Eating Locally

We have some friends who are venturing out with family to start a new business, Summerlin Farms. They offer locally grown, pasture-raised beef from just down the highway in Thorndale, Texas. Cole and I got to make our first purchase from them over the weekend, and I cooked up our first meal from our purchase this evening. The Pike's Peak roast to be exact.

Here's what our first local-beef dinner looked like:

Pike's Peak roast (ours was 2.25 pounds)
1 large yellow onion
1 bottle of pale ale (I used Sam Adams, but I imagine it wouldn't matter)
1 bay leaf
salt
pepper

I chopped the onion into large chunks and put half of the chunks into the slow cooker. I then salted and peppered the roast and put it on top of onions. I topped it with the remainder of onions and slowly poured the beer and dropped a bay leaf in, just for fun. I simmered on low heat in the slow cooker for six hours.

Delicious! It actually reminded me of the Sunday-afternoon roasts we used to have at Gran's house. Those came from the cows that Grandad raised, and there was such a natural and delicious flavor. Same with this first cut of beef we've tried from Summerlin Farms.

The only thing missing from tonight's roast was the buckshot.

It's Official: I'm Composting!

You know several weeks ago when I was trying to figure out the best way for us to compost at home? I didn't want to dig holes in the backyard. We don't really have the space to build three above-ground containers for filling and turning. And I don't have 300 bucks to spend on an electric counter-top system right now.

But I've found the solution: Green Bucket Composting here in Austin! For as little as $3.50 a week, they'll pick up the food waste right from your front porch, compost it on their family farm, and use it to grow vegetables for their families, their employees and even local food banks. They provide the containers, filters and bags, all I'll have to do is provide the food scraps. My bucket arrives Friday!