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First meal, stuffed peppers.  Nothing fancy.  Confirmed my belief that grass-fed ground beef tastes better than your average corn-fed hamburger/chuck purchased at the grocery store.  E-mail me if you want the recipe.  Of interest: browning 1 lb. of ground beef yielded very little grease, really didn’t even need to drain it; and, my stepdaughter taught me a good trick to ensure the peppers themselves are properly cooked.  Cut the peppers in half to form the bowls, brush with olive oil or spray with canola oil, then bake on a cookie sheet – cut side down – at 350 for 15 minutes before stuffing and continuing to heat.  The consistency of the peppers was just right.  One pound ground beef – mixed with the rice/cheese/tomato sauce, etc. – produced 8 individual stuffed peppers (4 peppers x 2 halves).  This was enough for our dinner, lunches, and 4 pepper halves into the freezer for another meal.  I used purple peppers purchased at the Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market and I think they were sweeter than a standard green bell pepper.

THE WINE.  I have worked in the wine business for the past 4 years and before that was a partner in a bar.  I also make my own wine.  I know wine.  A simple meal with tomato sauce – a simple meal like stuffed peppers – calls for a simple red wine.  We drank Big House Red – a boxed wine – and it was a great match.  The 3-liter box costs $15 on sale, the equivalent of 4 x 750 ml bottles at a cost of  $3.75 per bottle.  Big House Red is made from about 10 different grapes; some of which you have no doubt heard of, others of which you probably have not.  Don’t let anyone tell you boxed wines are lousy; that’s a sure sign that the speaker does not know wine.  When I was under-employed/unemployed Linda and I found some 5-liter boxes which were perfectly acceptable and priced at the equivalent of $1.82 per 750 ml bottle.  Carlo Rossi Cabernet Sauvignon in a 5 liter box – 84 points Wine Spectator, a solid ‘B’ when I was in school – got us through some long, dark, cold winter nights.

Next Up: pot roast in the crock pot.

Since reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemna” by Michael Pollan I have become passionate about grass-fed beef. There are documented health benefits associated with eating grass-fed, as opposed to corn-fed, beef but more important is my desire to know where my food comes from and to support local agriculture as opposed to industrial agriculture. I want to have as little to do as possible with beef finished on a C.A.F.O. (Concentrated Animal Feed Operation).  That being said, I’m not a fanatic.  I’ll still eat corn-fed beef at a restaurant, for example, or if served by friends.

This year I took the plunge and decided to buy a butchered 1/4 grass-fed, locally-raised cow, which first required that Linda and I buy a freezer to store the beef in. For $200 we bought a 7 cubic-foot freezer from Sears and the first obstacle was removed.

I searched Craigslist for grass-fed beef and found an ad from Kathy and Gary Parrish, who raise grass-fed beef on their farm near Manchester, MI. I told Kathy on the phone I wasn’t a crazy hippie but that before I made a commitment I wanted to know that my cow lived a happy life by cow standards. She assured me it did and we made a deal. My lingering doubts were vanquished when we picked up the beef a few weeks later. Nice folks . . . beautiful farm. If I were a cow I’d like to live there.

The cow was butchered and packaged at Nagle’s in Homer, MI. I ran through a pre-butchering check-list with the butchers on the phone:
how thick did I want my steaks? (thick, one inch)
how big did I want my roasts (3-4 pounds)
did I want special cuts like soup bones, short ribs and stew meat? (of course)
did I want the liver and heart? (no, but I knew Linda’s father would love to have them)
any special requests? (the tongue for my father-in-law, the brisket for me)

I left work early on Saturday so that Linda and I could pick up our beef by 5:00 p.m.  Each piece was plastic-sealed for the freezer and labeled.  For $255.00 – about $3.59 per pound – we received the following, all of which fit easily into our freezer: 14 x 1 lb pkgs ground beef,  2 pkgs soup bones, 1 pkg stew meat, 4 chuck roasts, 2 lb pkg cube steak, 5 rib steaks, 4 T-bone steaks, 2 sirloin steaks, 2 porterhouse steaks, 3 lb rolled rump roast, 2 x 2 lb pkgs round steak, 2 x 3 lb pkgs short ribs, 2 x 2 lb pkgs sirloin tip, 1 x 5 lb brisket.

A word about my wife’s role in this: she indulges me and allows me to pursue my passions.  She takes some joy in my excitement, reins me in when necessary, and will help with the cooking, cleaning, entertaining and eating.  What more could a man ask for?

Our first meal from our cow will be tonight: September 28, 2010.  I plan to blog my way through the eating of this cow, posting recipes and observations as I go.  Enjoy!