Summer Share 2011 – Week 20

This week we have a product that I am very proud of. Last fall I had some requests from restaurants for a local, humanely raised veal product. I did my research and learned about the traditional veal industry. Those animals were confined to small cages and fed a powdered milk product as “growing formula.” They had no access to fresh air or grass.

I knew that a Fresh Fork veal product would have to be completely different, so I met with one of my grass grazed dairy farmers in Sugarcreek. Eli Schlabaugh belongs to a small co-op of grass grazed, organic dairy farmers known as Holmes County Heritage Grass Farms. They have their own brand of 100% grass grazed swiss cheese. I asked Eli what he did with the bull calves (just to state the obvious, bull calves are male and can’t be milked for anything usable in cheese production). He said he sold them off at auction to traditional veal producers. I then asked Eli to keep a few and raise them for me.

He did. Our experiment, in my opinion, was a success. Eli bottle feeds the calves each day with their mother’s fresh milk. The goal is to give the calve enough milk that he doesn’t desire much else. The milk-only diet is what makes veal so pink and mild flavored. These calves also eat some grass for they are free-range on organic pastures at his farm. This makes the meat a little darker than traditional veal due to a higher iron content.

My thoughts this week are to provide you with the ingredients for an incredible meatloaf or stuffed cabbage rolls. Each package will include 1 lb of ground veal and 1 lb of ground pork from pasture raised berkshire hogs.

Besides the meats, this week we also have beautiful cauliflower, cabbage, collard greens, eggplant, peppers, and the last cherry tomatoes of the season.

Here’s this week’s bag contents:

Small CSA Contents:

– 1 lb ground veal
– 1 lb ground pork
– 1 head cabbage
– 1 head cauliflower
– 2 bell peppers
– 1 pint grape tomatoes
– 1 bunch collard greens
– 2 ct eggplant

Vegetarian Substitutes

– Sweet potato & rosemary linguini
– Watermelon
– Turnips

Large Add-Ons

– Traditional Small Bag plus the contents below
– 1 bag mixed greens
– 1 watermelon
– 1 bunch beets with tops
– Approx 2 lbs turnips
– 1 lb sweet potato rosemary linguini