Blog

This Week's Farmshare is Extremely Heavy

Posted in Farms & Gardens on Sat, 12/05/2009 - 8:41am by lee -

We were down to very slim pickings when this week's Harmony Valley farmshare arrived (now that we've hit the cold months, the box comes just once every two weeks). I had been excited about it for days, especially as it became increasingly clear that we didn't have enough carrots to last the week.

Can You Buy Local and Organic at Cub Foods? Part Two: Recommendations

Posted in Family & Home, Out & About on Fri, 12/04/2009 - 1:41am by Shari Danielson -

Can You Buy Local and Organic at Cub Foods? Part One: The Goods

Posted in Family & Home, Out & About on Thu, 12/03/2009 - 2:02am by Shari Danielson -

Thousand Hills, Part 2: Grass Fed Beef and What it Means to Eat Local

Posted in Farms & Gardens, News & Views, Out & About on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 8:32am by lee -

Yesterday's post took a look at Thousand Hills Cattle Company and the advantages of grass fed beef.

There are purists who will argue that you can’t have pastured, grass-fed cattle in Minnesota all year round. These people have a point. Snow covers much of the ground in Minnesota for what seems like 6 - 8 months of the year. Thousand Hills Cattle Company, the largest producer of grass fed beef in the Midwest, deals with this harsh reality via a system of enormous hay bails, rolled up in the warmer months and rolled out across the snow during the winter.

Thousand Hills Cattle Company Leads the Way to Grass Fed Beef

Posted in Farms & Gardens, News & Views, Out & About on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 8:03am by lee -

Thousand Hills Cattle Company, a leading producer of grass fed beef in the Midwest, has its work cut out for it.

First of all, there’s the cost of their product. Although their cattle are relatively inexpensive to raise, according to founder Todd Churchill (they just eat grass, right?), the cost of transporting, processing, packaging, and shipping 24 grass-fed cattle each week is enormous - there’s just not much economy of scale. By the time it gets to the grocery store or co-op, Thousand Hills beef costs more than its corn fed (non-organic) counterparts, nearly every time.

A Recipe for Awesomeness: Fischer Farms Porketta

Posted in Recipes on Mon, 11/30/2009 - 8:11am by Beth Dooley -

Porketta is one of those recipes that you shove in the oven and forget about. The meat emerges tender and succulent. It serves a bunch of people, and the leftovers – sliced high and piled on crusty baguette, or slathered with bbq sauce on a soft, whole wheat bun, or diced and simmered in ragu for pasta – make things easy on the cook.

It’s one of those recipes that came to the Iron Range with Italian miners, was adopted by Czech neighbors and Norwegian farmers, and is now found on menus throughout the Twin Cities (and given an uptempo spin).

For the Ultimate Free-Range, Grass-Fed, Local Meat: Just Shoot

Posted in Out & About on Sat, 11/28/2009 - 3:13pm by Shari Danielson -

A few weeks ago, in an earlier blog post, I joked that the most authentic way to find a pasture-raised, grass-fed turkey for Thanksgiving dinner was to hunt for it with a bow and arrow or rifle.

According to a recent article in the New York Times a new generation of meat eaters, who are interested in local, free-range, organic food, are doing just that.

The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin: An Interview with Author James Norton

Posted in Books & Media on Sat, 11/28/2009 - 8:35am by lee -

James Norton and Becca Dilley are fast becoming the "Brangelina" of the Midwestern food scene - a smart, high powered couple whose presence is everywhere. Not content to have launched the terrific food website Heavy Table early in 2009, this fall sees the release of their first book together, the excellent "The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin." I recently caught up with James and pumped him with questions about the book.