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Recipes & Tips
Recipes using local foods
Click on each recipe to create some tasty meals using local foods!Raspberry Amaretto Sauce
Glazed Meatballs
Cauliflower and Wild Rice Soup
Café Brenda’s Maple TeriyakiTips for cooking local foods
Here are some tips to make your local foods taste even better when you cook them.
Cooking Grassfed MeatGrassfed meat starts out just as tender as other meat, but it can become tough if you cook it the same way you would cook grainfed meat. The reason grassfed meat requires a special cooking technique is that it is so very lean. Fat serves as an insulator. When meat has little fat, heat is conducted more quickly and can toughen the protein. To keep grass fed meat tender, you need to cook it more slowly. If you’re broiling a grassfed steak, for example, place it farther away from the heating element or coals and cook it for a longer period of time. Turn it frequently. But don’t cook it too long! Even the tenderest cut of meat will become dry and tough if you overdo it.
Less tender cuts of meat such as a chuck steak or arm roast need to be cooked very slowly with moist heat. You might even want to haul your crock-pot out of the attic and try this 1970s-style cooking once again.
If you’re not sure if you’ll be successful at cooking grassfed meat, consider making your first order hamburger or a manually tenderized round steak. This way you can savor the rich flavor of the meat without worrying about how to cook it. (One thing you’ll notice is that a pound of raw meat yields almost a pound of cooked meat: your burgers won’t shrink on the grill.)Why Grassfed is Best!, Jo Robinson, Vashon Island Press, Vashon WA, 2000.