Pick up your Meat Share: Archway Farm: starting Thursday, June 29th, open daily 9a - 7p
Dear Shareholders:
A little background on where we are with beef. After a couple years of buying in whole beef animals, as well as some cuts, from a couple different local and regional farms, we are now in the process of building up our own beef program.
Last fall we bought in some feeder animals from my parents farm in Maine (Sunnycroft Farm). Those animals spent the winter up in Walpole being fed hay at Tom Beaudry’s farm, and are now in West Keene, grazing at Stonewall Farm as well as some other nearby fields.
We are a little low on beef in this month’s shares, but next month will have the first of our own beef hitting shares, with much more to come this fall. We’re hoping to build this out to a consistent year round operation similar to our hogs.
Mark (for Wyatt, Maggie, Dima, Leo, & Alona)
Special Items in This Months Shares
(depending on size and meats you selected)
Butt/Shoulder Roast: Similar roasts both from the front shoulder. Butt roasts have a bone in them, shoulder roasts are boneless. Both are great for pulled pork.
Boneless Pork Chops: center cut boneless pork chops, we tend to cut them on the thicker side, (3/4″ to 1″) but you can also cut them thinner if that’s your preference
Bratwurst sausage: freshly made this week, this bratwurst has milk and eggs which add a richness to the sausage.
Recipe of the Month
Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork
from NYT Cooking
If you’ve spent any time on Pinterest or food blogs, you’ve likely come across a recipe for three-ingredient barbecue pulled pork that can be made in the slow cooker. Methods and ingredients vary, but the recipe almost always calls for boneless pork shoulder, some sort of dark cola (usually Dr Pepper or root beer) and barbecue sauce. Dubious? We were too, so we asked the members of our NYT Cooking Community Facebook page if anyone had ever made it and if they liked it. We received more than 150 very opinionated responses. Many readers have come up with their own clever twists, like using coffee or beer in place of cola, adding onions or chipotles, rubbing the meat with a spice blend and searing the meat before cooking. We tried cooking it a few different ways and found we liked this adaptation best. It calls for a few more ingredients and an extra step or two, but it’s got layers of flavor and it’s still mostly fuss-free. (You can find the pressure-cooker version of this recipe here.)
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoons hot or sweet smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
- 1 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
- 3 to 4 pound boneless pork shoulder or pork butt, trimmed of most of its excess fat
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus additional for greasing
- 1 yellow onion, chopped (optional)
- 1(12-ounce) can dark soda, like Dr Pepper, root beer, cola or birch beer
- ½ to 1½ cups homemade or store-bought barbecue sauce
- Hot sauce (optional)
Directions
- In a small bowl, combine the garlic and onion powders, smoked paprika, salt and black pepper. Rub the spice mixture all over the pork. If you have time, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or up to overnight. If you don’t, no worries; proceed to Step 2.
- Lightly grease the crock of a slow cooker. Heat 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Sear the pork until golden brown on all sides, about 2 minutes each side. Add onion, if using, to the slow cooker. Add the pork on top of the onion. Pour soda over the pork and set the slow cooker to low for 6 to 8 hours, until the meat has collapsed and shreds easily.
- Drain most of the liquid from the slow cooker and shred the meat directly in the pot. Add about ½ cup of the barbecue sauce and stir to combine. (At this point, if you like crisp bits in your pulled pork, you can spread the shredded pork on a sheet pan and place under a broiler for a couple minutes then return to the slow cooker.) Taste and add more barbecue sauce, hot sauce, salt or pepper, if desired. Serve with soft rolls and extra sauce on the side.