Don’t be afraid of that rack of lamb! It’s a prized cut.
Bacon, sweet Italian sausage, pork chops, beef shank, beef soup bones, rack of lamb!
Lamb: Our lamb subscribers are in for one of the most prized cuts this week. We’re sharing our rack of lamb, which is so tender and a real impressive crowd-pleaser for a dinner party or BBQ. Read below on some basic tips on preparing your rack and send us pictures! We really want to see what you do with these meaty ribs.
Pork: For our pork subscribers we shared our sweet Italian sausages, thick-cut bacon and pork chops. Our sweet Italian is a favorite around here seared until medium rare and then braised in a low oven (around 300 degrees) with homemade tomato sauce, peppers, onions and roasted garlic from our friends at Great Lakes Garlic Farm for a few hours. You can also grill em’ and put them over a thatched bed of balsamic-glazed local asparagus and caramelized onions or just cut them up and mix them in with mac n’ cheese and sling them out to your kids! The sweet fennel, garlic and a rich porky flavor are a great pair seasonal vegetables from the entire Traverse region.
Beef: It’s been cold over the last few days and a little drizzly (much-needed rain) and the damp, cool air put us in the mood for a favorite beef braise: the beef shank. Traditionally cut from veal and referred to as an “Osso bucco” (which is Italian for “bone with a hole”), our beef shanks come from our adult cows but are just as tender. The name refers to the marrow hole at the center of the cross-cut shank, which is rich with melty fat and fall-of-the-bone meat when slow braised in a low oven or even on the cool side of your grill. Our beef subscribers also might see some meaty soup bones, great for making homemade stock or broth. We’re helping everyone get ready for July 4th with super-convenient pre-formed burgers.
Flowers are ready!
For our Bendon Blossoms flower subscribers, we’ll have them out on the table today while the weather is cooler. In the future as it warms over the summer, we’ll coordinate to ensure you’re getting flowers fresh from our walk-in refrigerator.
News from the farm!
Grazing Channels are Open! One of the core tenants of regenerative agriculture is the idea of managing grazing herds in the best possible ways for the land to build soil, increase grass and plant diversity and ensure consistent grazing. We’re finishing a massive overhaul of our pasture with a series of long electrified fences set at around 160 feet apart. You can see these long grassy “hallways” from the top of the hill where you pickup your meat. Animals enter a channel and are progressed through the pasture in 160′-200′ increments focusing their eating and droppings on a square of pasture every day or so. It’s a lot of work to get setup but moving the animals daily ensures they’re eating the pasture at just the right rate while focusing their poop to ensure our nitrogen cycle is balanced. You’ll see the sheep in the distance to the left of center of the pasture and the cows to the right. This is a huge improvement in our ability to sustainably manage our soil.
Oryana 50th Anniversary Celebration
We’re a proud vendor partner of our favorite local food co-op, Oryana, supplying their stores with local pork and lamb, which they honor with beautifully butchered fresh cuts and housemade sausages. We’ll be slinging our farm-raised pork sausages this Saturday from 11 AM – 1 PM at their 50th Anniversary Celebration! Come out and say hi and celebrate our most important food institution in the region.
Rain!
It’s no secret the last half of May and early June have been brutal. As of today, our region is generally considered “abnormally dry” skirting into “moderate drought”, which isn’t great for building soil and grassland. The heat was hard on our animals, especially coming so quickly after a relatively cool spring. Temperatures this week dipped and we thankfully got some rain. If you ever feel like complaining about rainy conditions ruining your weekend plans this summer, take joy in knowing that any rain we get helps our farm.
Cheese labeling
Please take a note that we’ve added our cheese subscriber names and numbers to our Boss Mouse cheese packaging. Please take your cheese labeled with your name and number.
Tell us your stories and tag us!
What are you doing with all this meat!? We want to see and share everything you’ve been doing this summer with our goods! We know you’re going to take a few photos of that lamb rack and hopefully you snapped some photos of that pork steak. Send them to us! Please don’t hesitate to tag us on Facebook, Instagram or send photos, recipes or anything you want to share directly to dave@anavery.com or adam@anavery.com. We’d love to start featuring your favorite cooking tips, tricks, recipes and photos in our newsletters and social profiles. While we’ve been busy with summer farming operations, we haven’t stopped keeping an eye on your pictures, stories, posts and love in all forms in the digital space – it fuels us on long days in the field.
