The Seven Steak

When we butchered our grass fed steer and had it cut up into various cuts, one of the cuts was the seven steak.  Seven steak comes from the chuck portion of the animal and gets its namesake from the cut across the shoulder blade that forms a perfect number seven.  Can you see it?

Steak and gravy or, more commonly called around here, rice and gravy, reduces the meat to a supporting role to the locally grown rice and gravy.  But don't be fooled, the meat creates the real flavor.  This is a hearty meal that will cause you to loosen your belt one notch and will arouse a drowsy, satisfied feeling send you to the nearest comfortable chair for a nap after eating.

Tricia simply seasons the steak, searing it on both sides in a cast iron dutch oven. Once that's done, she adds enough water to cover, along with onions garlic, celery and bell pepper and allows it to simmer for a couple of hours.  Then she adds cut up carrots, green beans, and potatoes.  In a separate pot, she makes a roux with beef tallow and 1/3 cup flour and stirs that into the pot and cooks it for another hour and a half.  At that point it's time to return thanks to the Good Lord for His provision and serve up a heaping pile of rice and top it with the thick, brown, tasty gravy and pieces of tender meat.  A meal fit for a king - King of the Recliner, that is.

I hate to be redundant, but here's another picture, so I can at least feast my eyes on it again.

The Seven Steak.  Many people attribute the Number 7 as providing good luck.  I don't believe in luck.  I believe in blessing.  In the Bible, the number 7 is the number of completeness and perfection. I learned HERE that:

• The word seven is used 745 times in the Bible,
• According to Jewish tradition, the creation of Adam was on October 7, 3761 BC.
• There are seven days in the week and God's Sabbath is on the seventh day,
• The Bible is divided into 7 major divisions: the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels and Acts, the General Epistles, the Epistles of Paul and the book of Revelation.

The number seven.  Completeness & Perfection.  The Seven steak.  Yep, that about sums it up.

Our Own Grass Fed Beef - Making Bone Broth (Part 5)

Today is the final entry in our series on bringing our grassfed steer to the slaughterhouse for processing and the different things we did in order to use almost every part of the animal except the "Moo."  Before we go further and in the event you missed the previous posts, here they are so that you can click, read and catch up:

Part 1 Grassfed Beef - Organ Meats
Part 2 Grassfed Beef - Picking it Up
Part 3 Grassfed Beef - Rendering Beef Tallow
Part 4 Grassfed Beef - Cooking Grassfed Beef

Today we're going to show you how to make beef bone broth.  As members of the Weston A. Price Foundation, we are firm adherents to the phrase, "Broth is Beautiful."  In fact This Article by Sally Fallon really opened our eyes to the health benefits of cooking with broth.  It seems in our house we always have a pot of our home-raised pastured chicken bones simmering to make that golden, healthy, elixir.  We just never did it with beef bones since we've never had grass fed beef. That ends now!

In the tallow post (Part 3) we told you we asked the butcher to save all of the fat for us.  We also asked him to cut up all the bones and save them as well.  We picked up two HUGE bags of bones for making bone broth and over the next week, we always had 3 pots simmering on the stove.  Here's how we did it.

First, we used a variety of bones, bones with marrow, bones with joints attached, short bones, large bones, you name it.  We had bones strewn across the kitchen.  If we would have had any archaeological experience or were better with jigsaw puzzles, we might have reconstructed the skeleton of the steer right there in our kitchen.

The first of many, many bones

We first trimmed the excess pieces of meat and fat from the bones.  These went into a bowl and became dog food.  Our dogs absolutely loved it and we probably saved $25 bucks alone in dog food. Needless to say, the dogs were as pleased as we were with the grass fed beef.

Scraps for the dogs

We filled 3 large stockpots three-quarters of the way full with bones and set them on top of the stove. These 3 pots and our stove got quite a workout over the next week!

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

We added roughly 3 or 4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to each pot.  The vinegar is said to draw the minerals out of the bones.  That's what we are aiming for in order to get the most out of our beef broth.

Adding Apple Cider Vinegar

Then we added filtered water until it covered the level of the bones.  We allowed the bones to just rest there in the water for an hour or so while we cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.

Adding filtered water

Then we brought the water to a rolling boil, skimming off the foam and brown stuff that floated to the top with a spoon and throwing in the compost pile.  Everything goes into the compost pile.

Skimming off the top

We added an onion and plenty of broken up celery and carrots to each pot, covered, and turned down the heat.  We want the contents of the pot to always bubble - a slow simmer.  Then we sort of forgot about it for 24 or so hours.  It just did its thing and we did ours for a day or so.  The long simmer causes the gelatin to be released from the bones, along with the marrow and many minerals.

The bubbling cauldron of health

Finally, it was time to take the broth off of the heat.  I lined a colander with a cut up t-shirt and poured the hot broth through it, to strain out the solids and much of the fat.

Straining the broth

The remnants or debris left in the pot after straining was happily consumed by our dogs and chickens. There is no waste at our house.  It was very interesting how our chickens gathered around the bones and picked at them, actually eating the bone. We give the chickens oyster shells to eat, but they really attacked the bones, picking them clean.

For the dogs & chickens

Once cooled I was able to pour the contents into gallon and half-gallon sized jars.  I left them on the counter until they were room temperature and then I moved them into the refrigerator.  The next morning the contents was gelatinous.  I used a spoon to remove all of the fat that lined the top of the broth.

The first batch of beef broth

Then we poured it all back into a pot, heated it up to a boil and ladled it into quart and pint sized jars and then put them into the pressure canner, pressure canning it at 10 lbs pressure - 20 minutes for pints and 25 minutes for quarts.

When we finished, we had 14 quarts of beef broth:

Quarts of Beef Broth

and 20 pints of beef broth for the pantry.

Pints of beef broth

If my math is correct, that is 6 gallons of beef broth.  That's a lot of health right there.  More than you'll find in a CVS or Walgreens.  Sally Fallon of the Weston Price Foundation says this about broth:

Science validates what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons–stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

So we are set now for a while and will be able to use the beef broth we made as a base for making soups, using it instead of water for cooking rice, boiling potatoes in or basically using it instead of water for making recipes richer and more flavorful and healthy.  Bon Appetit!

Our Own Grass Fed Beef - Rendering Tallow (Part 3)

In Part 1 and Part 2 of our blog posts, we talked about us taking a grass fed steer from the farm to the slaughter house and we showed you our freezer loaded up with meat and organ meats.  We will show you today another product that we got - beef fat.  Well, that sounds disgusting, doesn't it?  Why would you want beef fat?  We'll show you in this post.  We were able to get several bags of fat from the steer.

Now, there are numerous uses for beef fat or tallow, but first you have to process it or render it.  You probably grew up where you can remember your mom or grandma would save the bacon drippings from frying bacon and keep it in a coffee cup or tin can near the stove.  Those drippings would serve as the fat or oil to fry things in similar to Crisco. Tallow is the same thing, except from a beef animal instead of pork.  Here is the first of several bags that we will be working with.

A big bag of fat

You want the fat to be slightly frozen as it is easier to work with.  This is not a job for the squeamish of heart or someone who is a 'clean freak' because it makes a big mess.  Simply take pieces of semi-frozen fat out of the bag and using a sharp knife, cut off any pieces of meat or blood.  You want the fat to be simply fat and nothing else.

The first batch

After trimming the meat and blood off of it, I cut the fat into pieces about an inch square.  I then threw it into the food processor.  I learned, though, that it wasn't frozen enough and it made a big 'gloppy' mess.  I learned that the food processor step is really unnecessary as long as you chop up the fat into small enough pieces.  I probably won't do that step again.  It's one more item to clean.  Plus, it has to be hard on the food processor.

Chopping into mush

I simply took the cut up fat and put in into a large pot and turned the heat on medium.  After a while the fat will liquefy.  Be sure to stir every once in a while so that it doesn't burn.  

Heating things up

It's best to keep the lid on the pot and the vent hood running.  The smell isn't bad, but it is not pleasant.  After it is bubbling pretty good, I turned the heat down to low and just let it cook and cook, while stirring occasionally.

Cooking it down

When crispy pieces float to the top and the bottom of the pot contains clear liquid, your work is done. I pulled it off of the stove top and got a metal colander.  I cut up a t-shirt and laid it on the bottom to serve as a filter and then carefully poured the very hot contents of the pot into the colander.  The liquid filtered through the shirt and into the measuring container.

Filtering the oil

The filter/colander caught all the crispy pieces of fat.  This is similar to what you get with pork: Cracklins.  In French, they're called gratons or in Spanish, chicharones.

Beef  'cracklins'

What remained was 8 cups of rendered beef tallow in the liquid state.  It was still quite hot.  It was clear as the filter caught every little bit of sediment.

Hot Rendered Tallow

I lined a pyrex baking pan with wax paper and carefully poured the hot contents into it.

I let it cool on the counter for the better part of a day.  It came to room temperature, but wasn't really hardening, so I put it into the refrigerator overnight and it hardened just fine.

Yellow Beef Tallow

We used a knife to cut it into squares like you might do with brownies and then we used a spatula to scoop up the beef tallow squares.

We labeled a gallon sized ziploc bag and began placing the squares of beef tallow into the bag. They'll be frozen and then we can pop them out as we need them.

Tallow from grass-fed beef has fats like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and that is very good for you according to the Weston A. Price Foundation.

So what will we use beef tallow for?  Well, it has many uses.  First, we'll use it to fry things in.  I understand that french fries fried in beef tallow is excellent.  Then, we're going to try to make soap. You can make candles with it and you can even make skin care products (balms) with it.  We'll freeze a bunch of beef tallow and try to make several different products with it.

Our Own Grass Fed Beef - Picking it up (Part 2)

In a previous post that you can click on below entitled,:

Our Own Grass Fed Beef - Organ Meats (Part 1)

we discussed bringing a 1600 pound steer to a slaughterhouse in nearby Morse, Louisiana.  In that post, we talked about how we picked up the organ meats and prepared them for storage while we were waiting for the meat to dry age in the cooler for two weeks before they cut it up.  When we dropped off the animal, we filled out a "cut sheet" that detailed the amount of ground meat we wanted and the amount of steaks versus roasts we wanted, what type steaks and ribs we wanted, the brisket, and the thickness that we wanted the steaks to be cut into.

Two weeks later we got a call that the meat was ready to be picked up.  Thankfully the butcher froze it in his big commercial freezer and fortunately, my Dad came with his truck to pick up the beef. Elliott's Slaughterhouse is in a small town well off the beaten path.  They are very courteous and provide great service.  There is a small sign showing you where to turn off the main road that we originally missed and had to turn around and go back and make the turn.

As we talked about earlier, there aren't many slaughterhouses left.  Growing up, there was one in Oberlin, Louisiana and two in Basile, Louisiana.  Now, slaughterhouses providing custom butchering are few and far between.  As a result of the scarcity, Elliott's Slaughter House is very busy.  There's nothing fancy about the place, but it is one of those places whose reputation speaks for itself.  There's no need for lit up signs or advertising.

Each time we've gone, we have had to wait in a very long line with people purchasing pork roasts, or pork steaks or ground meat.  This is not boxed beef coming from Illinois or Nebraska.  This is fresh cut meat.  While we were waiting, I watched a gentleman purchase a bag of Pork Debris.  Debris is a variety of meats such as heart, liver, kidney, spleen, tripe, brain, lungs, and sweetbreads.  Cajun use this to make a dish called "Cowboy Stew."  You can bring in your calf, pig, sheep, goat or deer and they'll custom process it for you.

If you look just on the right side of the window, you can see a green rectangular sign.  This sign had a slogan printed on it that is perfect for a butcher shop in rural Louisiana.  It stated: "Vegetarian: An Indian word for someone who doesn't know how to hunt."  Classic.  They have huge coolers with carcasses hanging on big stainless steel hooks from the ceiling.  Remember in 'Rocky' when the "Italian Stallion" went into the cooler to practice punching?  Just like that.

There were hand printed signs all over the walls announcing specials on Pork neckbones, Belly fat, stuffed pork chops, stuffed deboned chickens and Turduckens. The smell of smoked sausage and tasso filled the air.

The steer's hanging weight before aging was 1,166 pounds and the butcher estimated the animal weighed 1,600 pounds.  There is some loss in weight from aging and he told us that we could count on roughly 900 pounds of meat.  Since we are splitting with my Dad, that meant 450 pounds for us. It cost $25 Butchering Fee plus $0.38 per pound of hanging weight.  That was broken up into $0.18 per pound cutting, $0.18 per pound wrapping, and $0.02 per pound freezing.

When we went to pick it up, it was all packed in individual packages in large plastic bags and was frozen in a big freezer outside.  My Dad backed up to the freezer and began loading the truck.  We had several big ice chests, but to our surprise, we only had room for 450 pounds of meat.  We made another trip to get my Dad's half and then we still have 6 big bags of fat and bones to pick up.

We had to purchase a new 15' chest type freezer to store the meat in, but will pay for it easily with the savings in meat purchases.  Beef is sky high right now and from what I've read, it will remain high for quite a while.  Back long ago, you could store a chest type freezer on your back porch or in your garage.  Those days are gone. When I talked to a gentlemen selling the freezers, he told me that they aren't made with good insulation anymore and if you tried to put the freezer outside, it wouldn't last very long at all.  So, we put the freezer inside in a hallway and I put some of those sliders for furniture moving underneath it so we could slide it on the tile if need be.

Where's the Beef?  In the freezer, of course.

Benjamin and I made some dividers with some 3/8 inch plywood and we separated the ground meat from the steaks and brisket and another divider for the soup rounds, ribs and short ribs.  We ate the first package of ground meat the other day. Delicious!  A grass fed steer from our farm who lived a good life under the blue sky and sunshine while breathing fresh Allen Parish air.  He is not full of antibiotics, hormones, or medicines and we feel good about the quality meat that we'll enjoy for months and months.  We'll definitely do this again.