meat

We are pleased to announce that we were finally able to replenish the shelves at  Natural Harvest Food Co-op (you don't have to be a member to shop there!) in Virgina!

  We brought bacon, sausages, pork chops, roasts, ribs (both country style and spare ribs), and pork cutlets.

I hesitate to brag....but I just have to! The sausages are even better than last year. Super moist and juicy. McDonalds Meat did a wonderful job taking our pork and making regular brats, wild rice brats (our top seller), Italian links, and little breakfast links. You won't believe how yummy they are.

New this year are pork cutlets. We hadn't had those made before. So we held back 3 packages before we delivered The Coop's meat so we could play with them here at home. Think of it as a pork minute steak. It's a small piece of meat that was run through the tenderizer. There is no waste and it cooks up super fast. Here are some photos.

You'll notice there are no images of the cooked meat. That's because the family gathered around and gobbled them up. Sorry.

Frankly, I lost my head, too.

All I did to prepare them was put a little olive oil in the bottom of a pan (I use cast iron...but you can use whatever you like). Fry on medium (or a smidge higher) heat 'til you see the blood rising to the top of the meat, flip over and brown nicely. You  only want to cook them  til there's no pink in the middle. They cook up super fast -And boy, were they ever juicy. Two of them I cooked plain, two I just salted and peppered, and two I sprinkled with garlic, salt, pepper and ground fennel. All were just great.

The bummer? We only had those made for the Coop, so our family has none for our freezer and none to sell at the Farmer's Market.

They are only available in Virigina, and I think that once people try them, they are going to sell fast.

I'm sorry I haven't been updating for a couple weeks. Thanks for keeping an eye on our blog. Spring has been sooooo busy! But it's been good busy...you know what I mean?

Here's what's been happening. I plan to blog about all of it in the days and weeks to come.

First, I'd like to thank everyone for the great feedback on the profile in Hometown Focus as well as the mozzeralla cheese article I wrote. It's been fun hearing from you! If you missed it, you can find it here. Lots of people have tried and succeeded! I acutally havent' heard from a failure yet.

We have just finished selling about 50 half hogs. They are all (but one) safely tucked away in their owner's freezers ( and tummies!).

Calving has started! Here's a photo....blogs are boring without at least one photo.

We took a bunch of hogs to McDonald's Meats in Clear Lake MN for USDA processing. That meat can (and will) be sold at Natural Harvest in Virginia, MN, Tower and Ely Farmers Markets, and right here off the farm!

 The first batch of baby chicks is in the brooder!

A winter's worth of manure needs to be scooped up and spread on the fields.

The fields need to be disced and planted.

We picked up the USDA meat in Clear Lake, delivered to Natural Harvest, and filled our freezers here at the farm!

On a personal note, we have our oldest graduating this year and are racing to finish an addition on our house.

We have a couple Head Start groups coming to visit again. This year, I swear I'll get photos!

Shannon still has to squeeze in a little firewood making....our wood shed in running low a bit too quick.

And we are still milking twice a day and dealing with all that milk.

Keep checking in...I'll fill you in on all the stuff I mentioned.

These are the hogs we'll be butchering in March and April. Don't they look happy? They have lots of room to run and play. They love the spring sunshine.

You'll notice there are two pretty distinct sizes. They were born about 6 weeks apart, I think.

Once the first batch has been butchered and weighed, we'll be able to figure out when the second batch should be ready. Someday we'll have a scale so we can be more exact about our butcher weights, but for now it's all by eye.

It's that time of year!

We'll be butchering in March and April. I'll start calling by the folks who have  already told us that they wanted to get pork from our next butchering. If you are interested, please call 218-984-3235.

 Hogs are available by the half or whole. We have more information on our pork page on the website, but don't be afraid to call or email me for more information. We are always happy to answer questions - especially for people who are new to ordering meat directly from a farmer.   

After April, we won't  have pork by the whole or half until fall (2010) !!

You may recall that near the end of summer we had ran out of individual cuts of meat to sell at the Farmer's Markets and off the farm.

We ended up having to pull out a month early. 

 Well, we are back in business!

In order to sell meat by the individual cut (rather than selling someone a half or whole hog) we have to have it processed at a facility that is under continuous USDA inspection. The last couple times we used Lorentz Meats in Cannon Falls, Mn and were very happy with them. But they were unable to put our farm's name on our packages, so we started looking around. We got a referral from someone who had toured MacDonald's Meat in Clear Lake, MN. They recommended them, and we had recently read about them in 2 or 3 publications so I called the store. They were really helpful and accomodating so we gave them a try and brought them 2 hogs.

The bacon tastes just as good as it looks.

Didn't they do a nice job with the labeling?

 All the chops, ribs, and roasts look just as nice as this.

If you are interested in purchasing meat, just call the farm

218-984-3235

We also can put together assortments, if you like,

for $50, $75 or $100.

Call or email us...and we can chat about it.

Yesterday we got the call we’ve been anxiously awaiting! Don at Fraboni’s in Hibbing called to say that our sausage was ready for pick up. You may recall that Fraboni’s was making some sausage for us out of our meat, with their recipe and putting a Bear Creek Acres label on it for us to sell at Natural Harvest Food Co-op. After all the planning that went into it, we were so excited to pick up the finished product and hold it in our hands.

It looks so nicely packaged and inviting.  We brought it right to The Co-op. I hope it sells well.  I think it’s a wonderful alternative for folks who want to eat good, clean meat.  Of course, since it was made with our meat – it is hormone free and antibiotic free. The animals were humanely raised on pasture. It’s truly a local product.  Fraboni’s has been making sausage for  Rangers for decades and they really know their stuff.  Another consideration for some people (Ann at Natural Harvest clued me into this point) is that it’s nitrate free. Don explained that since it’s not a cured sausage there are no nitrates in it.  There are a number of people for whom this is a concern.

I like the fact that I know, and trust, what’s in it.

     Bear Creek Acres Sausage Sandwiches, of course! We had to try them right away.  So I bought some peppers and Kaiser buns and hurried home after delivering our sausage. All I did was fry them in a dab of butter over a medium heat, until they were cooked through. They are plenty lean, so don't overcook them!

     Today, I sliced them to fit the Kaiser buns I had, but they are great plopped into a hoagie bun.  I topped them with sauted peppers and onions. Mmm.

Most Rangers are familiar with Fraboni’s Sausage. They’ve been an Iron Range tradition for more than 65 years.  Our family has always especially enjoyed their Italian sausage.  We got to wondering if maybe, just maybe, they’d be willing to make some sausage for us – using our meat, their recipe, and put our logo on it.   I called over to their meat plant and talked to Don Johnson, the chief sausage maker.  It turns out that they do a lot of custom meat work, and they’d be happy to do some work for us.  I quickly called Ann at Natural Harvest Food Co-op in Virginia and asked her to take a chance on us and buy some. She graciously said, “Yes”.

Don’s been making sausage for many, many years, and he gave me a primer in the science behind sausage making.  It seems that fat content is critical to sausage flavor. He normally deals with meat from the big packing houses where everything is very  precise, and that this makes his sausage consistent from one batch to the next. He explained that the meat we’ll bring him from our processor in Cannon Falls will not be the exact same type of product he normally works with and that the consistency may vary a bit. I know that folks who eat locally grown, small farm raised meat expect slight variations. I seems to me that slight variations is how you know your meat came from a small farm rather than a cookie cutter factory farm.

A month ago we brought some hogs to Lorentz Meat in Cannon Falls, MN for processing. We got the call that our meat was ready, so off Shannon and I went to southern MN.   Some of the meat was destined for Natural Harvest Food Co-op in Virginia  - and it’s a good thing, too because they’ve been out of bacon for a while! Now they are all stocked up. Some was destined for our farm to be sold from here and at Farmer’s Markets – and it’s a good thing because we were out of chops and ribs! And now some went to Fraboni’s in Hibbing.

I can’t wait to taste the sausage. As soon as Don calls to say the sausage is ready we’ll bring it to Natural Harvest Food Co-op (did you know you don’t have to be a member to shop there?) I hope you’ll watch for it. They’ll be carrying both Italian and Breakfast sausage.  If you buy some, please let us know what you think. Click Contact US at the top or bottom of the page and give us some feedback!