From Cow to Steak

     My beef is in. It is currently hanging at the Redmond Smokehouse and will be cut, wrapped and ready for me by the 16th. I had been told that the butcher would call and that I needed to know how I wanted it cut up. How I wanted it cut up? Are there options? Apparently there are and a quick education in beef cuts was in order.

     I started as I do all research - online. There are myriad sites that have detailed pictures of where each cut comes from and the difference between British and American butchering. I read about steak thickness and how best to store frozen meat. I studied diagrams of cows with dotted lines all over their bodies and little mouth watering words like "brisket" and "tenderloin". But I still didn't know how I wanted my beef. I guess everyone likes beef in different configurations so I had to think about how I liked to cook and eat beef. For instance I'm not much of a ground beef person. I would much rather have those tough cuts as stew meat, brisket or pot roast. Also I wanted to make sure I got everything usable, as I have a taste for offal, as well as dogs that will eat anything. 

     Through my Googling I found a forum that had all the info I could ever need. It turns out that Garden Web is not only an invaluable help for gardening but for just about everything you do at home. I asked the question about my beef and got enough info to gave me confidence when talking to the butcher. Here is the link to the thread gardenweb.com.

     I found a few other sites that are interesting in a homesteading kind of way. Backwoods Home Magazine is a bit extreme but has some down and dirty info on cutting up a cow. The usmef.org site (I have no idea what that stands for) has the most comprehensive list of beef offal I could find and has pictures of things you probably didn't know a cow had. 

     Now starts the education on how to cut up the pig I have coming......

The Staff of Life

     

I have decided that, although I am not a baker,  I am tired of paying someone else to make my bread. I LOVE Dave's Killer Bread and it is an Oregon product but it is spendy. I also love crusty, European style bread which is made locally but again, it is too expensive for me to buy on a regular basis. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and attempt to bake some edible bread.

     My first try landed me with a rather heavy disk of wheat bread that I relegated to bread crumbs and croutons. I used a recipe off of the Cook's Illustrated website, and in classic Laurie, style I substituted things that obviously should not have been substituted. I run into this every time I try to bake - I want to improvise, which does not work in the cuisine of chemistry.  

   With a little self-discipline and and a lot of fumbling with measuring cups, timers and parchment paper, my second attempt rendered a near perfect loaf. OK, I may be exaggerating but it was very edible - crusty, with an open crumb and really nice flavor. Again I used a Cooks Illustrated recipe that was adapted from a NY Times recipe for no fail crusty white bread. It is the "Almost No-Knead Bread" recipe that has gained recent fame in home baking circles. The recipe calls for instant yeast (not regular yeast), white vinegar (not wine vinegar) and a mild flavored lager. It is truly no fail IF you follow the directions exactly - something I'm still struggling with.

   In my most recent loaf I substituted an locally made Ale (Deshutes Cascade Ale) for the lager, as I wanted a bit more flavor. It turned out great - even better than the last.

   So I guess that is the beginning baking lesson I've learned - it's OK to improvise once you've mastered the tried and true formula. 

 

COOL

     The other day at the Grocery Outlet I noticed that all the veggies had the country they were grown in noted on the shelf price tags. I mentioned it to one of the clerks and he acted as though he hadn't noticed. I thought this was just a considerate thing to do so customers would know where their food was coming from. It turns out it is now law.   

     As of September 30,  2008 all agriculturally grown items must be labeled with country of origin. All red meats and foul, fish and shell fish, nuts and perishable agricultural commodities (read fruits and veggies) and ginseng fall into this category.  It is called "Country of Origin Labeling" or COOL for short. Which I think is rather (excuse the pun) cool. Even discount stores that get the cheapest from where ever, will need to reveal if they are getting bell peppers from Mexico, cucumbers from Canada or beef from Brazil (yes, some of that grocery store beef can come from Brazil even though it's inspected by the USDA upon entering the country).

    Although the labeling hardly helps someone trying to support their community by eating locally, at least it narrows it down a bit.  It is the first step to making the average consumer at the average big box super market see where their food is coming from and maybe give it a little thought. Eating locally is hard for a number of reasons and inadequate labeling is one - COOL is at the very least, a place to start. 

To Brine or Not to Brine...

     I am not the first nor will I be the last to ponder over whether brining is all it's cracked up to be. I'm new to brining, having been more of a dry rub or marinating kind of a gal. But a good friend that is the best cook I know swears by brining so I thought I'd better give it a try. 

     After some way too salty chicken breasts and a few birds with moist meat but soggy skin I am not convinced. 

     With my last local chicken - a beast of a bird - I decided to try once again. I made my salty concoction and immersed the giant foul for 2 hours. While it bathed in saline solution, I logged on to Cooks Illustrated  to see what they said about dull, mushy skin on a brined chicken. Apparently you are supposed to start the whole process the day before, since, according to them, it should be able to dry out completely in the frig before cooking. Considering my chicken just started it's bath 4 hrs before dinner, complete air drying was not an option. 

     I came up with what I thought was the next best thing - my blow dryer. I figured 15 minutes of 1200 watts of hot air should do the trick. After it was coiffed I rubbed it with a bacon grease, hoping that that would help with the crisping.

     Once again, the meat was moist and flavorful but the skin was unappetizing. To me the best part of a roast chicken is the crackly, fatty skin and I, for one, am not willing to give that up. 

     So until I can start my chicken dinners a full 24 hours in advance (and purchase a bigger frig) I doubt brining will be the future of my yard birds.

     Pork is a different story......