New Meat Products 2010

Announcing two new meat products for us in 2010!
First we have fennel scented Italian style lamb sausage along with lamb sausage with sage (informally known as breakfast sausage). Our butcher has packaged them in links-4 to a package. Most packages weigh a bit over 1 pound. They come frozen and vacuum sealed in cryovac. The Italian sausage can be used in any recipe one would use pork sausage: in pasta sauce, grilled, casseroles-same goes for the breakfast style sausage.
Below are two fun examples:

Italian lamb sausage sauteed with boneless chicken thighs,



sauteed mushrooms, onions and garlic-add to some spaghetti sauce-slow simmered for a couple hours like a mock cacciatore and then served with some spinach linguine.



I like the yin and yang of the linguine in the photo!




Second, we have thin sliced pork cutlets. Perfect for frying up breaded like schnitzel, stir fry or piccata. Or put into sandwiches as in Cuban style with pickles! Or maybe pork stroganoff. Here I decided to make pork in a schnitzel style. First when frying you want to use mise en place technique, or literally translated from the French, 'put in place', in order to have everything right in front of you and ready to go. Things can happen quickly and having everything prepared or chopped and available ensures a fool proof frying session.
Here are several vessels to hold my ingredients. This time I used a bowl, casserole dish and a pot. You can use anything you have. I began by drying the pork cutlets, pounding flatter in between two layers of wax paper


coating in flour, then beaten egg, then breadcrumbs.





When I get going on a roll, I must remind myself of the frying technique-one hand does the egg, the other hand does the breadcrumbs. What not to do is this: popsicle fingers! If using both hands in both bowls, the popsicle fingers can build and build until............


After coating all pieces of meat, I let the cutlets sit for a bit to firm up before frying.

Using canola oil at about 350 degrees in a skillet, then just fry 'em all up! Drain on towels. Salt and pepper to taste.

We gobbled them up with some steamed broccoli and lemon wedges.
We hope you enjoy these new meat products and we will have them at each farmers market we attend as well as special order at the farm by appointment.

Dashi Day

After battling the elements, as we say, I felt yet another cold coming on. So instead of making some winter type comfort food I needed something warming and healing. I went for something from my childhood. Hawaii has a large Japanese population with saimin (noodle) shops on every corner and Japanese food stores every where. While on delivery to City Market I bought some tofu, udon noodles and shoyu. Shoyu is the Japanese word for soy sauce. I already had some kombu (seaweed) in the pantry. Oh and I forgot......the most beautiful shiitake mushrooms in the produce department. Add to that, some Napa cabbage and it was a healing meal!
To make the dashi, you begin by soaking a sheet of the kombu in water with some dried shiitakes for about 15 mins. Then simmer for another 15 mins. Remove the kombu and shiitakes and replace with cooked and drained udon noodles with accoutrements such as: cubed tofu, chopped Napa cabbage, sliced shiitakes and scallions. A couple of shakes of some sesame and voila! Add salt to taste along with shoyu and hot sauce if you like it hot.

Storm of the Decade

It began snowing on Friday and lasted thru early Monday morning. Burlington Vermont even made the national news with its record breaking totals of 33 inches! Well, on Sat, here on our farm, it was up to 34 and counting. So what Burlington! Our farm is located 1200-1500 above sea level (depending on where you are on the farm) and we also get dumped on with lake effects totals routinely. I did manage to get some beautiful photos although digging out and shoveling and plowing for days on end didn't get erased from my mind as a result of said photos. Please excuse my tongue in cheek, but making cheese and having to dig loads and loads of snow while moving cheeses to the cave, is not my idea of how a decade should make its debut. Last year I recall making Butternut on January 1st, this year began with Paniolo.

To usher in the new year also came a farmer party/gathering we go to. Folks bring whatever dish they wish-since it was so cold and we needed to empty some freezers to allow for new meat we just got back from our butcher, I decided to bring a half-ham that I grilled on the Primo. It was a hoot, as every other family to show up brought a meat dish-this, from a normally very veggie-centric gathering! One farmer brought his own rabbit, and the hosts cooked up a lovely coq au vin-except with a twist. He made coq a la biere. Slow cooked rooster with beer. It was a carnivore's delight for the night!