Best meatloaf

We made it with beef and deer and we loved it!

–          2 lb ground beef (or a mix of ground meat)

–          1 onion, finely chopped

–          2 eggs

–          3 garlic cloves, minced

–          3 tbsp ketchup

–          3 tbsp parsley, chopped

–          1 cup panko

–          1/3 cup milk

–          1 ½ tsp salt

–          1 ½ tsp oregano

–          ½ tsp ground pepper

–          ½ tsp paprika

Glaze

–          ¾ cup ketchup

–          1 ½ tsp vinegar

–          2 tbsp brown sugar

–          1 tsp garlic powder

–          ½ tsp onion powder

–          ½ tsp pepper

–          ¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. If using a loaf pan, line with parchment paper. If using a cookie sheet, line with parchment. Add all ingredients together (except for glaze), mix well and either place in loaf pan or form a loaf shape on cookie sheet. Bake for 50 minutes. In a medium bowl, mix the glaze together. Spread over the meatloaf and return to oven for another 20 minutes (or until internal temp reaches 160F). Let meatloaf rest for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Irish lamb stew

An ideal recipe for a cold winter day!

  • 4 strips bacon
  • 2 lbs lamb- stewing cubes or shoulder, cut into 1 inch pieces
  • salt
  • pepper
  • ¼ cup flour
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 ½ cup red wine
  • 1 lb mushrooms, sliced
  • 4 cups beef broth
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 bay leaves
  • ½ tsp thyme
  • 1 ½ yellow potatoes, quartered
  • 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into ½ in pieces
  • ¼ cup parsley to garnish

Season lamb with ½ tbsp salt and 1 tsp pepper. Sprinkle with flour and toss to coat.

In a Dutch oven, sauté chopped bacon until browned. Remove bacon with slotted spoon. Brown lamb on all sides in a few batches in the bacon grease then transfer to plate with bacon.

Add onion and sauté for 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine, deglazing while stirring. Add mushrooms, bring to simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 325F.

Return lamb and bacon to pot and add broth, tomato paste, 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, ½ tsp thyme and bay leaves. Add potatoes and carrots, bring to a boil and cover. Place in oven and leave for 1h45 minutes. Sprinkle chopped parsley over dish and serve.

A grass-fed beef primer

With input prices skyrocketing, low prices for weaned calves at the auction barn and an increased consumer interest in local food due to supply worries and high grocery prices, many cow- calf producers now try to market their beef directly to the consumer.

Consumers are often disappointed in the quality of their purchase. A better understanding of cattle production can help to select good breeders and avoid disappointment.

Beef production consists of three steps: cow-calf production (until weaning at 600-700lbs), the semi-finishing phase (until 800-900 lbs, or 500 lbs carcass) and the finishing phase (until 1400 lbs, or 800 lbs carcass).

Cow-calf production

Until weaning time, pretty much all calves qualify as grass-fed. Semi-finishing beeves on grass for the season, is as old a day and used to be known as stocker calf production. Under perfect conditions, a beef can gain about 300 lbs during the short season in Quebec.

Despite revolutionary claims, there is nothing new under the sun. For example, rotational grazing has been researched and widely practised since the fifties and continues to be used extensively on conventional cattle farms today.

While stocker calf production has been largely abandoned for lack of profitability, the grass-fed premium has led to a revival, and stockers calves are now increasingly sold directly to the consumers as grass-fed beef, baby beef or even grass-fed-and-finished beef in the fall. Many such producers do not even own cows but buy calves at the stockyard.

Green oats for semi-finishers in the summer

Beeves with a carcass that weighs about 500-650 are certainly not ‘finished’, even if they ate grass all their lives. Unfortunately, the finishing phase is important, and omitting the finishing phase leads to bland tasting, overly lean beef, poor profitability (or very high prices) and really has no positive environmental impacts.

The problem is that finishing beeves on grass (up to 1400 lbs) is terribly difficult and requires more than one season. Finishing beeves need lots of energy to sustain their metabolic functions (called Net energy for maintenance). At the same time, rumen space and digestibility put a limit on how much an animal can eat. Grass, and especially hay, are not very energy dense and pass the rumen rather slowly. On a cold winter day, a stomach full of the best hay will barely contain enough energy for maintenance. There will be almost no energy left for growth. Only on lush spring grass will growth resume.

There is no pasture in winter.

So while the beeves are parked out there in winter hardly gaining any weight, they are consuming tonnes of maintenance energy, they are belching and shitting and farting, and thus releasing copious quantities of potentially harmful waste products in the atmosphere for nothing. We are talking about forests and forests of CO2 equivalents. And like old cows, slow growing beeves develop yellow fat which is a quality problem.

We did not want to grow lower quality (unfinished) beef, park beeves for winter or grow beeves on a conventional diet consisting of energy-dense corn or barley, and ionophores (a class of antibiotics), growth hormones and growth promotors, so we needed to come up with a solution.

For years now, we have been recycling vegetable cuttings from a local vegetable cutting plant. These vegetables help our beeves grow at acceptable rates, even in winter, and at a very low cost to the planet.

Basically, we get the goodness of grass-fed beef, combined with the superior quality and improved economic performance of finished beef (that is why our prices are lower!), and all that at while increasing the sustainability of our operation.

An 800 lbs carcass to the left

Over time, this increased economic performance allowed us to invest in high-end genetics. Cattle that are more performant, convert feed into pounds of meat more efficiently, so there is less waste, and increased growth. Good genetics can help improve quality, and eliminate common health and conformation problems, so animal welfare is increased as well. Improved docility makes cows easier to handle and reduces stress and increases safety for everyone involved.

We count on building our genetics program for years to come and hopefully we will make a small contribution to future lineages of more performant cattle that will make life better for all producers while reducing waste. Our regenerative farming dream is not about bashing conventional farmers, but about breeding cattle that are more sustainable by nature, for generations to come.

Embryo donor Tar Donna 614

Bull power and girl power!

Bull power

We love selling females for reproduction, but we do not really like to sell bulls. Yet, it is impossible to avoid having some really nice beasts that deserve more than to end up on someone’s plate. Let the superpowers of these bulls surprise you! You will never go back to buying a cheap bull! Bulls will be semen tested before sale. Our growing bulls never eat grain.

2023 yearling bulls (picture of reference sire, bulls are born in May 2022)

Come and see them!

SAV America (ET) x Coleman Donna 2302 RESERVED

Colburn Primo (ET) x Coleman Donna 2302

PVF Blacklist (ET) x Tar Donna 614 RESERVED

Myers Fair’n Square (IA) x Donava Blackbird 1H

Musgrave Crackerjack (ET) x Maya 247 D

It is time for us to let go of three of our proven herd sires: PJ Henry 1H, a enticing tank, DOR Raindrop 1J, an excellent heifer Rainfall son, and DOR Puddles 3J, son of N Bar Emulation.

Reference bulls for 2024 yearlings

DV Growth Fund (IA)

Colburn Primo (ET)

Connealy Emerald (IA)

SAV Raindance (IA)

SAV Territory (IA)

Girl power

We have some nice heifers for sale in 4000-40000$ price range. Come and see us.

Pastured pork

Raising pigs on pasture is not complicated. All you need is some fencing, shade, feed and a steady, fresh water supply, right?
Right. Until you realize that pigs will destroy pastures at a rapid pace, especially after a rain. That is not the time to take pictures or to get some fresh air! You end up with what we call mud lot pigs. Mud lot pigs are smelly and disgusting, harm the environment (you need plants to use up the manure!), are more disease prone, and probably not too happy.
So you implement pasture rotations to move the pigs to clean land after every rain. Now supplying abundant, clean, fresh water is no longer so easy. They just will not drink enough stale, day old water out of an IBC or hot water from a pipe. You just lost lots of growth, and your pigs may seem happy, but they are in fact…rather thirsty. You had your water tested, right?


Maybe your pigs are growing unevenly, because you do not have enough water points or enough feed points so the boss-pig will hog the water or feed source. Maybe your pigs are wasting 20-40% of the feed you give them, because you do not have a feeder. Such waste is economically and environmentally unacceptable.
Then, it gets really hot in the summer and your shade huts prove inadequate, so you decide to take the pigs to the woods. It is hard to set up fencing in the woods. The undergrowth is not as dense as the thatch in an old field, so the pigs destroy your soil in no time, causing pollution. That is why raising pigs in the woods is illegal in Quebec (REA). The pigs seem happy now, but when you were fixing the fence you were devoured by deer flies. They drove you nuts! The pigs do not seem to mind…
Guess what. Spring and fall are muddy every year, and in the winter, even though your pigs still seem happy out in -30 degree weather, they surely will not grow. We tried it: it takes more than 10 pounds of feed to grow one pound of liveweight at -25C. It is madness whether you look at it from an economic, environmental or animal welfare point of view.
Raising pigs outside this way is not so easy and rarely improves animal welfare or limits environmental impact, and unless clients can be persuaded to pay crazy prices, it rarely pays the bills.


So we got rid of our preconceptions and rethought the model completely. Why would we insist that the pigs are always out? Why not start from what pigs need rather than from our own infatuation with raising pigs on pasture? Why not let the pigs choose? Our pigs can go outside whenever they want, but we accept that they sometimes prefer to stay inside.
Once you start to really listen to the pigs, everything will fall into place. If you do it right, pigs raised on pasture can grow at the same pace as their conventional counterparts, will taste better, will be happier, will not cause environmental harm, and will not cost much more to raise, so you can sell them at a reasonable price.


If you really listen to the pigs, raising pigs on pasture is not that difficult.
The real challenges lie in the maternity, where the piglets are born. ‘Seasonal farmers’ just buy conventional piglets, fatten them on pasture (or in a mud lot), tell a pretty story (almost organic!) and cash in the big bucks.
To really change the system, we need to reinvent the maternity too. But that is another story altogether!

Braised beef with star anis

This is an easy recipe from Josée di Stasio that is just so delicious and perfect for a winter feast.

4 lbs beef osso bucco, blade roast or cross-rib roast
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 onions, quartered
6 big carrots in big pieces
4 garlic cloves, crushed
3 cups beef broth
1/3 cup Tamari or soy sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste (ketchup works also, trust me)
1.5 tbsp brown sugar
2 inch piece of ginger, sliced
4 star anis

Preheat oven to 325 F. Salt and pepper your meat pieces. In a Dutch oven, color the meat on all sides on medium to high heat in 2 tbsp of oil. Remove from pot and add remaining oil along with carrots and onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add garlic and continue cooking for about 1 minute. Place meat on veggies, add stock, tamari, tomato paste, sugar, ginger and star anis. Bring to a boil, cover and bake for approximately 3 hours or until meat comes off bones easily. After an hour of baking, turn the meat around and make sure the stock level covers about half of the meat. Enjoy with mashed potatoes!

Roast X-mas chicken with gravy and pork and merguez stuffing.


This recipe is inspired from Gordon Ramsay’s Christmas turkey. We tried it a few times, and we like it better without the apricots. And we like chicken better than turkey! Here are the three parts!

Stuffing

Here is the video for visuals:
1 lb ground pork
salt and pepper
1 large apple, grated
(in the original recipe there were apricots)
about a handful of pistachio nuts, shelled and roughly chopped
zest of 1 lemon
a handfull of chopped parsley
olive oil
a lot of fresh sage leaves
2 merguez sausages

Mix ground pork, grated apple, pistachios, zest and parsley together. Add salt and pepper, On a large sheet of aluminum, drizzle olive oil and arrange the sage leaves right side down so they stick to the oil and overlap in two rows so they form a rectangle of sorts the length of 1.5 to two merguez sausages placed end to end. Season. Spread half of the pork mixture onto the leaves, run your finger down the middle to make a groove for the sausages. Place sausages in groove and cover with remaining pork. Wrap foil around the stuffing, twisting ends to seal. Roll package to get a tight and even log shape. IF making ahead, refrigerate at this stage. Place in a baking dish and bake in a preheated oven at 400 F for about 40 minutes. Leave to rest for 10 minutes before slicing to serve.

Chicken

Here is the video in case you need visual cues.
1 chicken (or Turkey, but we prefer chicken)
salt and pepper
2 onions, peeled and halved
2 lemons
3 garlic cloves crushed
small bunch of parsley chopped
375 gr unsalted butter at room temp.
1 tbsp olive oil
3 bay leaves
bacon slices

Preheat oven to 430 F. Prepare herb butter by mixing butter with salt and pepper,  parsley, zest of 2 lemons, juice of 1 lemon, crushed garlic, olive oil and parsley. Set aside.
Season chicken cavity, stuff with onions, 1 lemon cut in two and bay leaves. Loosen skin on the breast with your hands, being gentle so as not to tear. Do the same with the thighs. Stuff half the butter mixture between the skin and meat and gently massage the butter into hard to reach areas. Place bird in roasting tray (not glass!) breast side up. Spread rest of butter onto bird, season with salt and pepper then drizzle a bit of olive oil. If preparing ahead, cover with foil and refrigerate.

Roast turkey in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Take bird out of oven, and place bacon strips over breast. Lower heat to 360 F and cook until done (use thermometer! it avoids errors), they say 30 minutes per kg, but it always takes more time here! When done, remove from oven, let chicken rest under foil. Remove parson’s nose (the butt) and wings for the gravy. Remove lemon and onion from cavity for gravy and bacon from breast!

Gravy

This has got to be the best tasting gravy I have ever eaten. here is a link to the youtube video in case you need visual cues.

3 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 fresh tomatoes chopped
1 cup apple cider (I never have this in house so I end up using leftover pear wine someone once gifted us)
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup walnuts chopped

Drain the roasting pan juices and reserve. Heat up roasting pan on the stove and add all the stuff you took from the roasted chicken- chopped up bacon, chopped up lemon and onion. Add 2 sprigs of rosemary and tomatoes. Sauté for 2 minutes. Add wings and parson’s nose to pan and stir. Pour in cider and bring to a boil, scraping the browned bits on bottom of pan. Reduce by half then add reserved juices. Reduce once more by half. Crush everything with a potato masher to bring out their juices. Pour in chicken broth, bring to a boil and add remaining rosemary. In your gravy boat, place walnuts. Strain gravy into boat and serve.

Bon appetit!

Pear tartare and marinated pear brochettes

Some lesser known cuts of meat deserve more attention…

The pear, a very lean muscle from the beef thigh that gets its name from its pear shape, is great for cutting into brochette cubes and marinating, slicing into thin steaks and cooking in butter in a cast iron pan, or… to make tartare.

In fact, the pear is the ideal cut for tartar: lean, not much to trim off, and very flavorful!

A pear weighs about 3lbs, so you can take what you need for your tartare, cube the rest and marinate (no more than 4 hours if using vinegars or alcohol). Here is a great marinade for pear brochettes:

  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 2.5 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • Freshly ground pepper

This way, you get two meals out of one cut!

There are many different variations of tartare, but here’s two of our favorites… Both start the same way- Dice the pear by hand with a sharp knife to get the texture you desire.

The first variation is asian fusion tartare: for 1.5 lbs of pear, you will need

  • 1 french shallot
  • half a bunch of cilantro
  • 1 lime
  • 1 teaspoon grated ginger
  • 3 teaspoons light soy sauce or tamari
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon sambal oelek

1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds. Chop the shallot and cilantro finely, zest half the lime and squeeze to get a tablespoonful of juice. Mix lime, soy sauce, maple syrup, sesame oil and sambal oelek together. Add meat, shallot, cilantro and lime zest. Plate and sprinkle sesame seeds. Enjoy with a spicy mango salad!

The second variation is more of a classic Belgian tartare. For 1.5 lbs of pear, use

  • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 tablespoon capers, chopped
  • 1-2 french shallots, finely diced
  • 1 tablespoon gherkins (Maille)
  • 2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
  • Worcestershire sauce to taste
  • 1 farm fresh egg yolk
  • 3-4 tablespoons homemade mayonnaise.

Mix all together, season with lots of salt and freshly ground pepper and enjoy with slices of baguette you drizzled with olive oil and toasted in the oven.

Organic vegetables

We always dreamed about producing vegetables.

Over the last three years, we have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in setting up a vegetable production site including 5 greenhouses. The MAPAQ has generously supported us with hundreds of thousands more, through various subsidies.

It turns out that managing the production of organic vegetables is not very difficult, but many hands are needed for seeding, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, washing, packing and so on. Seasonal labor certainly poses some challenges, even though the federal government has several programs.

The biggest problem is that vegetables are perishable, low cost items, so we need to sell them in bundles (baskets) to make the logistics work. Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach our target of 400-600 vegetable basket subscriptions by a long shot. It just seems that consumers are not really interested in organic vegetable subscriptions and competition for clients is rather fierce. We found that resellers are notoriously unreliable. We really hate to throw out perfectly good veggies!

Right now, the vegetables represent less than 7% of our total business and take up 70% of our time. We love growing veggies, but selling them is a drag. We are currently not planning to grow veggies during the 2022 season. But things may change quickly!

Real Honey

We sell liquid honey that is not pasteurized, ultra-filtrated or blended, so it will crystallize (or granulate) over time. This is a normal process. You can heat up the honey gently “au bain mari” to liquify it again.

We also offer creamed honey. We prime the honey with very fine crystals so that the consistency is more like butter (depending on the temperature). This is the honey that we prefer.

Raw honey is very popular in Europe. Nothing is done to prevent crystallization, so it is honey in its purest form. The granules are course, like sugar.

Spring honey in the making

Most honey on the market is pasteurized, blended and ultra-filtrated, because people generally like liquid honey that stays liquid. For the cheapest imported honeys there are some concerns that corn syrup or another sweetener could be part of the mix.

No pasteurization. We try to heat the honey as little as possible, because heated honey produces HMF (Hydroxymethylfurfural) and HMF gives honey a bad taste over time. There is no need for pasteurization because honey contains so little water that bacteria or yeast cannot grow on it. That is why bees use it as their winter store.

No ultra-filtration. Ultra-filtration removes much of the pollen and the taste. Local pollen could help alleviating allergies.

Creepy crawly creatures?

No blending. Flowers bloom during different times of the year, so each honey flow has a unique bouquet. We usually have linden (or basswood) honey which is tangy, spring honey (mostly dandelion) and darker fall honey (clover, goldenrod and asters) available. We have a hard time making pure clover honey were we live.

Mead. We are making mead (honey wine) according to an age-old secret Belgian recipe (merci Charles!), but we are unfortunately not allowed to sell it in Québec. So, you need an invite to taste.

One of our production sites