Cows are the Mooiest

Sorry, not trying to be silly, or evoke some feeling (either positive or negative) for cows before talking about eating them.  Not going to get into that here.  It's just a line from an addictive song on Noggin (kid's TV) that's sung by a character named Moose A. Moose.  And he is quite a character.  Molly loves the song, and Abby is transfixed by by Mr. Moose every time she's in the room and spots him on TV. 

So...Cows.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we made a decision last year that we were going to try very hard to avoid factory-farmed meat from the supermarket.  Yes, even from Wegmans, as much as we love them.   We've been doing pretty well.  A big part of making it possible was the purchase of a chest freezer.  The giant, white slumbering beast lives down in our cellar, which looks a lot like the one from Silence of the Lambs, but without a well (and definitely without a yipping dog and a prisoner), and it keeps our goods cold somewhere around 15 below zero.

It's allowed us to do a few things - preserve some of the harvest from the CSA, buy things in bulk and save for later, and purchase a forequarter of a cow in one swoop. 

We ran into Doug and Dan of Hanova Hills Farm at a local farmers market.  They had a white van full of beef from their 550 acre farm in Forestville, NY.  We bought a few cuts, and they had us hooked with the first bite of hamburger.  It's not certified organic meat and I don't really care.  The animals are born and raised there, living and eating naturally out in the fields.

We decided on a forequarter because it had our favorite cuts - chuck roasts, ground chuck (hamburgers, of course), flat iron steaks, rib-eyes, the skirt, the brisket and the short ribs.  Who needs tenderloin and t-bones when you've got those?!

The experience has been great.  We specified how we wanted the cuts divided and packaged - Stew meat or ground?  Rib-eye steaks or roast?  We waited two weeks for the next round of processing and everything came vacuum sealed in individual portions, delivered right to our door.

What do you get when you buy 1/4 of a cow?  This turned out to be 206 lbs, which according to them, was pretty big.  That includes everything - bones and all, which we gladly took and turned into some wicked stock.

206 lbs was:

• 80 lbs of ground beef*
• 13 rib eye steaks (about an inch and a half thick)
• 5 large packages of bones
• 4 large packages of shanks
• 3 huge chuck roasts (6 lbs each at least)
• 4 packages of flat iron steaks (a couple to a pack)
• the brisket
• the skirt steaks
• the short ribs

Overall, we paid $2.79 per pound.  Expensive for soup bones? Yep.  How about $2.79/lb for naturally raised hamburgers and rib-eye steaks?  No way.  So yes, there's a definite investment up front, with the large amount of beef and the chest freezer too.  But if there's room in the basement and the wallet...The freezer will last a long time, and hold more than just this one chunk of beef.  It will let us buy things in bigger quanitities at lower prices.  And less vegetables headed to the compost pile, as we have a great option for preservation.  And purchase a big supply of well raised beef at a great price. 

The guys at Hanova Hills were friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they're doing.  The quality, flavor and freshness of the meat is second to none.  Now they've branched out and have a full home delivery offering now - any order, large or small.  Check them out at Lake Country Direct.  They are also now carrying local pork from Randolph, NY (we'll be ordering some soon) and lamb from a friend's farm outside of Cleveland.

Here's to their continued success.

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*  Oh, did you say "Holy #$*%! That's a lot of ground beef!"?  Yes it was.  We given a good chunk away to family, and well, um, we like our hamburgers over here, so no real complaints out of us.  Had I known it was going to be that much, I probably would have had some diverted into stew chunks (which we just used some of the chuck roasts for anyway).  Lesson learned.  Overall, the meat has lasted almost an entire year at this point and we've still got some ways to go.

Here's some more pesto, roasted tomatoes, peaches and stuffed peppers from last summer, hiding in the beast:

 

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