September Meat Share

Hopefully you all received your September meat shares without issue last week. As you now know, the September meat share included the regular whole chicken (about 4.5 pounds), 2 pounds of ground beef, and then a Ham Steak (about 2.5 pounds), and then about a pound of steak. Here are a couple ideas of what to do with some of that meat:

Chicken: You all probably have your own recipes or preparations for chicken but I figured I'd post one of my favorite recipes. This recipe calls for roasting a whole chicken in the oven so it works well now that the days are starting to cool off and you don't mind turning on the oven.

Pot-Roasted Tarragon Chicken
Need: butter, leeks, carrots, white wine, dried tarragon, cream, chicken

1. Preheat Oven to 350.
2. Melt 3 tbs butter in a roasting dish. Add sliced leeks to cover the bottom (1/2 inch to 1 inch deep) and cook until leeks are soft
3. Salt and Pepper inside chicken. Brush top of chicken with melted butter and salt the top. Place the chicken on top of the leeks and place in oven for 30-40 minutes. (Make sure leeks don't burn, add a little white wine if it looks like they might or they start to).
4. After 30-40 minutes, slice 3 or 4 carrots and add them around the chicken. Sprinkle 1 1/2 cups white wine over the chicken and sprinkle chicken and carrots with dried tarragon. Salt the vegetables to taste.
5. If you've got a top for your dish (if not, just place it in the oven without a top), cover the chicken and place in the oven for 35-50 minutes
6. 15 minutes before chicken is done, pour 3/4 cup of cream over the chicken and vegetables. Recover and let finish cooking (the chicken is done when the juices run clear and the legs move easily - cooking times may need to be adjusted based on the size of the chicken).
This chicken is great served with rice or egg noodles.

Ham Steak: Ham Steak is very versatile. These are great just pan-fried for breakfast in the morning or you can throw them on the grill to add some nice smoky flavor. You can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Steak: So you're all getting different cuts of steak this week. We intended for everyone to get a pound of stew meat but we sold out of stew meat and are instead sending you some meat in steak form that is good for stew. You should have gotten about a pound of either Top Round, London Broil or Chuck Steaks. These steaks all come from the Round or Chuck (shoulder), two of the slightly tougher but more flavorful areas of a beef. Top Round and London Broil especially can be marinated and grilled (preferably rare or medium rare) as steaks (Chuck steak can be too but it might be a little bit tougher). All of these cuts, though, are great chopped up into cubes and then used in a soup or stew!