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Is Dispatching a Chicken Traumatic?

05.31.2023 by Raelene Bradley // Leave a Comment

Rachele emailed Belvedere Farmstead asking, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how traumatic is it to slaughter a chicken? I am torn! It is a skill that I think is really important, and I’m so close to clicking to take your class, but I just don’t know if I have the kahunas to get it done!”

Belvedere Farmstead would like to help take the chicken processing intimidation away!

I, Raelene, am SO glad this question was asked! This is such a good question and EXACTLY why you need to take my chicken processing class (chuckle). I believe in honoring the life of each and every animal that gives its own to feed my family. My job as a farmer is to ensure that every animal lives its best life and has a quiet, honorable death.

There is very little drama in dispatching a chicken. I do not sever the spinal cord (chop their heads off), so I can pretty confidently say that it’s nothing like what you’ve imagined. It’s actually quite quiet and calm. The actual dispatch is the hardest part of the process and it does take a little courage. But it’s my job to teach you the best, most efficient way to get it done and to encourage you to summon the kahunas (grin) to do so. You can do it.

I wouldn’t say that it’s traumatic, but it can be unsettling, especially if this is your first time dispatching an animal (or seeing it done). On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high trauma, I’d say your first time is a 2-3. And after practice, 0-1. But I would hope that the process will always be a little moving because it’s an essential skill and experience that will help you appreciate so much more the food you put on the table to feed your family.

If it comes right down to it, even after seeing it done, you don’t think you can actually do it, you can skip that part. I will not force you or shame you. It’s a formative experience. But knowing how to scald, pluck, eviscerate, and prepare the bird for the freezer (all skills you’ll learn in class) is just as important.

Attending a chicken processing class to learn this life-essential skill, will gain you a wealth of knowledge and the confidence to process your own raised chicken someday! Most classes, including mine, will send you home with a fresh chicken to feed your family! 

Come join me this summer for one of my processing workshop to experience just how simple the processing is! You got this! 

Categories // Blog Post

Tacos de Lengua – Beef Tongue Tacos

05.05.2022 by Jordan // Leave a Comment

sous vide tacos de lengua beef tongue tacos

We love whole animal butchery. It is delicious (most of the time, I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of straight liver, but I enjoy pâtés), it is economical, and it respects the whole animal. One of the biggest hurdles I’ve found to enjoying whole animal butchery is knowing what to do with all the different cuts, especially uncommon cuts like beef tongue.

I’m always fascinated when I watch our cows eat – they don’t have upper teeth, like a horse that can bite the grass down to the ground, so they extend their tongue, wrap it around the grass they want to eat, and then tear it back with their neck and pull in that bunch of up cycled sunshine and chew, and chew, and ruminate, and then chew some more. The tongue is long, covered in a thick, course membrane for grabbing and holding on to that grass without getting a raw, grass-cut tongue, and I’m pretty sure it is the second most used muscle after the heart (can’t find data on that though, so feel free to hit me with the fact checks). It is unlike any other part of the cow and doesn’t offer an intuitive solution to cooking it.

This is one of the many reasons that here at the farm: we love learning how different cultures use ingredients, especially ones that we don’t regularly encounter like beef tongue.

I flew to Las Vegas this weekend to celebrate my late sister’s birthday with my brother Ian. Moira would have been 32 this week – she died 3 years ago from a brain tumor. We all enjoyed cooking and trying new things, and Ian wanted to try cooking beef tongue, and using his new sous-vide for the first time. I did not pack beef tongue in my carry on – I’m pretty sure that would be an epic TSA story – so we visited one of the local Mexican meat markets and picked up some habñero pickled red onions and even spicier guacamole. Ha, I’ve been in Ohio away from proper spice levels for too long.

Because the tongue is such a strong, well used muscle, it needs a lot of cooking time to soften up. We rubbed a little oil on the tongue, added salt and pepper, and an onion, tomato, and cilantro to our vacuum seal bag, and set the sous-vide to 170 degrees. If you don’t have a sous-vide, you can use the more traditional manner of a long braise at low heat on the stove, but it was really nice to set the sous-vide and leave it for a day knowing it would be consistent throughout.

After 26 hours, we pulled the tongue, drained the juices from the bag, set the tongue in an ice bath to shock it and make removing the membrane easier. Once the membrane was removed, we diced the tongue into roughly half inch chunks. When you do this you’ll see how different the muscle structure of the tongue is than a steak or roast cut you’re more used to seeing. We kept the seasoning pretty simple and blended 4 chipotles in adobo sauce, an extra spoonful of the adobo sauce, a splash of lime juice, and a pinch of salt with half of the juices from the sous-vide bag. We put the rest of the juices in a cast iron skillet and sautéed some onion and added the beef tongue chunks and cooked them until they crisped up a little. You can add some of the chipotle sauce to the pan while doing this final cooking, or you can just drizzle it on the tacos.

Add your favorite toppings to your heated tortillas – we had the chipotle sauce, green onions, cilantro, guacamole, habañero pickled red onions, and cotijo cheese. Glorious! (We used street sized flour tortillas, but if you use corn you’ll probably want to use two tortillas per taco because the meat is wet, plus the sauce, and corn doesn’t hold that as well).

sous vide tacos de lengua beef tongue tacos
Print Recipe

Beef Tongue Tacos – Tacos de Lengua

Flavorful meat to elevate your next taco night
Prep Time45 minutes mins
Cook Time1 day d
15 minutes mins
Total Time1 day d 1 hour hr
Servings: 8

Equipment

  • Sous Vide Set it and forget it option
  • Dutch Oven Traditional method, which will require adding water or broth to submerge tongue, and more care in maintaining temperature.

Ingredients

  • 1 Beef Tongue Tongues vary in weight, but roughly 1.5-3 pounds
  • 2 tbsp Canola or Vegetable Oil Use more or less, depending on size of tongue
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 1 Onion cut into 2-4 chunks
  • 1 Tomato cut into 2-4 chunks
  • Cilantro 6-8 stems
  • 4 Chipotles in Adobo sauce use an extra spoon of the sauce
  • Lime Juice from one lime, or a splash to taste
  • 1/2 Diced Onion
  • All your favorite taco toppings

Instructions

  • Preheat sous-vide to 170. Or, if using dutch oven, preheat water or broth sufficient to cover tongue to roughly 170.
  • Rinse tongue, pat dry, rub with oil, salt, and pepper.
  • Add tongue, onion chunks, tomato chunks, and cilantro to vacuum bag. If using dutch oven method, add all directly to broth.
  • Submerge tongue and cook for 24 hours.
  • Remove tongue and reserve juices from the bag.
  • Set drained bag in an ice bath for 15 minutes.
  • Remove the membrane from the tongue.
  • Dice tongue into 1/2 inch chunks.
  • Add chipotle peppers and lime to half reserved liquid, blend, and add salt to taste.
  • Sauté diced onions in remaining liquid and add tongue. Cook down until the meat begins to crisp up. Feel free to add some of the chipotle sauce to this final cooking, or just add to tacos as you are making them.
  • Toast your tortillas.
  • Add your favorite taco toppings and fiesta!

Categories // Blog Post

All About Cream : Part 1

04.07.2022 by Raelene Bradley // 4 Comments

If you’ve ever wondered “What can I do with raw milk?” well then this series, wherein we explore all the delicious possibilities raw milk provides, will be right up your alley.

We’re starting with cream because, well, cream is my favorite.

Like eat-it-with-a-spoon-favorite.

“I have too much cream” – said no one ever.

And yet, when you get almost a quart of cream to every gallon, and your cow is giving 3-4 gallons a day, that cream adds up fast.

If this is you and you’ve got more cream than you know what to do with, this two-part series all about cream is for you.

What is cream?

Cream is the fat of the milk.

I am constantly amazed at the magic a milk cow conjures as she transform grass – nearly inedible for most species and certainly incapable of sustaining life and reproduction – into one of the most delicious, nutritionally balanced, super foods with oodles of beneficial bacteria, probiotics, enzymes, and glorious, delicious fat.

Rising To The Top

You’ve heard of the idiom “cream rises to the top,” yes? The essential idea is that the best ideas, the most skilled people, are the most noticeable because they “rise to the top” and stand out. There’s a good practical wisdom in that idiom because cream really is the best part of the milk, if you ask me.

When you let raw milk sit for 12-24 hours, the cream (or fat) will rise to the top. For some breeds of milk cow (like Dexter), the fat globules are very small and so it takes longer for the cream to separate and rise (closer to 2-3 days).

Fun (slightly unrelated) fact: the fat globules in goat’s milk are even smaller and so the cream never separates at all. Therefore, goat’s milk is naturally homogenized, meaning the cream/fat is evenly distributed throughout the milk.

Heavy Cream

The cream at the very top of the jar will be what is often known as “heavy cream.” It is thick and dense. You can almost stand a spoon upright in it.

My kids like to call this creme de la creme and that’s exactly where that particular idiom comes from: heavy cream is literally the cream of the cream, the best of the best.

Important: If you want to make whipped cream, you must use heavy cream.

Heavy cream will also produce the highest yields when churned to butter.

Light Cream

The light cream settles below the thick heavy cream at the top, but still above the liquid milk. You’ll notice that it’s not as thick and doesn’t stick to your ladle or spoon as thickly/stubbornly as the heavy cream at the top.

Remember – light cream cannot be whipped. It has too much liquid and won’t properly set up into soft peaks.

But it’s great for ice cream! And it will still make great butter, even if the yield is a little less than when you churn heavy cream.

Skimming Cream At Home

Skimming (or separating) cream refers to the process of removing the cream from the milk. For me (and most homesteaders), this is done manually with a ladle or spoon.

I like to use extra-wide-mouth gallon jars for all my milk because it makes skimming cream easier and more efficient and I am alll about maximizing my cream yield.

I use a stainless steel 1/2 cup kitchen ladle to manually skim each gallon, and scoop one ladle at a time, transferring it to another jar (fitted with a stainless steel wide mouth funnel to minimize the mess).

A Great Tip for Skimming Cream

Run the ladle under warm water just before skimming – the thin layer of water lets the cream slide off the ladle better and prevents a really thick buildup of cream.

Separating Cream Commercially

Commercial dairy processing systems use a mechanical cream separator (really cool, but generally cost-prohibitive for the average homesteader), and use centrifugal force to extract all the cream from the milk.

Because each cow gives a little different percentage of cream, each vat of milk will vary slightly in its cream fat percentage.  A cream separator equalizes every vat of milk by removing all the cream no matter how much it had to begin with.

The cream is later added back to the milk in the volume required to meet the mandated percentages for each product (3.25% (whole), 2%, 1%)

The Bottom Line

When you have more milk than you can use, always keep the cream.

Skim the cream and make butter.

Freeze the butter to use during her dry period.

Make self-stable ghee for your pantry.

Make lifelong friends of your neighbors by giving that yellow gold away.

Make gallons of ice cream and host a party.

Make cream cheese and cheese cake.

But always keep the cream.

Skimmed milk can go to the pigs. 1 gallon of skimmed milk or whey is all the protein a pig needs in a day and you can substitute milk pound for pound for their grain ration with no loss in nutrition.


I know. You’re gonna want to know how to make all these things. And more. I gotcha.

In part 2, we’ll talk about all the delicious ways you can use that abundance of cream.

The possibilities are downright delicious.

Stay tuned.

Categories // Blog Post, MilkCow 101 Tags // eat like a farmer, family milk cow, home dairy, homestead, milk cow

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belvederefarms

Hey there friends! Long time, no see eh? . Popping Hey there friends!
Long time, no see eh?
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Popping in to let you know I’ll be posting over at @belvedere.farms from now on.
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Same farm, same milk cow / farming / homesteading / canning & preserving / free-range kids capers & misadventures kinda stuff, but a whole new chapter.
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Sneak peek: if you’ve been around for awhile, you’ll know Maude (our milk cow Sandy’s first calf). She’s a brand new momma herself!
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She and I are learning together how to train a milk cow from scratch. It’s an adventure, to be sure!
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Come on over to @belvedere.farms and follow along.
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- Raelene
Wow. Just wow. . This is how I feel every time I l Wow. Just wow.
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This is how I feel every time I look at the pantry shelves, filling slowly but surely, bit by bit.
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Summer’s bounty + hard work (and plenty of hot sweaty days in the kitchen) means my family will eat like kings all winter long.
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It’s such a blessing to know these skills and get to pass them along.
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Sign up for my newsletter (link in bio) so you know when the next homesteading/self-sufficiency class is happening here at Belvedere Farms and you too can start filling those pantry shelves with goodness.
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Can I hear an AMEN? Just tell me one thing: Team L Can I hear an AMEN?
Just tell me one thing: Team Lake or Team Ocean?
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Me? Lake. All the way. Nothing in the lake wants to kill me. 😱
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I drove down to the vet’s to pick up meds for a sick heifer and since it takes me right through Amish country, I couldn’t resist stopping at a farm just off the road to pick up 10 quarts of small but luscious berries (the small ones are sweetest, I think).
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Harvested rhubarb from the garden and a couple hours later : strawberry rhubarb jam.
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When you’re filling shelves for the winter, every little bit counts.
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Are you making jam this year? What’s your favorite fruit to use for jam? I loooove apricot jam, but have a hard time finding local apricots here in Ohio. If you know of a source - spill the beans!🤣
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It may seem like a small thing, but it always make It may seem like a small thing, but it always makes my heart happy to look out the window and see the cows grazing in the pasture.
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It took a lot of work to get here, and takes a lot of work to stay here, but working hard for something you love isn’t a burden. Instead it builds confidence, self-respect, resilience, and stamina.
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Go, friends. Work your tails off at work worth doing. And stop every now and again to take stock of all you’ve accomplished and all you’ve learned. It’ll blow your socks off and give you the gumption to do the next hard and worthwhile thing.
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Every farm needs a barn cat. We’ve noticed a hug Every farm needs a barn cat. We’ve noticed a huge difference between the years we’ve had barn cuts and the years we haven’t. They’re essential.
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And yet, I’m pretty sure my kids all think we keep barn cats for the kittens.
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There’s a new litter every spring and so far we’ve always been able to give enough away to keep from being overrun. Their momma, Scout, is a phenomenal mouser (and catches birds and squirrels and chipmunks too) and earns her keep many times over.
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So much so that when she decides to give birth, she finds a spot in the basement and we let her come and go as she pleases while the kittens are teeny. That in itself is a testament to her place on the farm.
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Eleven brand spankin’ new piglets born on the fa Eleven brand spankin’ new piglets born on the farm yesterday afternoon/evening.
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It never gets old this farming thing. There’s always something to work on, look forward to, get better at, learn from, grow into, and try again.
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Recent Posts

  • Is Dispatching a Chicken Traumatic?
  • Tacos de Lengua – Beef Tongue Tacos
  • All About Cream : Part 1
  • How to help your milk cow adjust to Daylight Savings Time
  • What is A2A2 Milk?

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