10 Reasons I Buy Pure Beef

By Lynne Curry

In 2001, I moved from Seattle to a remote mountain valley in eastern Oregon. I was attracted to the lifestyle of a small town mixed with artists, self-starters and ranchers and easy access to the wilderness. I did not move for the food, and I certainly never expected to devote two years to researching and writing about beef. At the time, I didn’t even eat meat.

Back then, beef was beef. In the fine dining restaurant where I cooked (and all the others I knew in Seattle), beef was never a featured menu item. Diners who craved it for their dinner went to a steak house or picked up a burger from their favorite fast food chain. In the supermarket, there were several different cuts, but it was all the same beef--processed from a giant commodity system, consistent in grade and taste and low in price.

In 10 years, all that’s changed, and so have I. Living in a place where there are three times as many cattle as people, it was only a matter of time before I tasted and then purchased local meat. This beef was different. It came from animals that lived their entire lives on home ranches eating only grasses. And because of that wholesome, low-stress lifestyle, the meat was lean and firm and had depths of flavors that wowed me.

This was pure beef. There were no additives of any kind and the meat was not manipulated in any way to make it anything different from what is was: a nutritious food source cultivated from the lands by people who cared for their animals and were striving to provide exceptional food and preserve a way of life. When my husband and I had two children, I never had to worry about its food safety because I could trace it right back to the ranch where it was raised.

Now, pure beef is available in every state for everyone who cares about the source of their food. Like other artisan products, it is cultivated with care and attention from start to finish by small-scale and family farmers. High-end restaurants are now giving grassfed beef four-star treatment. Supermarkets are carrying an entire menu of beef options—organic, natural and grassfed--varying in taste, attributes and price points.

The downside is that eating out and shopping are a little more complicated than they used to be. This is why I wrote a whole book devoted to sharing what I’ve learned from years of cooking grassfed beef and witnessing the far-reaching benefits of purchasing well-raised meats:

1. From birth to slaughter, beef cattle consume only native grasses, legumes and other forages (plus stored hay in winter where necessary) for a wholesome and complete, muscle-building diet.

2. Animals live unconfined, ideally with opportunities for natural social interaction and excellent physical and psychological comfort.

3. Their muscles are lean and their fat contains a recommended balance of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids (2:1 or even lower), on par with wild game.

4. Pastured beef (as well as dairy and poultry) is one of the few sources of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), another essential fatty acid (“good fat”) found to have significant health-enhancing and cancer-preventing properties.

5. Compared to conventional grain-finished beef, grassfed is consistently higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, B-vitamins thiamin and riboflavin and the minerals calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

6. Cutting out the feedlot brings more money directly to the rancher and supports family farms and their communities.

7. Rotational grazing methods promote soil regeneration and biodiversity and are a promising avenue for increased carbon sequestration.

8. Far less fossil fuel is used in producing this beef and animal waste is a valuable plant fertilizer, dispersed over the rangeland, not collected into polluting manure lagoons.

9. The texture of the beef when raw is resilient, like a well-toned and relaxed muscle, less watery and when cooked is more substantial and satisfying.

10. The flavors are more concentrated and varied with mineral, mushroom and umami qualities—all dependent on the composition and quality of the pastures where the animals grazed.

Lynne Curry is the author of PURE BEEF: An Essential Guide to Artisan Meat with Recipes for Every Cut and the blog Rural Eating

Lavender Honey-Nut Cupcakes for Mother’s Day

The magic ingredients!

(Today's post is from one of our most adorable RP editors, Jordana Tusman! She's a cupcake fiend and loves to bake. Take it away, Jordana!)

Lavender Honey-Nut Cupcakes for Mother’s Day

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m one of those girls who is obsessed with cupcakes. I know it’s not very original and I certainly appreciate a decadent slice of out-of-this-world cake, but there is just something so delicious, so delicate, and so adorably cute about a little cupcake that just makes my heart beat. I use birthdays and holidays as excuses to bake cupcakes as much as I can. And luckily for me, a ton of my friends have spring birthdays and a lot of holidays creep up in the summer, so I fully expect my kitchen to be cupcake-crazy over the next couple of months. And this Sunday just happens to be Mother’s Day—another perfect excuse to bake.

Since spring welcomes the rebirth of flowers and pops of color, and my mom and I have a shared love for lavender, I thought it would be the perfect time to make the Lavender Honey-Nut Cupcakes from Lucy Baker’s THE BOOZY BAKER. These cupcakes also involve a little bit of naughtiness (booze!), which is always a must for me when it comes to baking. For these cupcakes, I’ll be using amaretto, an almond flavored liqueur, and a favorite of mine. Besides my soft spot for lavender and amaretto, I recently became infatuated with what might be one of the greatest godsends to befall cupcake enthusiasts everywhere—cupcake plungers!

A cupcake plunger, for just a few bucks at your local kitchen store, is used to cut out a perfect center core from a cupcake and then plunge in a delicious, creamy filling (hopefully with booze!). Then you drop the core back into the cupcake on top of the filling. While it’s loads of fun to plunge out the core and plop in the filling, it’s even more thrilling when your unknowing guests take a bite of the cupcake and realize that it’s filled with a surprise gooey center.

The lavender honey-nut cupcakes from THE BOOZY BAKER do not call for a filling, but I have no problem seeking out the perfect filling recipe to make the magic happen.  For this recipe, I’ll be using something light and delicate, like a vanilla pastry cream or a cream cheese filling. And yes, I’ll definitely be adding a dash of amaretto to it!

            Now, if you’re like me, you probably feel pure agony when you bake something and have to wait an hour or more for it to cook, all the while being tempted and teased by the heavenly, warm aromas slipping out through the oven. The nice thing about cupcakes is that they bake in less than 30 minutes, and while you are waiting for them to cook, you can pass the time by making the frosting (and filling!).

I can’t bring myself to just make 12 cupcakes, as the recipe’s yield calls for (I’ve got two 12-cup tins, so I might as well use them!), so I’ll be doubling the recipe. Of course, doubling the batter means doubling the frosting as well—which means there’s bound to be some leftover frosty goodness to spread on breakfast biscuits and muffins the next day—bonus!

For me, presentation is *almost* as important as taste, so to make the lavender live up to its name, I’ll be blending in 1 to 2 drops of purple food coloring to the frosting to give the cupcakes a delightful purple tint (just a couple(!), lest my boozy babes look like monster purple Easter eggs), drizzling fine lines of honey on top, and then sprinkling with the dried lavender buds for garnish.

If you’re as into boozy cupcakes as I am, I demand that you get Kate Legere’s INTOXICATED CUPCAKES. I have made a handful of recipes from this cookbook so far—all amazing by the way—and there is truly a booze-filled cupcake to make for every occasion. If you’re looking for something special to make Mom for Mother’s Day, consider making these lavender cupcakes from THE BOOZY BAKER, and don’t forget to complement them with a handmade Mom’s Day card so Mom knows she’s No. 1.

Jordana

Secret Sauce

Lasagna Bolognese

Secret Sauce

I consider myself so incredibly lucky to get the first look at some of the best cookbooks to be published each year (not that I’m biased). I sleep and breathe these books along with their authors, agents, publicists, and designers, and by the time they have spines and tables of contents, we know them like the backs of our hands. But they don’t just skitter across our desks: we cook from them too—not, as some assume, to methodically test the recipes (that’s done by the expert authors and their testers), but because after inhaling the scents on the page for months, they’re all we can think about come dinnertime.

This weekend I was feeding the in-laws before a big 10-mile race, and the main dish came together in bits: there was fresh pasta dough in the freezer, bison meat at the farmers’ market, and I happened to walk by the ricotta at the exact moment I was thinking of dinner. It was kismet, and lasagna. I won’t tell you everything about this lasagna (which is a riff on the Lasagna Bolognese from an insanely good book of restaurant staff meals out this fall: COME IN, WE’RE CLOSED: An Invitation to Staff Meals at the World’s Best Restaurants), but I would be remiss if I did not mention the best bolognese sauce to ever walk the earth. The secret is heavy cream, stirred in at the end: just a touch, and you’ll hardly even recognize it in its final form. It leaves behind a silky schmear, something you can’t quite place.

Red sauces hardly need a recipe, since so much is dependent on what you’re trying to use and what you like, but mine included a yellow onion, celery, carrots, ground bison, fresh garlic, canned San Marzano tomatoes, stock, wine, a sprig of thyme, and a bit of salt. Simmer it gently while you take a shower and ponder whether you have the forbearance to grow your pixie into a bob. That in-between stage is the pits. Check on the sauce: it should be becoming drier, but not sticking. The authors say it should “pile” on the spoon, rather than “pooling.” I almost forgot about the cream (just 1/4 cup for a good-sized batch of sauce) in my rush to assemble the dish, but thankfully for us—and you—I remembered, and it was a truly delicious meal.

-Kristen