Winter is here and the farmers are spending a bit more time inside, catching up on bookkeeping and volunteer commitments, but the animals remain out on pasture all year (barn? what’s a barn?). All summer we plan our grazing carefully to allow for the most ‘stockpile’ come winter, so that our animals are truly pasture-raised year-round.
Staff Appreciation Week
You check in with Tristan and Aubyn at the markets every other week, and you see and hear lots about all our animals and how we raise them. But have we told you about our amazing employees? We doubled the amount of food we produced this year, and we couldn’t have done it without a little help from our friends. In the spirit of this season of gratitude, we’d like to introduce you to our awesome staff, to whom we are exceedingly grateful.
What’s the Deal with Pastured Veal?
Our amazing organic pastured veal is back! We’ll have delicious veal steaks, osso buco, roasts, and more available for individual sale (and a Veal Pasture Pack!) at upcoming markets and our Online Shop. You won’t find better-tasting, more ethical veal anywhere, period.
News from the Ranch
What goes on at the ranch between our bi-weekly market rounds? A lot! There are the regular chores that always keep us busy: moving the cows onto fresh pasture, feeding grain to the meat chickens and layers, delivering greens to the baby turkeys in the brooder, collecting and washing eggs, towing the egg mobile to new paddocks, and of course keeping you all updated with our newsletter, and packing the trailer with delicious meats for market! But we also make time for new projects, facility improvements, educational adventures, and sometimes even invite new animals onto the farm…
Pork Ball Phở
I’ve had a lot of customers ask me for ideas of how to use ground pork. Ground pork will take any burger, meatloaf or meatball to the next level, but here’s one of my favourite easy early summer meals.
A good thing worth waiting for
You know that Spray Creek Ranch is doing all kinds of things: raising chickens, collecting eggs, teaching pig slaughter workshops, selling fencing equipment, reading through regulations, monitoring soil carbon sequestration, ropin’ miniature turkeys…
But historically, and at heart, we’re a cattle ranch.
What is Certified Organic?
Late last month we hosted an Organic Verification Officer for our annual audit. Each time we are inspected, we are reminded what Certified Organic means to us…
How to Brine a Chicken
If you want the best possible bird, brine it! It enhances the flavour, distributes salt evenly and helps keep the chicken tender and moist.
Simple Roast Chicken
If Aubyn could only cook pastured chicken one way, it would be this.
What makes our chicken the best?
If you’ve had a chance to try one of our chickens, you already know one of the reasons we’re farming this way. It’s delicious! The flavour and texture of the meat is so much better than anything you’ve tried before. But what else sets our chickens apart from anything else on the market (or even at the Farmers’ Market)?
