6 yummy recipes so you can love cooking your pork bundle

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November 29, 2019

When your freezer is filled with a variety of pork from our When Pigs Fly Pork Sale, there’s so many dishes you can make. Here are some recipes to inspire your cooking:

Red Wine Braised Short Ribs
Short ribs are a cut taken from the blade end of the loin close to the pork shoulder. The meat is typically thick on both sides of the bone. They tend to have a good amount of fat and connective tissue, which makes braising a great choice for cooking.

Apple Raisin Pork Chops
This recipe is unbelievably tasty and only takes 10 minutes to prepare! A tried and true family pleaser. A comfort food at its best.

Crispy Pork Belly
Since pork belly is mostly fat, technique is important with cooking it. You want to end up with a crispy outside and a juicy, tender, melt-on-your-tongue inside. Pork belly is surprisingly easy to make. Here’s a simple recipe that will give you excellent results.

Pig Feet Recipe
Pig feet? You can eat those? Yes, you can! In honor of nose to tail eating, here’s a pig feet recipe. Although pig feet aren’t the most popular in the modern home kitchen, they should be. They are tasty and juicy and once you try them, they’re irresistible!

Brown Sugar Glazed Baked Ham
When I think of Christmas, I think of glazed ham. It’s a longstanding tradition. The brown sugar glaze is made with pineapple juice and makes a tasty sauce. This recipe can be used with a ½ ham or altered for smaller ham slices.

Italian Minestrone Soup with Amish sausage
Minestrone is a hearty Italian soup made with beans, vegetables, and a tomato-y broth and is served with pasta or rice. It’s versatile, as you can use any seasonal veggies you have in your home. A great addition to a good Minestrone is sausage, adding a deep flavor and some healthy animal fat.

View our When Pigs Fly Recipe Collection here.

We do hope you’ll take the leap and stock up on pastured pork for the colder months. You can make yummy recipes like this all winter long. Shop our When Pigs Fly Pork Sale.

Cooking

Pastured Meat

Ugh greenwashed labels. What does it take to get ___ on a label anyway?

Not a fan of the confusing, greenwashed labels in store? Yea, me too! And it's especially real for me, because I'm responsible for getting our labels approved with the "powers that be". Here's a little story with a big inside scoop... I made new labels for our bone broth a little while ago. It didn't go as smoothly as planned. Why? I put the little icons about our farming practices on them. They look like this: Yup, despite being 100% accurate and true, they were denied!! We're not allowed to put those statements on our food labels. So, I asked the USDA guy, "What would it take to get those claims on the labels, anyway?" The answer was kinda shocking. First off, there's some guidance on wording. Silly technicalities in my opinion. For example, you can't use the term "No Spray" but you can say "Produced without the use of synthetic pesticides." Or another example is that you can't say "No Routine Antibiotics or Vaccines" but you can say "Raised without routine use of antibiotics or vaccines." Second, the processor needs to update their documents to provide traceability. In other words, they need to document how they make sure the bones for our bone broth don't get mixed up with bones from other farms. I mean, this is pretty simple, especially with small batch foods like ours. But the documentation needs to be meticulous. Drafting it in government-approved language can be time consuming and/or costly. And lastly, once you get the wording and process right, you need proof. This was the real shocker for me: Want to know what proof would suffice for all the claims above? A 2-3 sentence affidavit (AKA a super short letter) signed by all farmers that supply us. That's it!? This lead me to a bunch of questions: What if a company submits a letter from one farmer but actually has other farmers that supply them, too? What if a company changes farmers? Will they submit new letters?What if a company's farmers change their practices in the future? Will they immediately update their labels?Are the "powers that be" checking on this? Is anyone checking on this?Is this why most farms and food facilities don't allow outside people coming in? It seems to me that, if a business isn't doing what the label says, the only way to find out is via a whistleblower. And the only way to make them stop is to take them to court. You know, like what's happening with Vital Farms and their pasture raised egg claim right now. It seems to me that, all that good natural stuff on labels - grass fed, pasture raised, antibiotic free, etc - doesn't mean it's true. Certifications are a little better, but the same kinda thing can be said about those, too. This is why, at Miller's, we choose to NOT sell in stores. No wholesale for us. In fact, we don't even have an on farm store. We only sell directly to our customers via our website. And, we choose to only get certified for what's required. This way, we can make our own natural standards. And, we can provide you will all the info and proof you need. Descriptions, photos, blog posts, test results, and more. So, what do you think? Should we do the affidavit thing to get claims on our bone broth labels? What proof do you need to feel confident in your food choices? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required - just start typing) or contact us 😊

Should I choose animal rennet or vegetable rennet in my natural cheese?

Let’s take a look at what rennet is and why it’s used in cheesemaking, compare the different types of animal and vegetable rennets, check out the labeling requirements for rennet, and consider the potential health consequences. Keeping all this in mind, Miller’s Bio Farm aims to produce the most nutrient-dense, natural, A2/A2 cheese we can and gives you all the info you need to make the choice that’s best for your body!

Is yolk color is no longer a great indicator of the egg's nutrition?

It used to be true that, if your egg yolks were darker in color, then the better the egg's nutrition. Conscious consumers of the past would look for that deep orange yolk and stray away from lighter yellow yolks. It's sad, but this simply isn't the case anymore. Here's why you can't trust cheap store-bought eggs with orange yolks and need to know your farmer instead.

6 yummy recipes so you can love cooking your pork bundle

View our When Pigs Fly Recipe Collection here.

More from the blog

Ugh greenwashed labels. What does it take to get ___ on a label anyway?

Should I choose animal rennet or vegetable rennet in my natural cheese?

Is yolk color is no longer a great indicator of the egg's nutrition?

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