Buying a Cow (or part of one)

In February we are enjoying our One Small Change at dinner time, mostly.

In January we purchased an eighth of a “locally grown” cow.  Actually, the cow came from Southwest Missouri, just like our locally grown veggies.  Funnily ironic.  Anyhow, I was very excited when our friends Ashlee & Rodney offered us the opportunity to get a portion of a cow from their family’s cow.  At first, I was concerned about how much space that much meat would take up, but it really wasn’t too bad.  Here’s what we got:

1 Roast pkg
2 Sirloin Steak pkgs
2 Round Steak pkgs
2 Ribeye pkgs
1 short ribs pkg
1 filet pkg
1 KC strip pkg
30 one pound pkgs ground beef

We got all but 15 lbs of ground beef in our regular freezer.

We didn’t really start using our beef until this month.  It tastes SO MUCH BETTER than store-bought beef!  I also feel good about feeding it to my family knowing it was raised on a family farm and processed at a small meat processor instead of a huge, crowded stockyard.  Craig is having fun grilling and preparing the steak cuts in different ways. I’m hoping we can make the beef stretch through the year, but it is already going quickly!

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