Smith Meadows meat filled empanadas with a lard based crust

Why do we make oat cakes, empanadas and pie crust with lard at Smith Meadows Kitchen? After listening to NPR’s story “Who Killed Lard?” and many questions from Smith Meadows customers, it seemed important to address this on our blog.  First lard makes for an incredible, flaky crumble of a taste experience in your mouth.  Second it is because it is a natural by-product of the butchering of our pigs, so it is readily available.  But, did you know that it can be good for you too?  In moderation, we need a variety of fats in our diet.  Ideally a healthy mix of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats provide a ratio (1:1) of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids vital to healthy nervous and vascular systems.

Complex fats are essential building blocks for the protective coating of neurons that transmit important information in our body.  Without the complex building blocks provided by these fat molecules, we compromise the ability of our body to maintain healthy brain function.  A study of fat consumption in modern, industrialized diets high in manufactured or altered fats (hydrogenated oils and trans fats) shows an increase in type-2 diabetes, heart disease, depression and age-related cognitive decline such as dementia and Alzheimers.  It’s worth examining the science behind these studies to figure out how our diets can affect our health.

A triglyceride molecule, the main constituent of lard.

Here is a succinct explanation of the dangers of manufactured or altered fats in an article published by the Franklin Institute on human brain development:  “Normal fatty acids have a natural curve to their molecular shape. When they fit together in vast numbers, enough space still remains so that the membrane has the proper structure it needs to function at its best.

However, if these same fat molecules are changed by manufactured food processes, or if they are heated for long periods – as in deep frying – they mutate into a form rarely found in nature. Now their molecules are straighter, narrower, and no longer have their original curved shape.

trans-fat molecule model

This means that these altered fats will pack more tightly together into the cell membrane, making it more saturated and rigid – less flexible and less able to function properly. These altered fats are called “trans fatty acids,” and are finally being recognized for the damage they cause. For half a century, however, hardly any attention was paid to them.”

The key to fat consumption is to eat a proper blend of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats that provide your body with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.  You don’t want to put damaged fats into your body, which includes fats that have been mutated from oxidation at high heat.  Lard happens to have a high smoke point because of the saturated fat content.   Another added benefit of our lard from pigs that are grass-fed, is more omega-3 fatty acids. Monounsaturated fats lower total and bad (LDL) cholesterol levels, while increasing good cholesterol (HDL).  Polyunsaturated fats lower triglycerides and fight inflammation.  Lard is composed of 45% monounsaturated fat and 11% polyunsaturated fats.

Below is a helpful chart in considering fats. The important part of planning a diet is knowing what nutrients you need and what foods provide them.  Obviously you need some high-quality fats in your diet to support a healthy body.  Know where your fat comes from and how it affects your diet.  Smith Meadows lard is wet rendered from the fattiest parts of our grass-fed hogs in a small family operated butcher shop. Nothing is added to it: no preservatives, no chemicals.  It is simply a healthy source of essential fats.

Here are some articles for the curious:

Big Giant Head-Evolution of the Human Brain

Lard

Hydrogenation

Interesterification by Mary G Enig, PhD

Choosing Healthy Fats

Smith Meadows Oatcakes & Soup

The frost on the ground looks pretty from a distance, but all I want to do is hibernate! Alas– we all have to work. At Smith Meadows we are making our hearty soups and chili again this season, but we are adding more.  This week we will be sampling our Tuscan Bean, Black Bean & Beef and Hearty Potato soup with our new Oat Cakes.  A Scottish tradition, oatcakes are more substantial than crackers and not quite a biscuit.  We have added our own flare to a simple recipe: Rosemary & Sage harvested from our garden, as well as a Szechuan & Black Pepper blend.

More substance than a cracker and not quite a biscuit.

I first fell in love with oatcakes when a friend gave me a package of Cairns Oatcakes for Christmas one year.  Crsipy but with the crumble of baked oats, they are better than any cracker I have tasted.  We are still perfecting our presentation and packaging, but we will have them to try this weekend with our soups at the Arlington Courthouse market, which runs from 8-12.

Soon you can also taste another new product.  Amy Berger, one of our dedicated workers at our food cart this summer, has been developing lacto-fermented sauerkraut, ginger carrots and kimchi for over a year.  She learned with Monica Corrado, a nutritional counselor and teacher based out of Takoma Park, MD.  Another word for lacto-fermented is salt-cured.  These are not just pickled vegetables– they are preserved with all of their nutrients and more to help benefit you during the seasons when fresh vegetables are hard to get.

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

In Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, there is a lot of information on the benefits of lacto-fermentation and whole grains.  A meal made with our soups, chili, oatcakes and salt cured veggies would get you through the most blustery day.  It is fairly easy to make these veggies, but it does require a lot of time and patience.  We hope to bring these all these tasty treats soon.

Join us at market for a sample of our soups and oatcakes this weekend at Arlington Courthouse from 8-12.

The Last of Our Basil Pesto til Summer 2012

Smith Meadows Kitchen has always relied on our veggie growing friends who attend one of our seven markets to provide us with delicious herbs for our pastas, sauces, soups and more.  Combined with our pasture-raised meats we have made many tasty dishes.  It is this synergy that makes our food excellent.  In 2011 we branched out on our own with a modest garden of basil, sage, tarragon, parsley, peppers, thyme and mint in front of our commercial kitchen.  It was a successful experiment that has inspired us to push forward with more gardening under the tutelage of a former farm apprentice, Steffany Yamada. We are revamping our garden around La Capretta Studio to be a culinary and medicinal herb garden. Steffany will be planning and leading our project throughout November 2011.  Our assistant James Bergida is helping her with a new retaining wall between the zen sand garden and the rosemary bed, as well as the borders around the old and new beds we plan to establish.  The herbs we will grow include: basil, green garlic chives, garlic, rosemary, sage, tarragon, lavender, mint, calendula, hyssop, and lemon grass.

The last of the Basil dreaming of next year!

We have been very lucky to have so many wonderful people with green thumbs visit and occasionally stay with us on the farm.  Steffany was a farm apprentice from 2009-2010.  She has apprenticed at many of the farms that make up our growing community in Northern VA and MD. We hope that she will return to see how her plans take root.  Below is a slide show of our activities so far.  Stay tuned for more on our garden in 2012.

Thank you for buying our Turkeys!

Here are our recommendations for the best alternative to one of our pasture raised turkeys:

Order online with:

EcoFriendly Foods
letsmeat@ecofriendly.com

Order via phone or online with:

Andrew & Mary at Open Book Farm
openbookfarm.com openbookfarm@gmail.com

North Mountain Pastures
717-497-3496  northmountainpastures.com

Thank you for all your support in the last 10 years!

Failed Steel

We were taught in nursery school that some things were built to last.  Houses of straw?  Not a good idea.  How about using sticks, instead?  Not even close.  Bricks?  Bingo.  Huff and puff as he might, the little pigs were safe from the big bad wolf.  Plan ahead, the story teaches, and use sound judgement.  This type of prudent behavior keeps the wolf from the door… or at least safely on the other side.

These fairy tales, which frequently double as parables, are great lessons for running a farm.  When one is trying to grow a living organism, regardless whether it is a field of tomatoes, or wheat, or lambs, the farmer must have a plan.  A good plan.  We try to think ahead, anticipating problems.  Unlike many businesses, if we don’t have a good strategy, things don’t just become disorganized, or inefficient.  They die.  Suffice to say, all the king’s horses and all the kings men can’t put a dead field of eggplants together again.

So when we buy a truck, we try to buy the best we can afford.  A farm truck has nothing to do with style, or features, or practically anything a t.v. commercial would have us believe is an important factor in buying a truck.  No, when a farmer buys a truck, she wants to know precisely how much stuff can she load on the back without the tires falling off, and exactly what sort of beating it can take from the ruts and potholes it is about to endure.  Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

In between, she keeps the oil changed, and makes sure it gets a tune up every 100,000 miles, and checks to see that the tires aren’t bald.  She learned her nursery rhymes, remember?  She would no sooner tolerate a clogged air filter than she would fall asleep in a haystack, allowing the cows to wade into the corn.  Negligence is the opposite of planning, and no good farmer is ever negligent.

It wasn’t bricks, but steel that failed me.  Thick, industrial steel.  I was on the way to pick up a load of piglets, pulling my trailer behind my truck, when I heard an alarming metal-on-asphalt scraping noise behind me, then, WHAM!, my trailer slammed into my bumper.  I pulled to the side of the highway, put on my hazard lights, and assumed I had been rear ended by a car behind me.  Not so.  My trailer hitch, made of solid steel, had sheered cleanly in half, and was now keeping my trailer connected to the truck with one compromised flange of metal.  A moment before, I had been going 60 miles per hour, with cars all around me.  Yikes.

This, I realized, was what farming was really all about.  As farmers, we try to do everything right.  We check, and we double check.  We plan.  We devil’s advocate ourselves.  We question our own decisions, constantly checking for evidence we’re doing things right.  And even when we buy a sturdy truck, and hook it to a professional-grade trailer, it only takes a structural failure of solid steel, impossible to anticipate or trouble shoot, to make the whole operation shut down.

For the small farmer, something like this can be the difference of getting food to farmers market or not, being able to pay the bills, or not.  Black and white.  The system is already subject to huge variability, from droughts and floods to commodity fluxuations, to waking up with the flu one morning, and having no one else to do the chores for you.  Throw in a twisted piece of broken steel, the very “brick house” of safety that we should be able to take for granted, and it could certainly feel discouraging at times.

But above all else, we farmers are an optimistic bunch, even if we’re a bit gruff and surly at times.  In what other occupation does one plant a seed, and hope beyond hope that 1,000 different factors fall into place that will turn that seed into a canteloupe, or an ear of corn?  We can’t let one unexpected repair stop us, when we know there are nine hundred and ninety nine more to occupy our minds.

So what if the steel fails us?  An hour of changing the bolts, squinting through the undercarriage dust that will doubtlessly fall into our eyes, and three hundred dollars later, we have a new tow package.  We farmers are made of stuff that is stronger than bricks, or steel.

Off to Visit the Farm at Smith Meadows

This year from June 20-24 Smith Meadows Kitchen hosted a cooking camp via Powhatan School.  Kimber Herron and Nancy Polo taught a class of 13 students how to cook a variety of dishes that incorporated fresh ingredients from the farm, as well as fresh produce from farmers’ markets in the DC food shed.  Here is a brief description of our week:

Students also had the opportunity to explore the farm where we collected eggs from our chickens on pasture.  On Wednesday the students watched the cattle and sheep being moved from their old pasture onto fresh grass.  As the farm apprentices stopped to make sure all the lambs got across, we had a chance to pet some cute and wooly critters.

Powhatan Campers Petting Smith Meadows Lambs

Collecting Eggs from the Chicken Coop at Smith Meadows

The camp was such a hit that not only will we be hosting it again next year, but we are also planning classes for adult groups throughout the year.  We have created a series of classes that cover a variety of topics including: making stock, Thai chicken soup, home made pasta and sauce, how to plant a kitchen garden and planning a healthy menu.  Stay tuned for our schedule and prices on our website.  The information page on classes should be complete by August.  For now check out pictures of our Camp on the slide show included on this post.

Steamed and Sautéd Ravioli from Smith Meadows Kitchen

Stir Fried Ravioli: Our ravioli have always been quick– just two minutes in boiling water.  If you don’t want to boil water, try sauté-ing our ravioli in a little bit of butter.  This makes a crispy appetizer or a new way to top a salad of fresh greens and vegetables.  If you are combining our ravioli with some early summer veggies you can steam both all at once in a rice cooker.  Ravioli take about 8-10 minutes to steam as do many vegetables that are just coming into season right now.

Roast-Beef-Sandwich

Cold Roasted Meats: Many people have no idea what to do with a sirloin tip.  Here’s my favorite way to use a large tender roast for the summer.  When you are planning to be in the garden on an early summer morning, roast one of our sirloin tip or eye of round roasts in an oven on 350.  It only takes a little bit of preparation and planning.  Check a good basic cookbook (Joy of Cooking) for exact cooking times. I like my roasts medium rare.  One of our 1.5lb eye of round roast should take just under an hour in the oven.  The sirloin tips that weigh closer to 2.5 lbs should take an hour and 25 minutes or so.  First sear the roast on all sides and edges for a few seconds until you hear a sizzle.  Then slather the roast with a garlic, olive oil and herb paste.  Place on a roasting rack in a roasting pan that has 1 cup of water, wine or broth in the bottom.  Set your timer.  While you weed and water the garden the roast can cook.  Remove from the oven and let the roast rest for 10 minutes.  Sliced thin, this meat can be kept in the fridge for sandwiches for 4-5 days.

Pork and Beef Rillette from Smith Meadows

Tell us what you think…

We brought a new product to market this season called Rillette.  We even had you taste some at farmers markets, but we’d love to know more about your reaction. Rillette is well known in France and Canada.  The English word for it is potted meat.  Basically, it’s a way to make something of cuts normally used in the Fall and Winter in warm weather months. Here is how we described them on our menu.

Beef Rillette- The perfect picnic charcuterie made from slow braised beef that has been marinated in a special blend of pickling spices.  Served cold on crusty french bread along with a fresh salad– it is divine! ($10/8oz. tub)

Pork Rillette- The perfect picnic charcuterie made from slow braised pork that has been marinated in a special blend of pickling spices.  Served cold on crusty french bread along with a fresh salad– it is divine!  ($10/8oz. tub)

As always, I love coming up with new dishes to bring to market.  Let me know what you think by commenting on this post.  If you try one of our recipes mentioned here, let us know how it turned out.

Charcuterie by Robert Weidemeier, Photography by Katharine Hauschka

What is charcuterie?  A college friend had a bunch of it at her wedding in Aveyron.  I have had excellent foie gras at the Bavarian Inn in Shepherdstown.  I remember lazy Sunday meals with my family when we indulged in pate with bread from Literi’s.  Simply put– it is very rich, delicious, savory and a little dab will do you.  It can be duck, goose, pork, beef and more.  The cuts you don’t normally ask for at the butcher are transformed into a heavenly loaf, sausage or terrine that can be sliced or spread onto crusty bread to accompany a huge salad.  Since I moved to the farm in 1998 I haven’t had a slice of lunch meat. Consequently my options for a quick, cold and savory lunch have been somewhat limited.  This is all going to change in 2011 beginning with our new, irresistible pork and beef rillettes.

In Pork and Sons Stephane Reynaud celebrates what was once rustic comfort food– everything but the squeal proudly refined with family recipes that he serves at his Montreal restaurant, Villa9trois.  The book makes a case for making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear in cuts that are not terribly popular at farmers market.  Our first foray into Rustic Chic at Smith Meadows will debut this week.  I have brought together several recipes, including Reynaud’s, to make two versions of Rillette, a poor man’s pate or spreadable picnic decadence (as I like to think of it).

Smith Meadows Beef and Pork Rillette

Our pork rillette is made from slowly braised cubes of pork leg and shoulder that have been shredded and recombined with locally grown leeks, carrots and its own cooking juices.  Brandy with a blend of spices including szechuan pepper, mustard seed, sage and more are the key to the marinade.  Our beef rillette is made in a similar process, however, the marinade is combination of red wine and deeper spices including cloves, allspice and ginger.  The key to all of this, of course, is delicious fat.  Braising leaner cuts from the leg or shoulder require some extra fat.  Our lard is combined with home made poultry stock for the pork, while butter and poultry stock form the base for the beef.  Should this worry you?  No– because healthy animals have healthy fat.  More information is being spread about the importance of quality fat in a healthy diet.  I have referred to this article from Weston Price before, and I will again. Saturated fats, such as lard and butter, are essential for our body– from the walls of our cells to our bones.

Salad with Smith Meadows Beef and Pork Rillette

Of course this does not mean you can go over board.  Our rillette comes in 8 oz. containers that should easily feed a family of four on a picnic.  We sampled both varieties the other night with a fresh spring salad made with escarole from Tree &Leaf, micro-greens from Red Rake Farm and Arugula from Endless Summer Harvest.  Balance is the key in any diet.  As you can see from the plate– there is a lot more green stuff.  If you have never had rillette before, come to our stand at Dupont Circle and try some this Sunday.  We are certain you will not be able to resist.  We will be bringing more tasty treats that are lighter and more appealing in the Spring and Summer– stay tuned for our pork and chicken baked egg rolls, our beef dumpling-style ravioli and all of our heavenly pestos that start in the Spring and continue to come until the Fall. Buon Appetito!

Farm Day T-Shirt by Nancy Polo

In May we hosted patrons of our farm for our third farm day.  In the morning there was coffee from Black Dog Coffee as guests signed in under our tent.  A small petting zoo was set up by Bar C Ranch for children to be able to touch and interact with farm animals. At 10am Forrest Pritchard, the farmer, introduced his family and apprentices before we headed off for a long tour of the ENTIRE FARM!  With water bottles and comfortable shoes that can withstand mud, we hiked over 400 acres of rolling land.  We visited all the animals in a circuit that included laying hens, meat chickens, beef cattle, sheep, pigs and a trip to our creek bottom where a grove of water loving trees was planted last year.  These trees are one of the newest additions to the infrastructures on our farm to help improve stream quality for the Lord Fairfax Soil & Water Conservation District.

Phil, Claire and Kathy at Farm Day 2010

When we returned to the gardens of the main house for lunch we sat down for a picnic on hay bales and cool grass to eat some Smith Meadows BBQ.  Mr. B’s of White Post, VA had cooked up our beef and pork as the heart of a hearty meal which also included greens from the farm & orchard at Sunnyside, WV.  Dessert was home-made cookies, and we washed it all down with a cool glass of lemonade.  Once everyone was well fed and rested our guests chose among several options for more adventure.  Ruth Pritchard, whose family has owned the farm since 1816, gave tours of our historic bed & breakfast.  Nancy Polo and Terri Wuenschel demonstrated how to cut pasta noodles and how to roll chocolate truffles in the commercial kitchen.  Many guests made purchases from the farm store from the loading dock where we had a tent set up just as we do each week at our famers’ markets.  Betsy, Forrest and our network of former apprentices and volunteers were on hand to tell more about the farm.  For more on past farm days please follow this link:

Farm Day Guests at the Chicken Brooder

May is one of the most beautiful months on our farm.  We hope to host many more farm days in the future.  If you want to visit the farm on another day however, we are open each day from 10am-5pm.  Although there are no guided tours, you are welcome to walk along our bird trail which winds through the old apple orchard.  Of course, if you would like to stay longer, we also have our bed & breakfast.  Here is a link for more information on how to visit Smith Meadows.  The farm store is open as well from 10am-5pm each day.  We look forward to seeing you!

Smith Meadows Kitchen Beef Pot Pie served with wine and Life Truffles

January and February are the most difficult months to plod through.  It’s no wonder we welcome red hearts, chocolate, wine and plans for romance earlier than we would for most other holiday seasons.  Last year I had the pleasure of attending a wine and local food pairing at Bastille in Alexandria.  Chef Christophe, with his wife and partner Michelle, set the perfect scene for a very romantic meal made with our veal.  The wines are always superb and the desserts decadent.  It was a rare and extravagant treat in which I happily indulged.  This year I want to see if I can recreate that magic in my own kitchen.  The lean months of winter on a farm and at farmers markets don’t mean that you have to go without culinary splendor to make your Valentine special.

American-Gothic by Grant Wood

With the images and history of farming in America, it is often difficult to conceive of the eccentric spirit required to be a farm or food entrepreneur.  My small circle of farming friends and locavore foodies, however, is full of romantic individuals with creativity and panache. To hear farmers like Zach of Tree & Leaf or Heintz of Next Step Produce wax poetic on kale to radicchio, you know that they are modern dirt swashbucklers combating the elements to bring you mid-winter food. Happily there is also the softer side of local food in operations like Life Truffles.  Sweet treat maven Terri Wuenschel’s credo is to create simple pleasures from a culture of food centered on natural beauty and resources.

Hand Rolled Dark Chocolate Truffles by Terri Wuenschel of Life Truffles

Terri’s signature confections are irresistible, hand rolled, dark chocolate truffles.  Her theme decorated cupcakes are also impossible to pass up.  Based in Bluemont, VA, Life Truffles make any occasion special– not only for the delicious desserts, but also for the kindness and love Terri puts into her work.  She brings that same vitality to the products she helps craft at Smith Meadows Kitchen.  Whenever we develop a new recipe for farmers market, Terri is more than happy to be involved.  Our newest creation, Beef Pot Pies, are made with simple ingredients well combined to make a delicious meal.

These pies are potatoes from Sunnyside Farm in Charlestown, WV, Beef Cubes from our farm here at Smith Meadows, Mushrooms from Ferial Welsh’s Mushroom Stand, MD and Carrots from Twin Springs, PA floating in a beef stock & red wine gravy wrapped in a flaky crust made with our lard and organic winter wheat flour from Frankferd Farms, PA.  My Valentine meal this year will include our Beef Pot Pie, Turnips & Greens braised in White Wine, a bottle of Nebbiolo from Breaux Vineyard, and a box of Life Truffles.  Although I love the meat, potatoes and vegetable part, I am a dessert girl.  The entire holiday is an excellent excuse to indulge in Terri’s treats.

A box of 8 Life Truffles

Box of 2 Life Truffles

Terri’s boxes of truffles come in packages of 2 for $3 and boxes of 8 for $15.  If you would like to order a box of Life Truffles to go along with your other market delights on Valentine’s Day, we can bring them to you at the Dupont Circle market.  Please send us an email by February 6th for delivery on Sunday February 13th.

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