Tag: Beef

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

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In the last newsletter I wrote, “If you know of something to wrap the burritos in other than foil to heat them to go, I’d love to hear from you. I like to use as little foil as possible because of aluminum’s implication in Alzheimer’s.” I received several replies suggesting I use parchment paper. Thank you! I thought maybe the rest of you would like to know, too.

Speaking of those wonderful eggs, I decided to put my basic quiche recipe in this newsletter. I would say it is probably our family’s favorite way to eat eggs. It is a never-fail recipe with its silky texture and savory flavor. This is also a great way to use leftovers. It is a great main dish for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Quiche

1/2 pound sausage, bacon, hamburger or meat of your choice, fried
1 cup shredded cheese (or more)
Your choice of veggies: sauteed onions, mushrooms, tomato slices, steamed broccoli, olives, wilted spinach or kale, eggplant, zucchini slices, sauteed garlic, etc.
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups light cream
1 Tbsp. mustard
3/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
Unbaked 9-inch pie crust

In the bottom of the pie crust, layer the meat, then the veggies of your choice and top with the shredded cheese. In a mixing bowl mix together the eggs, mustard, salt and pepper. Add the cream and mix. (A stick blender works beautifully.) Pour into the pie crust over all. Bake 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Then reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake 30-35 minutes more until knife comes out clean when inserted in center. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting. Serves 6. Enjoy!

Maybe you have a favorite egg recipe you’d like to share. I’d love to hear from you!

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

Brunch Casserole

3 cups bread cubes
3 cups cheddar cheese
3 cups meat of your choice
6 eggs, beaten
3 cups milk
1 Tbsp mustard
2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. salt

Layer bread cubes, meat and cheese in a 9 X 13 pan in that order. Mix the rest of the ingredients and pour over the top of the bread, cheese and meat. Refrigerate overnight. (Or bake immediately.) Bake at 300 degrees for one hour.

Cheesy Eggs on Toast

4 eggs
1 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup cheese
2 Tbsp. mayonaise
1 Tbsp. onion, minced
4 pieces toast, buttered

Mix cheese, mayonaise and onion. Melt butter in skillet. Add the eggs. Fry on one side. Flip eggs and top with cheese mixture. Cover skillet with lid. Cook eggs to desired doneness. Serve eggs on buttered toast.

Meat Glue

It is incredible the bad inventions that the food industry comes up with and puts in our food. It is becoming more and more difficult to eat out or to buy food in the store that will give us true health and longevity. It is becoming more important to buy locally and to know where our food is coming from and how it was raised. One of the latest things is a meat glue that is used to glue pieces of meat together so that pieces of meat can be sold as a "whole" piece of meat. One of my questions is, if it glues meat together, what does it do inside our body? We are made of meat.

The statement that Joseph Gonzales makes in the article below "There’s a 50 percent chance you’re eating it every day, and it could be dangerous", makes me wonder what all they are using it in that is not listed in the articles: Roast beef sandwiches? Turkey breast sandwiches? Lunch meat? Those nicely prepared, ready-to-heat meats and meals in the grocery stores? Etc.

The following is a snippet from the April 24, 2011 WTOP news article titled "Meat Glue – You’ve probably had it, and it could be dangerous"
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=267&sid=2357468

"WASHINGTON – There’s a meat industry secret they probably don’t want you to know. It’s called transglutaminase, more commonly known as ‘meat glue.’

"It’s made from a blood-clotting enzyme from beef and pork plasma that helps turn leftover scraps of meat into whole fillets that can be sold at market price.

"Joseph Gonzales, dietitian for the Cancer Project, says there’s a 50 percent chance you’re eating it every day, and it could be dangerous.

"’All the bacteria is still on the outside of the meat and as you gather them together, they start to fold inward. Now you can’t cook off that bad bacteria because it’s stuck inside,’ Gonzales says.

"The FDA categorizes transglutaminase as Generally Recognized as Safe, but the study was funded by Ajinomoto, the same company that produces it and other products like MSG."

Another article that explains more about meat glue and has some excellent pictures is "Industry-Wide Use of Meat Glue Sticks Together Scraps of Meat to Sell You Prime Cuts"
http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/03/29/industry-wide-use-of-meat-glue-sticks-together-scraps-of-meat-to-sell-you-prime-cuts/

The following is a quote from that article:

"Meat Glue: It sounds utterly repellent; like some pre-industrial, rustic adhesive, but it’s actually a fine, tasteless powder that looks like icing sugar and it makes meat and other proteins stick together like super glue. If you are eating meat, chances are you’re eating or have eaten the glue at some point.

"This sort of thing has been a boon to the food industry, which can now treat all sorts of proteins like meat or fish as just another material to be processed, but in the hands of molecular gastronomists it’s become a way to manipulate food in a way that would have been previously impossible. It’s possible, for example, to make tenderloin rolls wrapped in bacon that hold together perfectly without the need for twine or toothpicks."

Food, Inc.

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We recently watched "Food, Inc." Many of you have already seen Food, Inc., and if you haven’t seen it yet we highly recommend it. They take you inside the chicken houses, feed lots, and poultry and beef processing plants and give a behind the scenes view of where food comes from and how it is processed. They give you an inside view of how some of the large multinational companies are bullying farmers into submission to their program. You will see why I said "I’ll NEVER raise chickens" after working on a farm when I was in college where I took care of 75,000 broiler chickens in the big factory farm "jail" chicken house.

We saw Food, Inc. the week before the latest egg salmonella scare occurred with the 500,000,000 egg recall. When I saw the processing plants with the conveyors, shackle lines, pipes, etc. that move raw meat and other food ingredients from one place to another, I was amazed that there has not been a lot more food poisoning. For example: it would be difficult, on a daily basis, to completely clean a big long belt conveyor that carries raw hamburger. There are rollers and other contact points under the conveyor that carry the conveyor belt back to the starting end of the conveyor that would be difficult to completely clean. It is a totally different situation than a small butcher shop where it is relatively easy to clean down the tables and small machines at the end of the day. Because of the difficulty of totally cleaning up the big processing plants, they have to use irradiation, ammonia, and other chemicals with names that we can hardly pronounce to control bacteria from growing in the final food product.

The chicken houses are very similar to the ones I worked in when I was in college. The chickens walk a short distance to the feeder, or a short distance to the waterer and then they plop down. There are so many birds packed together. Every day I walked through the chicken houses and picked up the dead chickens just like the lady does. What you can’t experience in the movie is the strong ammonia smell inside the chicken house from the manure nor do you experience all the manure dust that is continually in the air. My one uncle developed a bad cough from breathing all that dust in his chicken house. He finally had to sell his farm because of his health.

One of the newer changes in most chicken houses today is the windows have been closed up and the chickens never see sunlight. They are dark tunnel houses with controlled lighting so that the chickens can be stimulated to eat more. The chickens never know when it is day or night.

Chickens can be controlled very easily with light. When I worked in the factory farm chicken house, it was fun to play with the dimmer switch. When I turned the lights up the chickens got up and started eating, then when I turned the lights down the chickens sat down. I could make the whole sea of chickens move up and down at will with the lights. The poor chickens never see sunlight!

Another characteristic of confinement raised chickens, and this includes chickens raised in confinement in small chicken tractor pens on pasture is that their legs have difficulty holding them up. They plop down rather than gently sit down. This is mentioned in the movie. When I saw a chicken plop down in Food Inc. I suddenly realized it is not as much a characteristic of our chickens any more, even though we have the same breed of chicken. It is not a breed problem, it is how they are raised. Our chickens get lots of exercise and have strong healthy leg muscles that can support their body. They are not the flabby, weak muscled, couch potato, lazy chickens that people buy in the grocery stores and restaurants. We are what we eat and I wonder how much the way the meat is raised affects the person who eats it to be flabby, weak muscled, lazy, etc.


Our broiler chickens getting plenty of exercise and sunshine and a fresh "salad bar" pasture.


The laying hens eagerly going out to the pasture in the morning.

One point in Food, Inc. that was misunderstood by at least one person is that they said that there are 13 main slaughter houses in the US that process the majority of the beef. That does not mean that there are only 13 slaughter houses in the US. There are still many small butcher shops left. We get our lamb processed at Horst Meats, a small family owned USDA butcher shop that is located on their farm near Hagerstown, Maryland. Our butcher is a relative and we feel confident that we get back the same lambs that we take in. When you purchase pasture finished lamb from us you are supporting not only our farm but also a local small butcher shop that is not part of the factory food industry.

What Food, Inc. does not have time to address is where the other half of the food that the US consumes comes from. Almost half of the food consumed in the US comes from other countries. What are their processing plants like? How do they control food borne bacteria? Are the methods USDA approved? What are the working conditions of the employees like? When we eat at a restaurant, or buy food in the grocery store (organic or conventional), what practices and growing methods are we actually supporting overseas with our food dollars? Is the food really fit to eat? What is the environmental impact in those countries?

When you buy local from us at Jehovah-Jireh Farm, you can meet the farmers, you can see where your food comes from and how it was raised, and you can taste the difference.

Why We Do Not Raise and Sell Pork

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Pork is a main staple in America today and many people enjoy bacon and sausage with their eggs. However, just because "everyone else" is doing it doesn’t mean it is a good thing. With the poor health of the majority of Americans, we need to take a careful look at what "everyone else" is eating and make appropriate changes from what they are doing if we want to be healthy.

I mentioned the poor health of the majority of Americans. I say that because the number one industry in America is the care of sick people—what politicians call "health care". Americans are an unhealthy group of people propped up on prescription medications. The answer is not more doctors and more prescriptions. We believe, and most of you believe as well, that true health care reform needs to start at the food level.

The reform of our food to help others be healthy is the driving force behind why we are farming here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm. We are continually looking for ways to increase the nutritional quality of our eggs and meats.

So why don’t we raise pork? Pork is a negative energy meat that it causes your urine pH to go significantly acid. It takes six days of total abstinence from all pork before the urine pH return to normal. Pork affects one’s body pH for almost a week! Pork is also unique in that it can contaminate what it is cooked in or on, such as cookware or grills. The pork juice can not always be removed by washing the cookware and whatever is cooked in that cookware or on that grill will cause the pH of the urine to go acid! There are a number of people who could not get their pH’s to change until they got new cookware. We find that our urine pH often goes acid (5.5 pH) after we eat somewhere where pork has been cooked in the past, such as a grill, even though we are careful not to eat pork ourselves.

About a year ago Cathy’s mother had a cancerous skin spot removed. It was the same type of skin cancer that took her dad’s life. Her mom decided to go on the RBTI (Reams Biological Theory of Ionization) program.

Carey Reams developed the RBTI program years ago, and was able to help over 10,000 terminally ill patients whom the doctors had given up hope for. Many had cancer. Of the 10,000, he only lost five patients! Part of the RBTI food and mineral based program is to get the urine and saliva pH in the 6.4 range so that the body can heal.

About a month ago, Cathy’s mom went back to the doctor. He could not find any trace of the skin cancer or any of the precancerous spots that she has had for a number of years. She was ecstatic!

Several weeks ago she traveled to Alabama to attend a reunion and stayed in the home of one of Cathy’s cousins. She was served pork several times. When she got home she tested herself, and sure enough, her urine was very acid several days after she had eaten the pork.

Pork is in more things than I ever imagined. Pork is used to make gelatin. Unless the gelatin is kosher or specifically stated as being from a plant or bovine source, it is pork based. Medicine or herbal capsules are made of gelatin. That little capsule if made from pork, is working against your health. Even that small amount of pork in the capsule will cause the urine pH to go acid. Gelatin is in many products. Some are obvious, others are surprising. Jello is made from pork gelatin unless the box states that it is kosher. The Jell-O brand is kosher. Most marshmallows contain pork gelatin. Many candies have pork gelatin in them. Even the strong mints, Altoids, have gelatin in them.

Lard is another pork substance that is found in some potato chips and other foods, and will affect your pH. The Weston A. Price Foundation highly recommends lard and pasture raised pork. Their recommendations are based on copying the diets of primitive people groups, rather than from chemical tests of how the foods respond in the body. The Weston A. Price Foundation has a lot of good information. However, when it comes to pork, test it for yourself and see what happens. Use a small strip of pH paper that you can get at the health food store to test the pH of your urine. Then compare the color of the wet part of the pH paper with the color chart that comes with the pH paper to find the pH.

When a person’s pH goes acid it makes the body more susceptible to sickness, disease, and cancer. It also makes a person more irritable and have a tendency toward anger. We have noticed that in our family on numerous occasions after we have been somewhere that we ate pork or a pork ingredient. As a family we try to help each other out in avoiding pork, but we are not always successful.

Pork is not the only meat that will cause the body pH to go acid. Some of the other meats are tuna, shrimp and other shell fish (seafood), and the other meats that are listed in the Bible as unclean meats. There is a medical reason why they are listed as unclean meats. However, it is not for religious reasons that we avoid eating the "unclean" meats. We do not want to sell you a meat that will undermine your health and the health of those who eat at your table.

Instead of pork, we recommend our delicious pasture raised chicken. Cathy often takes leftover chicken and cuts it up into small pieces and adds it to our scrambled eggs or omelets. If you like bacon, get a type that specifically states that it does not have any pork in it and is nitrate free. For sausage, Cathy uses beef hamburger and seasons it to make into delicious beef sausage patties.

Simple Beef Sausage Recipe
1 pound hamburger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp sage
1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 1/2 tsp Wright’s Liquid Smoke
Mix well and make into small patties.

Recipes for November – Big Breakfast Ideas

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Eggs must be one of the easiest foods to fix. We eat them almost every morning. So, of course, my family likes some variation on how they are cooked.

Eggs With Salsa

Melt some butter in your skillet. Crack your eggs into the skillet as you would to fry them. Spoon salsa over the eggs and let them cook for one to two minutes. Flip the eggs and cook till they are done as you like them. If you desire, top with some shredded cheese.

Flipped Omelet

8 eggs
1 Tbsp mustard
1/4 tsp. salt

Toppings such as cheese, leftover meat, chopped onion and bell pepper, shredded zucchini, mushrooms, avocado slices, etc.

Beat the eggs, mustard and salt together. In a medium-sized skillet on medium heat, melt 2 tsp. butter. Add 1/4 of the eggs. Immediately add desired toppings. When the underside is deliciously browned, flip the omelet. It will immediately puff. Finish cooking to your liking. Repeat with remaining eggs. Makes 4 servings. Keep your eyes on these eggs. They cook quickly.

Panfried Potates

4 large potatoes
2 tbsp. butter
salt to taste

Wash or peel the potatoes. Slice them thinly. Melt the butter in your skillet. Add the raw potatoes. Stir to distribute the butter. Sprinkle with salt. Cover. When the undersides are browned, turn the potatoes. Cover. Continue this until the potatoes are soft. Because these potatoes are covered, they not only fry, but they also steam. This causes them to soften quickly, even though they’re raw. Our family loves these.

Beef Sausage

1 lb. ground beef
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sage
A pinch of thyme, garlic powder and cloves
(Or add whatever spices you want)
1/2 cup water

Mix together. Shape into 8 small patties and fry. Makes 4 servings.

Baked Steak or Lamb Chops

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Do you need a simple, surefire recipe for steak or chops? My family LOVES steak baked in the oven. I rarely add a marinade, but instead just add a little garlic, salt, and thyme so we can taste the wonderful rich flavor of the beef.

To prepare the steak/chops, sprinkle both sides of each piece of meat with salt and a little granulated garlic and thyme. Place in your baking dish. Add 1/2 inch of water. Cover dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Or reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake for 2 hours. The last time I baked steak, I forgot to add the water and after baking the steak extra long, it was browned and not dried out, but tender and delicious. This was because I do NOT trim the fat. Fat from beef that has been grass finished has omega 3 fatty acids and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). CLA has been known to reduce cancerous tumors.