Back in November, when I first was home full time, I started cooking less meat. Much less meat. We are not vegetarians, and I don't think we ever will be. However, I do think that we as a society are eating too much meat. I think our means of raising animals for meat is wrong. I just don't trust that some enormous corporation is making decisions based on health or reason and not the bottom line for the corporation. We have driven past chicken processing plants traveling down the East Coast. These are not farms, they are factories. And they stink...and not in a farm way...in a gross way.
So, we have been buying our meat mostly from a local farm, Hemlock Hills. They are a family owned farm in Westchester County. A farm with a red barn, and rolling hills of grass and clover. Hemlock Hills raises only the animals that they have room for, even if they have to turn away orders. This makes sense to me. It feels right to buy meat from this farm instead of from a cooler in a supermarket wrapped up in plastic and Styrofoam. Buying this meat also means we are paying more. I'm okay with that. I think that the goal of food should not be to get the biggest package for the least amount of money. I think that food should be nutritious and wholesome. And not necessarily 'cheap'. I love that we will spend a thousand dollars on a television to put on our walls but want to pay ninety-nine cents for chicken at a drive through that we are putting in our bodies.
Anyway, to compensate for the expensive happy chickens, we are just eating less meat. So, overall we aren't spending more money and we are eating more veggies!
The change to more veggies has changed how and what I cook and I 'm loving learning some new tecniques, like grilled pizza. We LOVE grilled pizza! I was always afraid to try making grilled pizza. I was sure that when I put the raw dough on the grill, the parts in between the grates of the grill would fall down into the fire and the parts left on the grates would burn and stick. But, it doesn't and the pizza is soooo good.
The trick is to make the pizza right on the pizza peel with plenty of corn meal. Get the grill really hot, like 500 degrees. Turn down the heat, oil the grates and pull the peel out from under the pizza fast. The first time, the pizza was a bit misshapen and burnt...but, by the 2nd try I had figured is out. Try it, you'll love it.
Also, the trick to pizza sauce is to just let it simmer until it reduces and becomes really thick. I follow the recipes for the dough and sauce in the Gourmet cookbook. I use whatever we have around for the toppings...I get creative. Also, fresh mozzarella is the best.
So, we have been buying our meat mostly from a local farm, Hemlock Hills. They are a family owned farm in Westchester County. A farm with a red barn, and rolling hills of grass and clover. Hemlock Hills raises only the animals that they have room for, even if they have to turn away orders. This makes sense to me. It feels right to buy meat from this farm instead of from a cooler in a supermarket wrapped up in plastic and Styrofoam. Buying this meat also means we are paying more. I'm okay with that. I think that the goal of food should not be to get the biggest package for the least amount of money. I think that food should be nutritious and wholesome. And not necessarily 'cheap'. I love that we will spend a thousand dollars on a television to put on our walls but want to pay ninety-nine cents for chicken at a drive through that we are putting in our bodies.
Anyway, to compensate for the expensive happy chickens, we are just eating less meat. So, overall we aren't spending more money and we are eating more veggies!
The change to more veggies has changed how and what I cook and I 'm loving learning some new tecniques, like grilled pizza. We LOVE grilled pizza! I was always afraid to try making grilled pizza. I was sure that when I put the raw dough on the grill, the parts in between the grates of the grill would fall down into the fire and the parts left on the grates would burn and stick. But, it doesn't and the pizza is soooo good.
The trick is to make the pizza right on the pizza peel with plenty of corn meal. Get the grill really hot, like 500 degrees. Turn down the heat, oil the grates and pull the peel out from under the pizza fast. The first time, the pizza was a bit misshapen and burnt...but, by the 2nd try I had figured is out. Try it, you'll love it.
Also, the trick to pizza sauce is to just let it simmer until it reduces and becomes really thick. I follow the recipes for the dough and sauce in the Gourmet cookbook. I use whatever we have around for the toppings...I get creative. Also, fresh mozzarella is the best.
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