Cow

Ingredients
6 ounces garlic-flavored croutons
¹⁄₂ teaspoon ground black pepper
¹⁄₂ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 small onion, roughly chopped
8-10 baby carrots, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
2 pounds ground beef
1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg

For the glaze:
¹⁄₂ cup ketchup
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1 dash hot pepper sauce, such as Sriracha
1 tablespoon honey

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 325*F. 

2. In a food processor, combine croutons, black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and thyme.  Pulse until mixture is a fine texture and transfer to large bowl. 

3. Combine onion, carrots, garlic, and red pepper in food processor.  Pulse until mixture is finely chopped, but not pureed.  Transfer to bowl with crouton mixture.  Add ground beef and mix well.  Season with salt, add egg, and mix until fully combined.  (I use my hands for this.) 

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Form meat into loaf on top of parchment paper.  Bake until meatloaf has reached 155*F, about 45 minutes. 

5. Meanwhile, mix all glaze ingredients.  Spread glaze over meatloaf after it has been cooking for 10 minutes. 

Comments
This recipe is from the amazing Alton Brown.  It’s the most flavorful, moist, and delicious meatloaf I’ve ever tasted.  If you think you don’t like meatloaf, give this recipe a try.  Assuming you have a food processor, it’s a cinch to bring together. 

Shown here with Cheesy Baked Gnocchi.

Internet - Alton Brown

Ingredients
1 corned beef brisket plus seasoning packet (I stock up around St. Patty’s Day when they’re on sale.)
¹⁄₄ cup peppercorns
12-14 ounces beer
1 head garlic, cloves separated and peeled

Instructions
1. Place all ingredients in slow cooker.  Cook on LOW for 8-12 hours, or until tender and falling apart.  Remove meat from pot and let rest 10 minutes.  Slice or shred, and serve. 

Comments
This is a very simple recipe that even works well if your brisket is still frozen, which often happens when I make it.  If you don’t have 12 hours to cook, you can go with 6 hours on HIGH instead of 12 on LOW.  I had 8 hours when I made the one pictured here so I did 4 hours on HIGH followed by 4 on LOW.  Worked like a charm and the brisket was extremely tender and flavorful.  I like to serve this with a good spicy mustard, rye bread, and cabbage. 

Shown here with store-bought rye bread and Frizzled Cabbage.

Unknown

Ingredients
For marinade
¹⁄₂ cup olive oil
¹⁄₃ cup red wine vinegar
¹⁄₄ cup fresh lemon juice
¹⁄₄ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 onion, sliced

3-4 eye round steaks, 1 to 1 ¹⁄₂ inches thick

Instructions
1. Combine all marinade ingredients in a ziptop bag or container.  Add meat and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours.  Turn meat occasionally to distribute marinade evenly.  

2. Heat skillet over high heat.  Sear steaks for 2 minutes per side, reduce heat to medium and cook until desired doneness is reached.  

Comments
When I bought grassfed cow a few months ago one of the cuts was an eye round roast weighing .9 pounds.  I’ve only ever roasted large eye rounds, so I wasn’t very sure what to do with the eye round.  I decided to cut it into two steaks and cook it this way.  It worked very well and looked a lot like filet mignon.  The marinade did help to tenderize the meat and we enjoyed the taste as well.  The marinade recipe is from TheMeatSource.com.  

Shown here with Roasted Beet Risotto.

Internet - The Meat Source

Ingredients
1 (2 ¹⁄₂ pound) London Broil
¹⁄₄ cup red wine vinegar
¹⁄₄ cup red wine
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 tablespoon seasoned salt (I used McCormick’s Montreal Steak.)
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, smashed

Instructions
1. Place London Broil in a large plastic container or ziptop bag. 

2. In a large measuring cup, combine remaining ingredients.  Pour marinade over steak, seal container or bag, and refrigerate for 6 to 24 hours. 

3. Preheat gas or charcoal grill to high heat.  Remove meat from marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Place steak on grill and cook to desired doneness, about 6 minutes per side.  (I went for 130*F.)  Transfer steak to cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes before cutting.  Slice across the drain into thin diagonal slices. 

Note: London Broil can be broiled instead of grilled if desired or raining. 

Comments
This is an Emeril recipe and I used it for a delicious London Broil from the Zekiah Farms.  The marinade was quick to bring together and it worked well enough with a 6 hour marinade since I forgot to put it all together the night before.  The meat was tender and full of wonderful flavor, just the way a piece of quality steak should be! 

Shown here with Grilled Corn and Pasta with Fresh Tomato-Herb Sauce.

Internet - Emeril Lagasse

Ingredients
12 large collard greens leaves
1 pound ground beef
1 cup celery, finely chopped (2-3 stalks)
¹⁄₂ cup onion, chopped
4 cups salsa
2 cups cooked rice, hot (I used an entire box of Zataran’s Yellow Rice.)
1 packet taco seasoning mix (I prefer McCormick’s Low Sodium.)
1 cup Monterey jack cheese, shredded

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350*F. 

2. Bring large pot of water to boil.  Remove center veins from collard leaves, keeping each leaf in one piece. Immerse leaves, 4 at a time, into boiling water about 4 to 5 minutes or until leaves are limp. Drain well.

3. For filling, in a large skillet cook ground beef, celery, and onion until meat is brown and onion is tender. Drain off fat. Stir in 2 cups of salsa, hot cooked rice, and taco seasoning mix. Mix well.

4. Place ¹⁄₃ to ¹⁄₂ cup filling mixture on each collard leaf. Fold in sides. Starting at an unfolded edge, carefully roll up each leaf, making sure folded sides are included in the roll. Place stuffed collard greens in 3-quart baking dish. Spoon remaining 2 cups salsa over stuffed greens. Bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Top with cheese; bake 5 minutes more or until cheese is melted. 

Comments
This recipe was given to me by my CSA farmer.  I didn’t grow up eating greens so I don’t really know what to do with them when I get them from the market.  This recipe was delicious, even Art liked it and he’s probably the pickiest of the three of us when it comes to greens.  I made the mistake of cooking these in a double layer so they were pretty difficult to serve intact.  Next time, I’d use a 9- by 12-inch baking dish so that I could achieve prettier plating. 

Once everything was baked, I didn’t actually notice flavor from the collard greens, just the flavor from everything else.  I’ll definitely make these in the future when I get collard greens again.

Person - Tina Eaton

Ingredients
¹⁄₂ cup balsamic vinegar (I used pomegranate balsamic vinegar, any would work.)
¹⁄₄ cup soy sauce
¹⁄₄ cup olive oil
1 envelop Lipton’s onion soup mix
2 chuck steaks (Mine totaled about 3 pounds with bone.)

Instructions
1. Mix all ingredients together in a large ziptop bag or other sealable container.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours but no more than 10, turning occasionally. 

2. Grill.  For me this step involved heating the grill to a high heat, searing the meat for 1-2 minutes per side, removing the steaks and reducing the grill’s heat to a lower temperature and then grilling 3-4 minutes per side until done and around 140*-145*F.  You probably know your grill better than I do!

Comments
This is the first real steak that we’ve made from our grass-fed cow stockpile!  Chuck steak is not a great cut of meat but it sure worked well on the grill and was super flavorful.  The steak shown in this picture was huge and got cut up into about 4-5 pieces for serving after the picture was taken.  We’re still getting the hang of grilling, but every attempt comes out better than the previous one. 

The marinade was great and had the added bonus of using balsamic vinegar.  I’m pretty sure that I could drink balsamic straight and be a happy camper so I’ve got quite a stockpile of various balsamics should the need to live off of it ever arise.  I used the Lipton soup mix because I happened to have a packet from a previous cooking experiment.  A simple mixture of salt, pepper, and garlic would have worked well also.  Art suggested that, in the future, I reduce the marinade down and make a sauce with it because it was so tasty, so I might consider that!

Shown here with Roasted Turnips.

Unknown

Ingredients
24 leaves cabbage (I used Jersey Wakefield which are large and dark green.)
2 cups cooked rice (I used a brown and wild rice blend, since it’s what was in the fridge.)
2 eggs, beaten
¹⁄₂ cup milk
¹⁄₂ cup onion, minced
2 pound ground beef (Use the leanest you can get since it cooks in the slow cooker.)
2 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt
2 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons ground black pepper
2 (15 ounces each) cans tomato sauce
4 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons lemon juice
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Instructions
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Boil cabbage leaves 2 minutes; drain.

2. In large bowl, combine rice, eggs, milk, onion, ground beef, salt, and pepper. Place about ¹⁄₄ cup of meat mixture in center of each cabbage leaf, and roll up, tucking in ends. Place rolls in slow cooker.

3. In a small bowl, mix together tomato sauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over cabbage rolls.

4. Cover, and cook on LOW 8 to 9 hours.

Comments
This recipe is a pretty ubiquitous one, I found the inspiration for this version at allrecipes.com.  I thought it looked like a tasty way to use up the bunch of cabbage I got from the CSA this week.  I did have some trepidation since slow cooker meals always seem to be so hit or miss for me.  Lance and I both enjoyed these cabbage rolls!  The meat filling was flavorful and each roll was hearty.  I’m glad that I took the advice from reviews to increase the sauce ingredients – it worked well. 

I used grass-fed ground cow which is extremely lean.  You should use the leanest cow you’ve got access to.  I’m sure that any lean ground meat would work well in this recipe!

Edit: So… apparently what I thought was cabbage was actually a bunch of collard greens.  Ooops.  This was still fantastic and it’s nice to know that, at least for this recipe, they’re interchangeable!

Internet - allrecipes

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 2” thick NY strip steak, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 small onion, thinly sliced
8 ounces mushroom, sliced
1 wedge brie, rind removed (I use the kind that comes without the rind and has herbs.  Yum.)
¹⁄₂ cup white wine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 sandwich rolls, split and toasted

Instructions
1. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium skillet over medium-low heat.  Add onion and cook, stirring, until browned. 

2. Heat remaining tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they have released their liquid and started to brown.  Add the sliced steak and continue to cook until steak is almost done.  Add wine and scrap up any browned bits in the bottom of the skillet.  Reduce heat to low and add brie.  Cook, stirring, until the cheese has melted and the meat and mushrooms are coated.  Add salt and pepper to taste. 

3. Spread onions over one side of roll, top with meat mixture and the other side of roll. 

Comments
Once upon a time I was sick of steaks.  I still enjoyed cow, I just got tired of only having it in the form of a slab of meat.  I dreamed this recipe up to use up some steaks in the freezer and it was delicious enough that I hang on to it.  I find that it’s best to eat this with a knife and fork.

Person - Gwen

Ingredients
For the mushrooms
2 ¹⁄₂ tablespoons unsalted butter
5 tablespoons shallot, minced
5 tablespoons leeks, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces mushrooms, finely chopped
¹⁄₂ teaspoon thyme
5 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps finely chopped
1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons fresh chives, minced
¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper

For assembly
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
¹⁄₂ teaspoon thyme
4 (6 ounces each) filet mignons
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons milk or half and half

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 425*F. 

2. Make the mushrooms: Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a 10-inch skillet. Stir in the shallots, leeks, and garlic. Cook over low heat until translucent, 5 minutes.

3. Add the mushrooms and the thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushroom liquid has evaporated and the mixture is just moist, 10 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

4. Add the remaining 1 ¹⁄₂ tablespoons butter to the skillet, and stir in the shiitake mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until they have released their moisture, 5 minutes.

5. Pour off any juices that have accumulated in the bowl, and add the shiitakes to the mushroom mixture. Stir well, and season with the chives, salt, and pepper. Set aside.

6. Assemble the wellingtons: Toss the pepper, salt, and thyme in a small bowl. Rub the filet on all sides with the mustard, and then sprinkle the spice mixture over them.

7. Melt the butter in a small skillet, and sear the filet on all sides, about 5 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

8. Arrange the filet on a baking sheet, and cover them with the mushrooms.

9. Cut out four 4- to 5-inch circles of pastry. Drape each over one of the filets, and pinch the edges in four or five places to enclose the filets. Blend the egg and milk, and brush this glaze over the pastry. Decorate the tops with cutouts made from pastry trimmings, if desired.

10. Bake 15 minutes for medium-rare. Serve immediately. 

Comments
I’m not sure how I managed to screw up the focus in this picture, but I did.  Oops. 

This recipe is from The New Basics Cookbook.  I’ve been interested in making Beef Wellington for forever and finally decided to try it.  Sadly, this method is not the right one for me.  The meat in the wellington pictured is rare and the pastry wasn’t fully cooked, so I let the other three bake for longer.  After cooking for 5 minutes longer the meat was finished, but the pastry was still not fully cooked.  So tweak number one will probably involve only searing the meat on one side before baking so I can give it more time in the oven. 

The second thing I realized is that I really dislike shiitake mushrooms.  I guess this ruins my foodie cred, but I prefer regular domestic button mushrooms.  I feel like shiitake leave a weird taste in my mouth for hours after eating them and I’m not a fan.  Next time, I’ll use all button mushrooms instead of a mix. 

All of that said, I would like to try these again.  Someday.

New Basics Cookbook

Ingredients
For béarnaise butter:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons fresh tarragon leaves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons shallot, minced
¹⁄₂ teaspoon fresh lemon juice, or to taste
¹⁄₈ teaspoon salt

4 (1-inch-thick) steaks (The original recipe calls for rib-eye, but this would work well for any good cut of meat.)
Vegetable oil for steaks

Instructions
1. In a small bowl, mix together butter, tarragon, shallot, lemon juice, and salt.  Transfer to a sheet of wax paper.  Using wax paper as an aid, shape butter into a 4-inch-long log and wrap.  Chill butter for at least 1 hour and up to 5 days. 

2. Prepare grill.

3. Bring steaks to room temperature and rub lightly with oil. Season steaks with salt and pepper and grill 3-4 minutes on each side, or until desired doneness are achieved.

4. Serve steaks topped with slices of bèarnaise butter.

Comments
When we found out we’d be having company over for dinner, Art suggested that we grill.  Remembering that my butcher now carries rib-eyes, I found this recipe for rib-eye steaks, Art’s favorite cut, at Epicurious.com.  Sadly, even though I ordered rib-eyes, I believe that I got strip steaks instead.  Sad. 

However all was not lost!  This recipe worked fantastically for strip steaks and the butter was fantastic.  While a good steak truly needs nothing, a little butter never did any harm.  (And Béarnaise butter is a whole lot easier to make than Béarnaise Sauce!)

Shown here with Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

Internet - Epicurious