For those who are interested, Redwood Empire Farm in Rincon Valley, Santa Rosa, is now raising pasture-raised chickens.  One batch is ready this week and they are taking orders now, until the end of the week. The next batch will be available around Labor Day.  If you are interested, email them at RedwoodEmpireFarm@live.com.  The birds are raised in a bottomless pen that moves around thefarm and their forage diet is supplemented with organic/non GMO feed.  And most importantly, they are TASTY!  Juicy, flavorful, and incomparably fresh. 

I was a little nervous about the goat meat, but was told that it was milder than lamb, but lean. I had planned to braise it, but when I thawed it out I saw it looked like lamb chops, and so I grilled them. They were delicious, and fattier than I expected. I am curious: how did others prepare them?

Successes:

I sliced cube steak thinly while still frozen, minced garlic cloves over the top, and stir-fried for 45 to 60 seconds. After cooking the vegetable mix separately, I added back the cooked steak. Tasty, nutritious dinner in just a few minutes.

I found a good spice rub for lamb steaks at Epicurious.com consisting of salt, black pepper, cumin, coriander, and cinnamon. I cooked them in a cast iron skillet for 4 minutes, turned, cooked 3 minutes. Again, a very fast dinner, provided the lamb is thawed in advance.

The bacon is all gone now but lives on in the memory of fettucini carbonara. I tried to honor the bacon by making fresh pasta from scratch. This is more ambitious than a non-cook mother of a toddler should attempt at dinner time. The next time I bought some excellent (dried) egg fettucini at G&G. Much more my speed.

Failures:

I still cannot get the timing right on the pork chops -- they turn out dry. Any advice?

Ditto the London broil, a cut of meat I had never cooked before.

The Sonoma County Meat Buying Club, with help from Sonoma Direct and Bruno's on 4th, will be holding it's second Eat Local, Eat Green Dinner on Monday August 18th at Bruno's on 4th starting at 6 pm! This dinner will be prepared by Rick Bruno, owner and chef of Bruno's on 4th! The dinner will feature local beef, lamb, chicken and pork; along with Local Organic Wine from Scott Reinking, Local Beer and much more! Ticket price is $45.00 per person.

 

Don't miss out! To purchase your tickets contact Stephanie Larson or Jacqueline Rotlisberger by calling (707)565-2621.

 

You can also purchase tickets at Bruno's on 4th!

For More information visit: http://ucanr.org/SoCoMBC