The Washington Post recently ran a great article on Affordable Summer Grilling. (thanks Beef Daily Blog!)

You can grill great on a budget by using some of the lower-priced cuts such as such as flank, skirt, Texas-style boneless ribs (chuck ribs), Seven (chuck) steaks and sirloin steak.  Part of the secret to getting top quality out of value cuts is marinating.  Another is grilling properly:  Cook hot and hard for 2-3 minutes, then back the heat off and cook a bit slower to the desired doneness.  Tougher steaks should be grilled only to medium rare–never medium-well or beyond by this method.   If you like your meat past medium-rare, then I recommend you braise (cook slowly in liquid) first until tender, then grill for the final flavor.

If you are able to buy your meat directly from the producer, you have some extra advantages in selecting value cuts that cook like more expensive ones.  In the case of our own Wild Type Ranch beef,  we DNA test and select for tenderness, and also harvest each beef individually at the right blend of marbling and backfat.  Our sirloins, for instance, stack up favorably against commodity-grade (i.e.typical grocery store) ribeyes on tenderness and surpass them for flavor.

Because I know the identity of the steer from which each steak I sell comes (and we’ve eaten a steak from each one before we sell any), I am also able to give my customers cooking tips specific to the day’s purchase.  We’ve got some beeves from which even our stew beef cubes are suitable for kabobs!

Fire up the grill, visit your Farmer’s Market and enjoy some great eating!

Just when I finally got myself trained to remember to take my reusable “green” grocery bags to the store (at least most of the time), I read a report on “food safety threats” from them!  Apparently, reusing the bags can result in the accumulation of coliform bacteria and molds.

Before you trash all those bags, however, please keep in mind that the study was funded by the Environment and Plastic Industry Council (I read that as a vested interest in plastic bags).  And it appears that no E. coli or salmonella were found in the tests.

Still, common sense should come into play:

• Put potentially leaky items, such as meat, or dirt-bearing produce in a separate bag before placing in a reusable bag.
• Wash your bags after multiple uses, turn inside out and air dry, preferably in the sun to allow UV rays to help the sterilization process.
• Replace your bags if they become moldy, smelly or stained
• Wash all foods placed in direct contact with a reused bag

No reason not to keep using those bags.  In many industrialized countries, green bags are the norm, not the exception.

It’s Sunday morning at Wild Type Ranch.  We returned late last night from 2 days at an Angus cattle sale in Fredericksburg, TX.  Everyone else is having a well-deserved lie-in, but I’ve already gotten too used to the summer early rising schedule to sleep in.  [Between needing to leave early for farmer’s markets twice a week and the need to get out and work before it gets hot here in Texas, our summer schedule typically starts at dawn and involves a mid-day shower and siesta]. 

While we were away at the sale, we’ve had a blessed 1.5 inches of rain.  Judging by the flattened sweet corn patch we also had quite a bit of wind accompanying what is likely to be one of the last cool fronts of the spring.  Quiet and cool are two things I don’t get much of, especially lately.

The economy is affecting us almost as much as the drought has.  Cattle prices are down, customer purchases at the market are smaller, breeding season has been delayed by poor grass and hay quality.  We’ve been making lemonade out of lemons as much as possible, but it’s still too easy to get discouraged, over-worked and lose sight of why we are here.

Cup of coffee in hand, Tess, our blue heeler, and I set off across the wonderfully wet grass in the refreshing cool breeze–I’m actually wearing a sweatshirt this morning!  A quick check of the cattle we purchased this weekend and those we brought back home because they didn’t sell for a price higher than what we could get if we harvested them for beef, shows all to be well. 

Tess and I cross into the paddock where our heifers are, to check if any are in heat (ready to be bred) or any appear by the silver scratch-off patches on their rumps to have come into heat while we were gone.  It is a well-known fact when trying to A.I. (artificially inseminate) cattle, the most likely time for them to come into heat is whenever it will be most inconvenient to breed them.  Looks like we got lucky while we were gone.  Now I park myself in the middle of the paddock, having successfully climbed over the fence with a full coffee cup, and watch. 

Emmy Lu, one of our heifers, comes up for a scratch.  Evangeline, her full sister (they are the product of embryo transfer, so were born of foster mamas at the same time) can’t stand to be left out and gives my knee a lick before Tess decides I need protecting.  A game of tag ensues between Tess and Emmy Lu, neither taking the other seriously even though they usually take on the roles of predator and prey. 

It’s Sunday.  I’m lucky to make it to church once a month, since our church is 80 miles from the ranch.  Sometimes I feel like this life I chose, expressly to live in line with my values, leaves me little time to reflect on said values.  This morning, I’m feeling a part of the web of life.  I feel that deep sense of peace that comes from believing that things will work and that I’m in the right place. 

I’m thankful to my parents, both devout Catholics, who were wise enough to teach me that sometimes the most holy thing you can do on a Sunday morning is to go sit in your garden, or go take a walk.  I remember a sign that was posted at the entryway to their wildflower garden:

The kiss of the sun for pardon

The song of the birds for mirth

One is nearer God’s heart in the garden

Than anywhere else on earth

Namaste

Life has been pretty hectic at Wild Type Ranch lately.  My husband has had to make two emergency trips to Australia since the beginning of the year, each time leaving my boys (ages 7 and 9) and I to take care of the ranch while attending school an hour away.  Considering spring is our calving, breeding, embryo transfer and gardening season, we’ve been a little harried.  Add to that attempting to get our “in town” house packed up, cleaned up and ready to sell in preparation for moving out to the ranch full-time at the end of the school year, and you can see why the blog posts have been few and far between.

Y’all have been on my mind, though.  I’ve written dozens of posts in my head while making those hour-long commutes between town and ranch.  I’ve also realized this is a kind of therapy, so I’ll stick with it for a while if you will….

I had a guest at the Farmer’s Market today.  I’m not sure she was really thrilled to be there, but she did manage to lay an egg nonetheless.

Saturday’s market starts at 8:00, which means leaving the ranch well before sun-up.  I usually get everything loaded and my car hooked up to the freezer trailer, so all I have to do is unplug the trailers and drive off about 5:45 am.  On Friday I knew I would be getting home after dark, so I left the lights on in the workshop where the trailer is parked, so I could easily back in and hook up.

Apparently, one of our more mechanically inclined hens had been hanging out in the workshop.  Because the lights were on, I suspect she didn’t realize it was night, and didn’t return to her coop for the night.  When I came home, hooked up and shut up the workshop, she was now trapped in the workshop.  This morning, I drove off in the dark with her nestled down on the trailer, between my two big beef freezers.

Once I got to market, I kept thinking I heard chickens, but figured I’d been spending too much time alone out at the ranch.  An inquisitive 8-year old  spotted her just before market started.  I knew I had to get her caught and contained before she recovered from her shock at being transported 75 miles in the early morning dew.  I had visions of having to let her loose inside my car.  Since we just went through a bout of stomach flu involving said car, I figured this was just the final sign that it was time to have my car detailed.  Fortunately, I remembered I had a milk crate full of bungie cords on the trailer, so we caught her and kept her in that for the day.

I’m not sure she was exactly happy, but she was safe.  And she did manage to lay an egg.  She’s back home and happy now.  My dilemma is what to do with the egg.  Given it’s trip to town and back, I don’t think it meets the 100-mile “local food” limit for the market…