So what do you get with a quarter or half of beef?

I've posted before about things to know before buying a half or quarter. But often the next questions is how much beef do you get in that order? It has taken me ages, but I finally took the time to photograph and document a quarter of beef (this is also called a split side of beef). I rarely open my customer's boxes, but since this customer runs this blog, I figured it would be ok. :) So, this is what the quarter of beef for Sarah looks like. She and Michael customized their order based on their cooking style, the fact that summer BBQ season is almost here and the fact that there will be an infant keeping them busy very soon.

This is how their quarter broke down by weight of the individual cuts:

Filet Mignon - 2.64 lbs

Top Sirloin - 7.56 lbs

Rib Eye Steak, boneless - 6.1 lbs

New York Strip Steak - 6.09 lbs

Flat Iron Steaks - 2.56 lbs

Tri Tip - 2.55 lbs

Sirloin Tip Steaks - 3.24 lbs

Cross Rib Steak - 3.48 lbs

Carne Asada - 5.49 lbs

Chuck Roast - 7.88 lbs

Rump Roast - 3.1 lbs

Fajita Strips - 3 lbs

Ground Beef - 65 lbs of ground beef.

*Note that most people won't usually get that much ground beef but with a baby arriving soon, we kept it simple for them. They could have kept briskets as roasts, shanks as roasts and another roast from the round to have more roasts and less ground beef.

 

So they ended up with just over 53 lbs of cuts and 65 lbs of ground beef for 118 total pounds. That is actually pretty heavy for a split half or quarter of beef. 90-100 lbs is more common, this just happened to be a big steer.

This is what their ground beef looks like, all in one pound packages.

Next is the line up of "higher end" steaks - filets in the front, rib eyes next, New Yorks behind and lastly the top sirloin steaks. The steaks are all packaged two to a package and all are 1 1/4 inches thick, standard for us.

Below are the tri tip, sirloin tip, cross rib steak and flat iron steaks. These are all great on the BBQ. A cross rib steak and sirloin tip steak both do well with a marinade, quick BBQ and served no more than medium. Note that there is no flank or skirt steak. Since there is only one tri tip, one skirt steak and one flank steak per side of beef, we divide these as equally as possible between the two quarters - one get the tri tip and the other the flank and skirt steak.

Finally we have the roasts. In the back - or top of the photo are the rump roasts and chuck roasts. The Chuck roast is the fattest of the roasts but very, very flavorful and super easy to 'set and forget' in the crockpot. Below those are the carne asada and at the bottom are the fajita strips.

We Moved!

We moved and every corner now looks like this:

Ok, fine … the corners AND the middle pretty much every room look like that!

We have tons of unpacking to do and it is going pretty slow since I am about the size of an SUV but that’s ok with me. 

Water Conservation #3 - indoor water fixtures

 

This is my third installment in the series on saving water. Here we focus on a quick and pretty painless conversion from traditional shower heads and faucets to a water saving package that I picked up at the box home improvement store.

 

While searching for individual water saving items - which was actually difficult since there are tons to choose from and I had a toddler with me - I managed to find this wonderful package of items. It was about $12 with tax for the whole package. I saw it, grabbed it and headed for the checkout. The package included a shower head, kitchen faucet aerator and two bathroom faucet aerators.

My wonderful husband installed them. The shower was easy, the kitchen sink was easy, but the bathrooms were for a different thread. I haven't made it to the hardware store to get the correct thread, so those haven't been used yet. But literally the other items just screwed right on. I don't even think we needed tools.

 

According to the back of the package, we should be looking at some pretty good power savings. But we are just looking at and measuring the water savings. 

 

So far, no complaints about the change. We won't track the power savings, but hopefully that is a bonus on top of the water savings. With a whopping $12 invested, we don't need much savings to pay for it.

Water Conservation #2 - landscaping

 



According to the Environmental Protection Agency about 30% of all residential water use is outdoor. That is a lot of water for plants and lawn and a big part of your water bill.

Before the drought became the bigger concern, the test house was already considering replacing their lawn with ground cover. The main issue then was moving toward a lower maintenance option. Typically the test house has been spending $50-80 per month to get the lawn mowed. It is not a big lawn to begin with and as it is next to the street and not fenced. It isn't used as a play area or as any sort of outdoor living space. It is just there for looks really and currently serving very little function.

The lawn before.

They want the area to have some curb appeal, but use less water and require just seasonal maintinence. There is an existing in ground sprinkler system, but it has to be turned on and off manually. The owners also didn't want to spend much time or money on the project at this point.

So we researched ground cover options and decided that an aggressive ground cover which would spread quickly would be ideal. The current lawn is paved on all four sides so an invasive plant isn't much of a concern.

We could have also considered switching to a desert style landscape or a hardscape (rock or cement or some combination of that). Both of those options will require more work up front and be more expensive so we will fall back to those options later if ground cover isn't a good fit at this location.
 

We decided on paper to try vinca minor. It is aggressive, fast growing, very hardy and drought tolerant. It is very low maintenance too. When we mentioned this idea to a friend, they liked the idea and had done something similar on their lawn with vinca minor. They offered to let us dig up some of theirs to start on the test house lawn.

Transplanting

So the plan that we have started on the test house is this:

We planted the vinca minor starts from our friend right into the existing lawn. The lawn was pretty patchy anyway so we hope that we will get the vinca minor to take over and simply out compete the grass. This worked pretty well for our friend on their lawn. We will water the plants minimally the next few weeks, and water them by hand to not encourage growth on the rest of the lawn. We are going to see how they grow and spread and add more starts in the next few weeks.

Looking forward to keeping you posted about this project and see what sort of water savings we get. We hope the combo of water and mowing savings will make this a very worthwhile change!

Vlog on California Drought

I'm going to try this out as a "vlog" since I tend to speak better than I write. Here is how the drought is impacting our farm.

Homemade Yogurt Parfait

I love yogurt and could eat it every day.  I prefer Greek yogurt for its thicker heartier taste but flavored Greek yogurt is expensive when you buy the individual containers.  So, I decided to make some parfaits to keep in the freezer for a quick snack.  

All you need is yogurt (I chose Greek nonfat plain yogurt), berries (I chose frozen since they were not in season yet), chopped almonds, and honey.  Oh, and some containers. 

The containers are 1.2 cup and seem to be a good size.  It is a hearty snack at that size and some days I am not hungry enough to finish it so I am looking for a little smaller containers. 

Here is how to make them:

Scoop in some yogurt.

Top with berries. 

Repeat.

Top with almonds.

Then honey. 

Smoosh the lid on.

And place in the freezer.  This will make 4 containers this size (but of course I only have 2).

I like to take these to work as an afternoon snack - just pull it out of the freezer in the morning and it will be ready to eat in the afternoon.  If you want this for a morning snack, then pull it from the freezer the night before and it will be thawed and ready to enjoy by late morning. 

I love these because I could make a bunch (if I had more containers) and not have to worry about having healthy snacks for work or the weekend.  They would be in the freezer ready to go!

I was worried about the almonds getting soggy but they provided the perfect crunch even after being frozen and thawed!

YUM!  What is your favorite healthy snack?