d never before appreciated.  Filet mignon does not have the characteristic intense beef flavor that is so prominent in other cuts, so when left rare, the other two components that mark the distinctive grassfed flavor – the taste of minerals from nutrient-rich soils and the sweet herbaceousness from lush pastures – are much more pronounced.  Compared to a rib eye or sirloin steak, a rare piece of filet mignon tastes almost floral.  The flavor nuances are so delightful and interesting, I myself rhapsodizing about the extraordinary taste to the very last bite.

Admittedly, a piece of filet makes for a pretty pricey dinner.  The tenderloin muscle on a beef makes up less than 2% of the overall carcass weight.  There is not a lot of it to go around.  But even at $28 per pound (our farm market price), the cost of a home-cooked filet mignon dinner is a whole lot cheaper than dinner out.  And since it is best cooked out on the grill (even in the depths of winter on a snowy Valentines’ day), there’s not a lot of prep work in the kitchen (leaving ample time for sipping cocktails), and there are very few dishes to wash up later (leaving ample time for other pursuits).  Here’s how we cook the filet in our house:

Grilled Filet Mignon with Lemon Herb Butter

Serves 2

1 pound filet mignon steaks, 1 1 /2 inches thick (two 8 ounce pieces)

1 tablespoon coarse salt

1 ½ teaspoons fresh ground black pepper

1 recipe Lemon Herb Butter, see below

Sprinkle the steaks on both sides with the salt and pepper.  Set them aside and allow them to come to room temperature while you light one side of your grill.

Allow the grill to heat up.  When you can hold your hand four inches above the grate for no more than 3 or 4 seconds, lay the steaks across the grate and sear them for 2 minutes on each side.

Remove the steaks to the cool side of the grill.  Put the lid on, and allow them to cook indirectly for 4-5 minutes.  Serve immediately, topped with a generous dollop of Lemon Herb Butter.

Lemon Herb Butter

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 tablespoon dried parsley

½ teaspoon granulated garlic

½ teaspoon fine salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Beat the butter until light and fluffy, then blend in the remaining ingredients.  Serve immediately, or cover in an air-tight container and store in refrigerator for up to one month.

Shannon Hayes, host of GrassfedCooking.com, is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers. She works with her family raising grassfed meat on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in upstate New York. Her newest book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September. Copies of her books are available through GrassfedCooking.com at wholesale and retail prices.

Finally!  The snows of winter have begun to fall, the weather is not expected to rise above 15 degrees this coming weekend, and the ground is white.  Now that the holidays are behind us, I thought it might be a good time to talk about that flavorful, frugal repast that nourishes our bodies and souls and warms our kitchens during these cold days:  stew.  Click here to read my article with tips on how to make a perfect stew, including a simple recipe from my forthcoming cookbook, Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously  (due out in September).

For those of you in the area, there will be an open house at Sap Bush Hollow farm this weekend from 1-4pm on Saturday.  For those of you scattered about the country, I hope to see you in the coming weeks as Bob and I pack up and spend a week on a mini-tour with the following stops:

January 28^th:  NOFA-NJ inPrinceton

January 30^th: Media,PA

February 1-4: PASA,State   College,PA

If you are going to be at any of these events, please be sure to stop by and say hello!

Best wishes for a suitably cold and restful winter,

Shannon Hayes

GrassfedCooking.com

Anyone can make a great stew!

Very often, the simplest dishes I prepare are the ones that receive the most comments.  A friend dropped in the other day to retrieve her daughter from a play date.  She sat down at the kitchen table and as we chattered away, I set a bowl of stew in front of her. She picked up her spoon and began to eat, and between mouthfuls, we talked about schedules,  yoga, neighbors.  Then the room fell silent.

“Are you all right?  Is something wrong with the stew?”  (I test a lot of recipes in my kitchen.  Sometimes things don’t turn out so great…)

“This.  Is.  Amazing.”

“The stew?”  Now, mind you, stew, in my house, is pretty ordinary fare.  I make it when I know we’re going to be busy so that we can simply re-heat it for our meals.

“This isn’t just stew.  This is….this is….an accomplishment.  I cannot cook like this.”

“Sure you can.”

“You have to tell me what’s in here.  There’s something extraordinary in here.  Savory?”

“Nope.”

“Tarragon?”

“I’m out.”

“What is it?”

I could only come up with one single commonly overlooked ingredient that would make this stew taste exceptional: Time.    One cannot be rushed when preparing a good stew.  The steps do not require advanced culinary skills, nor are they labor intensive.  But they do require a willingness to invest time in each of the three phases of preparation.

Phase I:  Broth.   Good broth takes time (but not labor), and the preparation of good broth should simply be part of the home cook’s weekly rhythm.   If you eat meat, and if you eat vegetables, then there should be homemade broth in your kitchen at all times.   It is a way of turning kitchen scraps into terrific, deeply nourishing meals without adding a cent to your food bill.   Save up the bones from any meats you eat – rib bones from your pork chops, steaks and lamb chops; the carcass from your roasted chicken; leg bones from your roasts.  Additionally, save up the skins and roots left over from your onions, the spines of your kale, the heels from your cabbages, stem tips from carrots, the stalks and leaves from your cauliflower and broccoli.  All of this kitchen waste, when blended with water and time in a stockpot, will make the glorious base for any soup or stew.  If you’ve never made your own broth before, this article at GrassfedCooking.com will show you how.

Kitchen scraps and bones lead to great stew.

Remember:  the essential secret ingredient for amazing stew is time.  So don’t start your broth the same  day you plan to make your stew.  Get it going about three days ahead.  I store my leftover bones in my freezer and keep a bag of my vegetable scraps in the fridge and start a new pot of broth on the stove every 10 days, so there is always an abundant supply ready to go.  If you are running shy of bones, I guarantee your local grassfed farmer will have a bountiful supply available at very little cost.  Any bones will work – necks, marrow bones, knuckles, ribs. Any species will work, too.  (As a farmer, one of my pet peeves is the customer who mistakenly insists marrow bones are the only suitable bones for stock.  Argh!  Philistines!)

Phase II:  Browning the meat.  Nothing will make a meat stew more forgettable than a failure to take time to brown the meat before adding the broth.  Contrary to popular belief (which is rumored to have started with Aristotle), searing meat prior to cooking does not “seal in the juices.”  Crusts that form on the surface of meat are not waterproof.   But browned meat does taste better, as a result of the chemical reactions that take place during the process.  To do it successfully, however, requires a commitment of (yes, here’s that wonderful ingredient again) time.  Do not make the mistake of dumping all the stew meat into a hot pan, and expecting it to brown.  With so many pieces close together, the meat will merely steam.  Rather, be patient.  Blot the meat dry.  Heat your stew pot over a medium-high flame, then grease it with a piece of butter, tallow or a piece of rendered lamb fat  (I prefer tallow or rendered lamb fat, as they are more saturated and will smoke less), then add just a few pieces of meat at a time.  Make sure there is at least one inch of space around every piece of meat you put in the pot (see photo).  This will minimize the steam and maximize the browning.  Allow the meat to sear for a minimum of 2 minutes per side before turning it over.  Once it is browned, remove it to a bowl while you brown the next batch.  When all the meat is seared, put it all back into the stew pot, add your broth, and proceed with phase III.

A bit of tallow (rendered beef fat) greases the stew pot for browning.

Ample space around each piece of meat allows for successful browning.

Phase III:  Cooking the stew.  Do not make the common mistake of pouring in your broth, tossing in the vegetables at once and walking away.  Respect the individuality your ingredients and allow each of them the proper cooking time to bring out their maximum flavor and ideal texture. Adding all the vegetables at once will result in mush.  Added in the proper order, however, they’re individual flavors and textures will be more pronounced, resulting in a far more flavorful stew.  Start by cooking your meat and broth together for a few hours, until the meat is mostly tender (not quite done).  Then add the tomatoes and any root vegetables.  After simmering for about 30 minutes, you can add the remaining vegetables.  Simmer until they are just cooked through, and your stew will be ready to serve, full of fantastic flavor.

So there it is.  The secret ingredient is time.  Knowing how to use it in your favor in each of the three phases should enable you to make a stew with whatever ingredients you have in your kitchen, without adhering to any specific recipe.  However, if having a recipe on hand boosts your confidence, here’s a basic one to get you started, borrowed from my newest (forthcoming) cookbook:  Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously (due out this September).

Stovetop Stew

From Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously (forthcoming, September, 2012), by Shannon Hayes, host  of grassfedcooking.com.

 Serves 8-10

3 pounds boneless beef, lamb, pork or goat stew meat

3 tablespoons coarse salt, or to taste

1½ tablespoons ground black pepper, or to taste

About 1 tablespoon lard, tallow or butter, or more as needed

2 cups water

2 quarts Meat Broth

2 cups chopped fresh (preferred) or canned tomatoes

6 medium carrots, cut into bite-size chunks

6 medium boiling potatoes, cut into bite-size chunks

5 medium turnips or parsnips, peeled and cut into bite-size chunks

3 ribs celery, chopped

3 medium onions, sliced into wedges

½ medium head cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces

3 cups chopped green beans (or shredded green cabbage)

Dry the meat, arrange it on a large platter, and sprinkle with the salt and pepper.  Heat a large, 8-quart soup pot over a medium-high flame.  Add the fat and swirl to coat. Working in small batches so as not to crowd the meat (crowded meat tends to steam rather than brown), brown it on all sides, (about 2 minutes per side).  Add more fat if needed (I prefer not to, as I think too much fat impedes the browning.).

Once all the meat has browned, return it all to the pot, add the water, and bring it to a simmer, using a wooden spoon to scrape up all the seared-on bits of meat on the bottom of the pan.  Once the bottom of the pan is clean and your water is a rich, dark pan juice, add the broth.  Bring to a simmer and lower the heat. Cook on very low heat for 2-3 hours, until the meat is mostly (but not entirely) tender.  Add the tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and turnips and simmer for 30 minutes longer.  By this point, the meat should be tender.  If not, continue simmering until it the meat is fork-tender before proceeding to the final step.

Add the remaining vegetables and cook until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork and the cauliflower is  cooked to your liking, about 20 minutes longer.  If you prefer a thicker stew, simmer with the lid off to allow the liquid to cook down.

Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate and allow the flavors to meld for a day or two before feasting.

Estimated Carbohydrates:

Black pepper: 6.62 g

Meat stock: 11.2 g*

Tomatoes: 19.20 g

Carrots: 35.04 g

Potatoes: 203.22 g

Turnips: 39.22 g

Celery: 3.57 g

Onions: 30.81 g

Cauliflower: 14.61 g

Green beans: 20.91 g

Total carbohydrates per recipe: 384.4 g

Total carbohydrates per 1/8 recipe: 48.05 g

*Number of carbohydrates in homemade broth will vary.  This figure is calculated using the recipe for Shannon’s Meat Broth.

Shannon Hayes, host of GrassfedCooking.com, is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers.  She works with her family raising grassfed meat on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in upstate New York.  Her newest book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers’ Companion  for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September.  Copies of her books are available through GrassfedCooking.com at wholesale and retail prices. 

The dark days are upon us, and I write with greetings of the season.  Those of us who are looking forward to a little slow time (or perhaps seeking a few gift ideas) might be interested in exploring a little winter reading.  Rather than shamelessly promoting my cookbooks, I thought you might be interested in a few other titles for broadening your mind about grassfed production and lifestyles outside the kitchen.  Below are reviews for three books that I think every pasture-based farmer would love to have in their library.  You can see all the book reviews, along with cover images here.

I received many emails last week from Grassfed Cooking subscribers who were thrilled about the opportunity for farmers to occupy Wall Street.  I also received a few emails from folks who were outraged that I would even consider heading down to NYC for the Farmers Occupy Wall Street march on December 4^th.   I promised a number of you who wrote to me that I would do some follow-up stories covering all that happened. Click here to read about why a grass-based farmer would choose to head down to NY and join this protest that has spread across the nation.  To learn about how the march went, things I saw and learned,  and to explore  the hornets’ nest that my choice stirred up here on Grassfed Cooking.com, check out this story: When A Farmer Hops Off The Fence.

Whether you cheered when you heard grassfed producers were heading to Wall Street, threw an extra hay bale in with the herd and headed down yourself, or whether you fumed at the very thought that members of your agricultural community would consider participating in this movement, I want you all to know how much I have enjoyed your readership and involvement in my life over the past few years.  Writing for Grassfed Cooking and exploring ways our small farm movement will progress in the kitchen and on the pages of history books has been one of my great joys.  I wish all of you a peaceful, happy and healthy holiday season.

Fondly,

Shannon Hayes

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock

By Harvey Ussery

ISBN: 978-1603582902: $39.95

Ussery is a homesteader inVirginiawho has taken his passion for poultry to the written page.  He paired up with Chelsea Green to publish a phenomenal resource that delves into everything from the philosophy of why and how we should be keeping poultry, to housing, starting a flock, feed and water systems, fencing, working with pasture-based and backyard systems, integrating poultry with home and farm enterprises, predator issues, butchering, producing feed, poultry behavior, wintering over, health and disease management, to handling, storage, and marketing.  Ussery doesn’t limit his discussion to one particular breed of chicken, nor does he limit it just to chickens themselves.  He delves deeply into breed considerations, and discusses the needs of waterfowl,Guineasand turkeys as well. The book is even more helpful owing to the extensive color photographs that vividly and fearlessly illustrate all the nitty gritty details of poultry production (including some of the best, most helpful images of butchering I’ve seen).  I recommend this book highly.  It is equally suitable for the potential urban poultry keeper and the large-scale pastured poultry producer, and promises to be the first go-to resource for everything you will need to know about your poultry endeavors.

Permaculture

By Sepp Holzer

ISBN: 978-1603583701: $29.95

Originally published in German, Holzer’s book was translated for American audiences in the past year.  When I first saw the book, I must admit that I didn’t think it held much applicability for the North American pasture-based farmer.  However, as I spent more time with it, discovering the extreme climate and landscape conditions that Holzer confronts daily on his own mountain farm, I became fascinated.  Holzer’s interpretation of permaculture will be mind-candy to the pasture-based farming movement.  We have a tendency to think of ourselves as limited in what and how we produce by our landscape and climate; but Holzer shows how, by simply reconsidering the resources available to us in our natural environments, we can tremendously diversify what we produce, and draw incredible sustenance from even the most seemingly hostile landscapes.  I think this is a mind-expanding book that will lend itself beautifully to inspiring new ingenuity in the pasture-based farming movement.

A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity

By William S. Coperthwaite

ISBN: 978-1933392479: $25.00

Coperthwaite’s book was originally released in 2002, but I stumbled upon my dog-eared copy a few days ago, and thought it was worth mentioning here.  It is not a farmers’ guide by any means, but for those of us who are deeply committed to our agrarian lifestyle, it offers endless food for thought about the whys and hows of our lives.  Coperthwaite’s ideas perpetually inspire me to consider different elements of my life.  I repeatedly re-visit them when my life calls for deeper introspection, or when I simply crave new ideas and fuel for pushing forward.  The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs, and makes a wonderful gift that will not easily be loaned out (as selfish and anti-simplicity as this may seem, I NEVER let anyone borrow my Coperthwaite…I can’t be away from it for that long).

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." - Frederick Douglass

When an email from the group Food Democracy Now! landed in my inbox last week, asking farmers to occupy Wall Street, it seemed only right that I notify the subscribers of GrassfedCooking—a free monthly e-newsletter I run for other farmers of grassfed meats—and ask that they consider joining.

Some farmers, myself included, heeded the call and joined the march. Many who couldn’t make it to the city on short notice wrote to express their support. But a handful of caustic, angry responses showed up in my inbox as well:

“You just lost me as a subscriber.”

“OWS objectives are to destroy our free-choice political system and our free-market economy and replace them with anarcho-socialism. [If they succeed,] your first task of a morning will be to fire up the computer for the latest email from the Agricultural Czar, telling you what to plant in which field, and when…OWS methods are as ugly as the future they envision, including defecating on the American flag and urinating on police cars.”

“What is wrong with you?….These “occupiers” are the ones that want something handed to them for doing nothing.”

“I hate to tell you, but you are part of the 1%…You may not be a millionaire banker, but you do own a business….Folks at OWS believe you should provide for their needs, and that they need to do nothing in return.”

“Occupy Wall Street is EVIL!”

“I wish you had stayed apolitical.”

Maybe I should have deleted the emails and moved on. I get plenty of nasty letters from anonymous folks who don’t like the fact that I eat meat, or that I’ve advocated homemaking as an ecologically and politically powerful vocation. Those letters go into a folder called “Alternative Fan Mail,” where they pretty much get forgotten. I could just do that with these. Or I could write and tell the senders they were being misled by corporations with a vested interest in convincing them that occupiers were bad people, out to ruin their way of life. I could explain they were being manipulated to get their continued compliance with the existing power structure. Chances are, they would tell me I was the one being misled. Our exchanges would zero each other out.

My stomach churned in angst over these notes. It was like getting hate mail from family, from people I deeply respect—people who believed in me and my work long before anyone else did.

I started my writing career publishing recipes for grassfed meat. As a proponent of sustainable agriculture and grass-based ranching, and as a family farmer trying to get the American public to think outside the grocery store, it was the most important place for me to begin. If I wanted Americans to change the way they eat, then they needed recipes.

But for a long time, it was hard to get my work out. Glossy magazines didn’t want to talk to me; big house publishers said my topic wasn’t important. Tips for success were dropped in my lap along the way: “Hire a publicist.” “Go make friends with Rachel Ray.” “Pray that Martha Stewart will discover you, and then you’ll have it made.” “Accentuate your cleavage.” Not very practical tips. About two years after publishing my first cookbook, a well-meaning publishing professional from New York dropped by my farmers’ market booth to pick up a pack of sausages. Seeing my first cookbook on display, he chatted to me about my writing efforts. Before he left he leaned over and whispered his final prognosis for my career: “You’ll never make it. You don’t do lunch in the city.”

No. I didn’t do lunch. We were too busy growing lunch.

I decided that, if no one wanted to pay me to do my work, then I would give it away for free to the folks who valued it: other farmers. I began GrassfedCooking.com, a website devoted to helping pasture-based farmers communicate with their customers. I sent out the e-newsletter, providing recipes or tips for working more effectively with grassfed meats, or else opinion pieces that covered developments that impacted small farmers. The site slowly developed a faithful following of salt-of-the-earth farmers, food activists, and meat lovers. It became a kind of community.

Then I asked them to join a protest, and stepped in a hornet’s nest.

How to respond? To dismiss the opposing views would mean dismissing our relationship. That doesn’t help the Occupy movement, and it doesn’t help the grassfed farming movement. In the end, I did my best to have a dialogue, to point out our common interests, to respectfully explain that I was moving forward with my choice to march on Sunday. Not all farmers think of our work as political, but I do; it’s hard not to notice the role that corporate power plays in distorting our food system, from prices to farming practices.

I know I lost a few readers. But I think I managed to convince a few of them that, while they may not agree with all of the folks who have chosen to occupy Wall Street, there were at least a few people down in New York on Sunday who didn’t fit the profile that the news had told them to expect.

In truth, nobody fit the profile. My experience at the Sunday rally was one of the most moving four hours of my life, surrounded by hundreds of people who cared about the same issues I do: food sovereignty, the need for city people to start building soil and growing their own food, the need for rural and urban folks to build better relationships with each other to sidestep the corporate food system. I met dairy farmers, meat producers, seed producers, vegetable growers….even some friendly vegetarians. I met food activists, senior citizens concerned about the quality of food for their grandchildren, community gardeners, college students who were trying to learn how to feed themselves ethically and healthfully. We saw American flags, held up high. One of them led our march. And I saw a side of New York City that I’d never seen before. New Yorkers hung out their apartment windows, came to sit on their steps, sat out at cafes and stood in front of their small grocery stores and food stands. They cheered and clapped as we marched by. They sang and chanted with us. We marched through community gardens reclaimed from abandoned lots. I stepped on ground that was as lush and beautiful as any earth I tread upon here upstate.

The most poignant moment for me, however, was when our march passed through a community garden and I heard cheers from up above me. I looked up and saw four urban teenagers standing in a tree house. They waved and smiled, then held up a giant sign for us to read: This land will live again.

This land will live again. It will live in America’s countryside, in her mountains and rivers, as well as in her cities. To me, that’s what the Occupy movement is all about—finding ways for all living things to thrive. And for those of us in the grassfed farming community, that’s what we’re all about too, even if we don’t all agree with protests.

Shannon Hayes wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Shannon is the author of Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, The Grassfed Gourmet and The Farmer and the Grill. She is the host of Grassfedcooking.com and RadicalHomemakers.com. Hayes works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Upstate New York.

Every week during the growing season my husband and I cart our family’s grassfed meats to market, priced at $11/lb for pork chops, $7.50/lb for ground beef.  Every week we meet someone who tells us the prices are too high.

And yet, at those prices, the average net income for our family members has maxed out at $10 per hour.   

But part of our job is to hold our chins up and accept weekly admonishment for our inability to produce food as cheaply as it can be found in the grocery store.

The food in the grocery store is not cheap.  It has been paid for in advance through tax dollars for farm subsidies that go to support an ecologically problematic industrialized food system.  The prices only look cheap because we are paying for them someplace else: through our taxes, and via the destruction of our soil, water and natural resources through irresponsible farming practices.

The viability of a small farm is contingent not just on garnering a living wage, but on our ability to steward our land in a way that enables future generations to live off it.  The ability for industrial food production to stay in business is contingent upon these farm subsidies, and a license to deplete the soils and pollute the water for immediate profit with no regard for what happens tomorrow.  This is our nation’s cheap food policy:  Make the food in the grocery store as inexpensive as possible, so that we can justify lower working wages for Americans. 

With policies like this, we are losing our farmers, and we are poisoning our public with toxic food.  Between 1999 and 2006 alone, the CDC estimated that 45% of American adults were suffering from chronic illness.  You can’t tell me that has no connection to the food supply. 

Even with chronic illness rampant in our culture, our current government oversight policies for food safety favor the production practices of corporate food.  My family farm shoulders a disproportionate burden of expense to meet regulations that prove the safety of our products, which are easily traced, more cleanly produced, and which have been proven to be far safer for consumption.  This adds to our prices and makes it difficult for many of our fellow farmers to stay in business. 

My family wants to nourish our local community.  We want to sell pork chops from real pigs, ground beef  from real cattle.  I’ve been criticized by some for coming down here, because there are media reports suggesting that “Occupy Wall Street” is about a bunch of losers who want to sit around and collect hand-outs for doing nothing.  I am in no need of a hand-out.  I want to conduct my family’s business honestly, and I want to see my fellow Americans compensated fairly for their contributions, so that we can all earn a decent living.   I want to see the handouts from our government policies that support an ecologically rapacious, gastronomically toxic food system brought to an end.  I want to go to my weekly market with my head held high, carrying wholesome food that my neighbors can afford.

Shannon Hayes works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm raising grassfed meat in Upstate New York.  She is the author of The Grassfed Gourmet, The Farmer and the Grill, and Radical Homemakers.  Her newest book, Long Way on a Little:  An Earth Lovers’ Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously, is due out in September 2012.  To be notified of the book’s release, or to receive her Grassfed Cooking articles, sign up for the Grassfed Cooking Newsletter, a free service for grassfed farmers and meat lovers.  Copies of her books can be purchased through grassfedcooking.com at both retail and wholesale prices.

 Chelsea Green Press, ISBN: 978-1603582902 ; $39.95

Ussery is a homesteader inVirginiawho has taken his passion for poultry to the written page.  He paired up with Chelsea Green to publish a phenomenal resource that delves into everything from the philosophy of why and how we should be keeping poultry, to housing, starting a flock, feed and water systems, fencing, working with pasture-based and backyard systems, integrating poultry with home and farm enterprises, predator issues, butchering, producing feed, poultry behavior, wintering over, health and disease management, to handling, storage, and marketing.  Ussery doesn’t limit his discussion to one particular breed of chicken, nor does he limit it just to chickens themselves.  He delves deeply into breed considerations, and discusses the needs of waterfowl,Guineasand turkeys as well. The book is even more helpful owing to the extensive color photographs that vividly and fearlessly illustrate all the nitty gritty details of poultry production (including some of the best, most helpful images of butchering I’ve seen).  I recommend this book highly.  It is equally suitable for the potential urban poultry keeper and the large-scale pastured poultry producer, and promises to be the first go-to resource for everything you will need to know about your poultry endeavors.