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Last month we started on a farm-to-table grocery program, which is like a CSA but with more ability to pick and choose what we'll get. They do a few meats, but their meats are extremely expensive and while I'm assured they're very high quality, more than I want to pay for meat at any quality. So I decided to look around. I checked out the websites for several meat CSAs and I settled on The Foragers as most closely matching what I'm looking for.
Basically, they do bundle boxes where you can't choose what's in the box, but they do let you know roughly what the proportions will be. So it's kind of a surprise box. It amounts to around 8 bucks a pound for the whole thing, plus a small delivery charge. For their basic CSA you can pick up 1-3 'shares', each of which is approximately 12 pounds. I figure we probably actually go through 30-40 pounds of meat a month in our house at the moment, so I picked a 2x share to start with.
The operation itself is a small ranch up in Red Bluff, and they do their deliveries once a month. The ranch is really small -- the family and one employee -- and they work with a few other nearby outfits to deliver a few other things, such as olive oils and coffees (most of which don't particularly interest me).
They also do other specialty boxes, including duck and a few other things. What's in the box will probably vary seasonally as well.
Everything in this is of the grass-fed, free-range variety.
This is our first delivery
Everything comes deep frozen vacuum sealed. Our first delivery contains:
My guesses on weight might be off, since if I add that up, it's more than the 24 pounds we signed up for, but not by much. So at the very least, we've got the correct amount of stuff. This box cost $196 plus an $8 delivery fee.
The delivery fee for us was waived, because they had a snafu where their system gave us the wrong date, and we went to pick up the box on the wrong date, and then had to wait 3 weeks. Luckily for everyone, I'm fairly patient on stuff once I've made up my mind I want to try it, so I have been proceeding with caution on the service.
I'll report back on how things taste. But I will now open the floor for recommendations. Particularly for the lamb. I'll undoubtedly consult the internet on those, but I've never prepared lamb (well, other than lamb chops) before. Though with a rack, I'm pretty sure the options are relatively few. With the leg steaks, though, I have no idea what to do with that until I've done some research.
I'll probably cut up one chicken and barbeque it, and maybe roast the other. The roasts, well, I'll roast those. Cross rib is an excellent roast. The chuck roast maybe I'll braise. Or maybe somebody will have a good idea of something I haven't though of.
Basically, they do bundle boxes where you can't choose what's in the box, but they do let you know roughly what the proportions will be. So it's kind of a surprise box. It amounts to around 8 bucks a pound for the whole thing, plus a small delivery charge. For their basic CSA you can pick up 1-3 'shares', each of which is approximately 12 pounds. I figure we probably actually go through 30-40 pounds of meat a month in our house at the moment, so I picked a 2x share to start with.
The operation itself is a small ranch up in Red Bluff, and they do their deliveries once a month. The ranch is really small -- the family and one employee -- and they work with a few other nearby outfits to deliver a few other things, such as olive oils and coffees (most of which don't particularly interest me).
They also do other specialty boxes, including duck and a few other things. What's in the box will probably vary seasonally as well.
Everything in this is of the grass-fed, free-range variety.
This is our first delivery
Everything comes deep frozen vacuum sealed. Our first delivery contains:
- 5 pounds of ground beef (85% lean) in 1 pound bundles
- 2 cross rib roasts, each approximately 2.5 pounds
- 2 chuck roasts, each approximatley 2.5 pounds
- 2 whole young chickens (I'm guessing 3-4 pounds?)
- 1 flank steak, about 2 pounds
- 2 small french racks of lamb, about a pound each
- 1 package (1-1.5 pounds?) of lamb leg steaks
My guesses on weight might be off, since if I add that up, it's more than the 24 pounds we signed up for, but not by much. So at the very least, we've got the correct amount of stuff. This box cost $196 plus an $8 delivery fee.
The delivery fee for us was waived, because they had a snafu where their system gave us the wrong date, and we went to pick up the box on the wrong date, and then had to wait 3 weeks. Luckily for everyone, I'm fairly patient on stuff once I've made up my mind I want to try it, so I have been proceeding with caution on the service.
I'll report back on how things taste. But I will now open the floor for recommendations. Particularly for the lamb. I'll undoubtedly consult the internet on those, but I've never prepared lamb (well, other than lamb chops) before. Though with a rack, I'm pretty sure the options are relatively few. With the leg steaks, though, I have no idea what to do with that until I've done some research.
I'll probably cut up one chicken and barbeque it, and maybe roast the other. The roasts, well, I'll roast those. Cross rib is an excellent roast. The chuck roast maybe I'll braise. Or maybe somebody will have a good idea of something I haven't though of.
