Jawad making this recipe with JC Hayward as a food demo on WUSA9
View demo here 

Ingredients
12 oz Lean lamb leg meat
1 teaspoon Extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon Ground ginger
1 teaspoon Cumin
1 tablespoon Finely chopped tarragon
1 tablespoon Finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon Finely chopped red onion
1 teaspoon Harissa
1 tablespoon Bulgur wheat
Lemon juice to taste
Sea salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste

Method
Chop or grind meat very small, keeping it as cold as possible.
In bowl add all ingredients and adjust to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
Cover, place back in fridge for 30-45 minutes before serving to combine interviews.
Serve tartar with side of salad or pita or toasted baguette.
Sprinkle with pomegranate seeds

Whether you’re renown pastry chef (and yes, that includes you if your family and friends can’t get enough of your baking!) or just enjoy some undercover home baking tests. Using leaf lard (unsaturated fat) instead of store bought processed lard, butter or shortening (mostly saturated) is the best way to get superior results – flakier pie crusts, more golden brown batter and fluffier doughnuts, to name a few. It’s also surprisingly easy to render your own from the basic fat you can get from us, your local processor or butcher. Bake away!

Recipe from Michael Ruhlman’s “Charcuterie”

1. Combine the fat and 1/4 cup of water in a saucepan and set it over a very low heat, uncovered, for several hours to render. The fat will liquefy and the water will evaporate, leaving pure fat. Don’t let the fat come to a boil or turn brown, or it will taste harsh.
2. Strain the fat through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Let cool, then store covered in the refrigerator. The golden brown skin remaining in the cheesecloth can be saved to use as a flavoring for braised cabbage or sauteed potatoes.

Purchase Leaf Lard from our ‘pork & sausages’ section when we have it.

How to use leaf lard in pastry recipes (from SeriousSeats.com)

Wether you have some cubed beef or a roast you want to be creative with, this recipe is super easy and super delicious!

Ingredients
1 lb grass-fed beef, cubed
1 small red onion, diced
2 tablespoons Italian parsley
2 tablespoons cilantro
2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Method
Combine everything in a zip lock bag
Shake and leave overnight.
Grill on skewers with other vegetables or alone in a grill basket

Ingredients
¼ cup lime juice
2 tbsp minced ginger
2 tbsp tamari
4 tbsp peanut oil
3 tbsp honey
2 minced garlic cloves
2 star anise
2 pork chops

Method
Mix all the ingredients together (except the pork chops!). Marinate the pork chops for 1-2 hours. Allow the chops to come to room temperature before grilling.  Grill with lid up for 1 ½ minutes on each side. Move the chops to a cooler part of the grill (not over direct heat) and cook with the lid down for about 10 minutes or till the meat is 140-145 degrees.  Remove from heat and let rest under a foil tent for a few minutes.

Ingredients
2 shallots, roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic
Handful of basil leaves
1 tsp Sumac
1 tbsp Olive oil
1 lb Ground lamb

Method
Place roughly chopped shallots, garlic clove, basil leaves, sumac and olive oil in a food processor. Reduce to a course puree. Transfer to a large bowl and combine with 1 lb of ground lamb. Mould into burgers, grill until golden and done to your liking. Great served with humous and/or grilled onions on burger buns or grilled pita.

This is a very simple roast that will easily become a go-to recipe. Serve with your favorite sides.

Ingredients
2-3 lb Grass-fed Beef Roast
2 tbsp Dijon Mustard. 1/2 tsp ground pepper
3 cups Fresh mushrooms
4 Green onions (sliced into 1/2 piecers)
1 Garlic clove
2 tbsp Butter
1/4 Cup flour
1/2 tsp Thyme, crushed
1.5 Cups beef broth
1/4 cup light cream/milk

Method
1. Rub mustard and pepper onto meat.
2. Place meat on rack in a shallow roasting pan.
3. Roast at 275 degrees till 140 for medium rare (1.5-2 hrs) or 155 for medium (1.75 -2.25 hrs).
4. Cover with foil and let stand 15 minutes.

Sauce
1. Cook mushrooms, green onions and garlic in hot margarine until onions are tender.
2. Stir in flour and thyme.
3. Gradually stir in beef broth. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.
4. Stir in cream, cook and stir until heated through.
5. Thinly slice meat across the grain. Serve with sauce atop meat.

If I had known that making mozzarella at home was this easy, I could have saved what probably amounts to hundreds of dollars over the years, and impressed a whole lot of friends!

Of course it’s going to be even easier for you, because I’ve worked out the kinks and you won’t have to spend a whole afternoon searching for citric acid, which was completely fruitless!

Rennet, the other ingredient you may never have used can be found both at Whole Foods (although they only had tablets) and MOM’s organic market. MOMs had the vegetarian liquid version that I ended up using, and it had less ingredients in it so I found that preferable.

Homemade Mozzarella Cheese

Ingredients
1 gallon whole grass-fed local milk
Large stainless steel pot
3/4 teaspoons citric acid (or 2 1/4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar)
3/4 teaspoons rennet
Thermometer
Clean rubber gloves
Bread board
Salt

Method

1. Pour milk into pot. Mix citric acid (or vinegar) with half a cup of cold water, then add mixture to milk. Stir.
2. Heat milk slowly (low to medium) till it reaches 88 or 90 degrees F. Milk should start to curdle.
3. Add rennet, stirring for 30 seconds.
4. Turn down heat to low and leave to allow curd to form, separating form the whey. Should take between 5-15 minutes to become firm.

5. While still in the pot, use a knife to cut curd into one-inch squares.
6. Transfer curd gently to a colander with a bowl underneath to catch the whey.

7. Microwave curd in a heat-safe bowl for 1 minute (I placed it in an oven dish in a 300 degree oven for about 5 minutes instead)
8. Pour off excess whey.

9. Knead curd briefly in a bowl like you would bread dough (wearing rubber gloves if it’s too hot) then reheat in oven or microwave again, pouring off excess whey.
10. Knead curd again, transfer to wooden board and add salt. Continue kneading until it becomes smooth, reheat if you need to, to maintain firmness.
11. Once the curd becomes smooth you will have mozzarella!
12. Create one large ball or several small ones and store in a bowl of cold water in the fridge.

Yum!!

This is a delicious (and easier!) alternative to the often complicated beouf bourguignon. If you’re looking to spend a little less time in the kitchen, but don’t want to suffer the culinary consequences, this is definitely worth a try.

Ingredients
2 lbs Grass-fed sirloin steak or round steak (trimmed and sliced into cubes)
1 1/2 cup Burgundy or Pinot Noir wine
2 Cloves garlic (minced)
1 Onion (chopped) or 8 pearl onions
1 can (10 oz) Cream of mushroom soup
1 teaspoon Sea salt
1/2 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup Flour
2-3 teaspoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Method

1. Dust grass-fed steak with flour
2. In an oven proof pan, brown meat, onions and garlic in olive oil
3. Remove from pan
4. Add the wine and soup to the pan and stir until mixed
5. Season with salt and pepper
6. Return meat to pan and cover
7. Cook 2-3 hours at 275 degrees in oven. It’s done when the sauce has reached the desired thickness.

Serve over rice or mashed potatoes.

Alternatives: You can also add carrots, mushrooms or chopped bacon during initial browning for additional flavor.

This also works in a crock pot. Ideally you’d still want to brown the meat in a pan first, but you can just set it all in the crock pot to cook too.

With the ever increasing business of ‘green’ it can sometimes get very confusing when it comes to what we are really getting when it comes to our foods. One of the reasons that we got into this business was that we felt it was impossible to know where our food was really coming from when you purchase at a chain grocery store.

Even if a label said ‘organic’ or ‘grass-fed’ there was still much left to the imagination. What about the rest of it? In our efforts to eat healthier, and be more sustainable and eco-conscious with our food choices, we started exploring local farms for food. We quickly realized that we could help a lot of people that have the same questions we did.

We spent time meeting farmers and learning about the food they produce. Having a small farm in a time when so many large factory farms have cornered the market (price wise anyway) has made things very difficult for them business wise, and for us health-wise. These were farms that were naturally doing things better, wanted to provide food locally which would also be better for the environment, and often suffering in spite of that.

About Organic Certification
‘Certified Organic’ is a very useful label when you can’t visit the farm (or know someone who has!), it gives us guidelines that help us shop better, but if possible knowing even more about your food is always preferable.

While we do make an effort to find organic food when we can, one thing we’ve learned is that for many small farms, the process of being actually Certified Organic is cost prohibitive. In addition to this, when it comes down to it, being organic is not always enough, the whole picture is what we were looking for, and that goes beyond the organic label.

According to the USDA “Organic food is produced by farmers who emphasize the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation.”

Not all the farms that we purchase from are organic, but like many small farms across america they follow the above and often much more. They do not use GMO (genetically modified organisms) feed or added hormones and antibiotics. Additionally, the animals live and wander in real pastures and are therefore feeding on what they naturally should feed on. They wander in a real pasture, and are not unnaturally fattened on grains. The harshest ‘pesticide’ used on the land is vinegar and the animals are treated humanly throughout their life. These farms, that we commit our business to, provide a naturally healthy product for us. Certified Organic or not.

What is Natural?
Natural is another word that is thrown around a lot. Unfortunately it is often used as a greenwashing term to entice consumers to buy products that are not natural at all. This has tainted a very useful term.

At Bon Vivant when we talk about ‘natural’ we mean it in the true sense of the word “being in accordance with or determined by nature’. When we purchase foods we consider this with the whole product, from start to finish, not a small portion of it. In regards to animals for instance, are they eating what they would naturally? Is that pasture in it’s natural state? Grain is not a natural food for cows, when they are fed on grain we are therefore not getting a natural product either. Natures ‘natural’ is our goal in all our products.

Buying from small farms that are doing it right benefits all of us, and our environment for the future. We really appreciate the effort that they put in to growing good, healthy food for us, naturally!

1. Local produce is better for you: It has been shown that fresh food loses it’s nutrients quickly. The quicker you get the food the better.

2. Local food tastes better: The fresher the food the better it will taste, and food you purchase from local sources you are cutting down on a lot of travel time and receiving fresher foods.

3. You help create and maintain local jobs.

4. Your money stays local and is reinvested in the community.

5. There is Less impact on the environment when food does not have to travel as far to get to you.

6. Preserves open space for us and wildlife: Farming landscape will only survive as long as farms are financially viable.

7. Supports local farms: Farming is unfortunately a vanishing occupation due to the large-scale production of our food. By buying local you are supporting your local farms you are ensuring that those families can afford to keep their farms working.

8. Helps keeps your local taxes in check: Farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services (unlike urban areas). The more farms we can maintain, the better we all are.

9. GMO-free: Biotech companies license their genetically modified products to large factory-style farms, further ensuring that food you purchase from smaller local farmers are GMO-free.

10. Local food is better for the future: If you support local farms today, you are helping to ensure that generations to come have access to an abundance to nourishing, flavorful food.