Grass Fed Braised Beef Short Ribs by Rain Crow Ranch

 Here at Rain Crow Ranch we are always looking for new recipes to utilize all cuts of beef. Although short Ribs are not typically the most popular cut of beef we have found, when cooked correctly, that they are the most delightful, tendor cut of beef packed full of flavor. This sensational recipe is sure to ignite your taste buds. It is so simple and easy to prepare, in 30 minutes or less you will look like a five star chef.

 All Ingredients needed for this Delicious Short Rib Meal!

 Oil Cast Iron ( you don’t have to use a cast iron, it is just our favorite). Turn stove on high heat.

 Cut Short Ribs into one Rib Sections

 Sear Grass fed beef short rib sections until all sides are equally brown (You sear to lock in flavor)

 Apply salt and pepper then add cubed potatoes and onions to pot with your short ribs and allow to cook for a couple of minutes

 After onions and potatos are warm, add red wine ( the dryer the better) and beef broth

Cover pot with a lid and place in oven at 350 degrees for two hours. Remove and serve !!!

Prep Time: 15 Minutes      Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

Serves 4 People

4 3×2 Grass Fed Beef short Ribs

2 potatoes – cubed

1 onion – sliced

1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/3 cup Dry Red Wine

1/4 cup Beef Broth

1tbs Pepper

1 tspn Salt

Preperation Instructions

Heat Oven to 350 degrees. Heat olive oil on high heat in pot (we prefer cast iron). Cut short ribs into 1 bone sections. Sear short ribs in extra virgin olive oil on all four sides. Once all sides are seared (should take around 5 minutes) add salt and pepper. Add cubed potatoes and spread sliced onions on top (you can’t use too many onions). Remove from heat. Add red wine and beef broth. Cover. Place in oven for two hours.

Remove and serve.

The focus will be on sustainable farm animal production, animal product preparation, the myths and realities of food labeling, and supply chain management.

State of the Plate DC is organized by Animal Welfare Approved and Educated Eats.  George Washington University’s Urban Food Task Force is the event’s key collaborator. Click here to visit State of the Plate to register for this event.

This year the baseball season culminated with the rivalry between the Cardinals and the Cubs, always sure to draw a crowd. The weekend topped off with a Rams game with the Ravens on Sunday.

Taste of St. Louis takes place at Soldiers’ Memorial in downtown St. Louis (12th & Market), with a beautiful park atmosphere and a great view of the Arch. It is within walking distance of the stadiums.

The event highlights the chefs and food from 45 Restaurants on Sauce Magazine’s Restaurant Row and one small family farm, us!

Taste of St Louis 2011

St. Louis has quickly become a hot spot for emerging culinary talent, and the Taste of St. Louis showcases the best of the best! Grassfed beef sliders and hot dogs made their debut alongside some of the best food in the Gateway City. We were proud to be a part of the festivities.

The turnout this year was over 350,000. Pretty big for farmers from a town that just got it’s first and only stop light. The Taste of St. Louis was voted second place for “Best Food Festival” in AAA Midwest Traveler’s Best of the Midwest 2010, alongside American Royal Barbecue (first place) and the Taste of Chicago (third place). Not too shabby!

Warned of the huge expectations as to the size of the crowd and it being a 3 day event we wanted to participate and show off our new Rain Crow Ranch logo/brand.

But we know we would need help. So we pooled all the family together and had the great luck to use volunteers of an agricultural club (Farm Bureau) from the local college, Southeast Missouri State. The college kids pitched in and just made the weekend that much more fun. Enthusiastic, energetic and so hard working these kids were a big asset.

They really helped us deliver the grass fed story in word and taste. In return they gained some experience in an alternative route some farmers go to market their product. Many of these kids aspire to do exactly what we do, maybe not with livestock but to return to their family farms and find a gutsy way to be profitable and sustainable.

This new study supports what grass farmers have been saying for years. At our farm, Rain Crow Ranch, we have always adhered to the passion that the sustainable grass fed model of animal production is better.

Grass fed is in sync with nature. Only an industry trying to defend “it’s against-nature ways” could have thought otherwise.
Of special interest to me was Marian Burros’ note at the end of the article concerning the other side of the fence. She echoed my criticism of John Stossel’s report that was based on the opinion of Jude Crapper from Washington State.

When non-peer-reviewed work is taunted on national TV as truth without noting the other side you need to question the research. Follow the money and sponsorship by Elanco who is a stake-holder as they supply food and medicine to feedlots and have an industry to protect.

If you would like to read more of this study, visit: USDA Grass Fed Study.

Thursday, July 14, 2011
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Free

- Sample Burgers
- Vote for the Best
- Enter to Win a Free Grill
- Listen to Live Music
- Taste Local Beer

The winning chef will be awarded $500 to the charity of their choice.

Participating Chef’s:

- Nicholas Miller, Harvest Restaurant
- Kristopher Janik, Robust Wine Bar
- Cary McDowell, Winslow’s Home & Farm
- Grace Dinsmoor, Modesto Tapas Bar and Restaurant
- Clara Moore, Local Harvest Cafe
- Chris Drummond, Whole Foods Market

At Whole Foods Market Galleria
1601 S Brentwood Blvd
St Louis, MO 63144
(314) 968-7744

Though these health benefits can be measured by science, they alone do not represent the true product.

Grass fed is as much a process as it is a product.

It is a sustainable management philosophy that benefits not only the product but also the animal, the producer and the environment. Grass fed beef as a product is the tip of an underlying mountain of strength and integrity rooted in family farms that put their hearts and hands into what they produce. Each farm has its own unique story and history; I would like to share part of ours with you.

We are the Whisnant Family, who own and operate a family farm located in the rolling hills of the southern Ozarks near Doniphan, Missouri. This farm has been in the business of producing beef since 1882 when the land was granted to the heirs of veterans of the War of 1812.

Mark and I have been married since 1979 and have six children; Jack, Pete, Cody, Trent, Logan and Katie Grace. We are all involved in the raising, production, processing and marketing of our grass fed cattle.

I am a veterinarian, graduating from the University Of Tennessee College Of Veterinary Medicine in 1981.

I have a B.S. in Animal Science from UT. Upon leaving private practice I now work full time with our farm, its beef production and quality control issues at the processing plant.

Mark has a B.A. in Business from Memphis University. He has over 30 years experience in agricultural marketing and farming.

As a veterinarian I have always been intensely interested in the production process and along with Mark have worked to put together a natural production model that allows us to raise and finish cattle entirely on forage diets.

We live in a very rural county where there is no industry and jobs are not plentiful. Over the years we have witnessed the continual disappearance of our community’s most precious resource. I am referring to the loss of our children who are forced to leave the farm in search of opportunity in education and jobs. Most of these kids never return to live in our community.

Knowing many of them personally, we are aware that oft times their greatest desire is to return to the farms where they grew up. Yet, in the era of industrialized consolidated mega farms it is difficult on a small farm to support one family much less extended families.

Family farms are rapidly disappearing from our American culture.

It was always our dream and passion that somehow we could make our farm profitable enough to allow any of our children stay on our farm and make a living. A farm is one of the best possible living classrooms. It is a great place to learn lessons of character, responsibility and respect.

This land on which we work and live is our touchstone. That place in the whole world where we feel the greatest joy, sense of worth, wonder, peace, renewal and relationship – to our family, our God, our land and our communities. It is priceless. Currently, we have been blessed to see our three oldest sons return to the farm.

Our beginnings of marketing grass fed beef directly to our customers began with a phone call from an acquaintance, BJ. She had been to our farm on a Christian retreat a few years earlier and wanted to buy a grass fed cow.

The fact that she lived in Atlanta was no more unusual to us than the knowledge that she had been a vegetarian for 14 years. Developing some deficiency problems associated with a vegetarian diet, her doctor had recommended that she return to being an omnivore and consume meat. True to her nature she researched the subject and came up with the decision that if she were to eat meat it had to be grass fed and she wanted a trusted source so she thought of us.

From that first cow, American Grass Fed Beef was born.

As fate would have it, BJ who may have had no knowledge of cows or farming was a computer whiz. At the time we did not have a local market for our beef and were forced to use traditional marketing channels.

In a collaboration of our skills, we launched the website www.americangrassfedbeef.com and began to ship our beef to customers all over the country. In the late 1990’s our farm entered the computer age.

We practice a sustainable grassfed management protocol in producing our livestock (average 1200 head). To us, it simply makes the best sense. We care about our animals and the land on which they graze is our home.

Having home schooled for 13 years we have always tried to teach our kids that life is a never ending learning process.

Most important is the skill of how to learn rather than the mere facts of rote memory. Problem solving requires creative thinking while not loosing sight of real parameters; that is farm life. New learning curves became dramatic as we stepped into the field of direct marketing and shipping our grassfed beef.

We faced many challenges in the beginning and still face a great many today.

As a small family farm we do not enjoy the economy of size offered factory farms. Insulated Box 101, The Science of Coolants (when you are 2 hours from the closest dry ice), Frozen Shipping (from our isolated farm to say New York City), Shopping Carts for Dummies,, Customer Service, Meat Processing and Packaging to name a few of the courses at our Grassfed U.

Our family has complete control over all our animals from birth to harvest and the table.

In 2005 we purchased Fruitland American Meat where we had harvested and processed our meat for years. The plant is third party certified USDA organic, high animal welfare (Animal Welfare Approved) and maintains a yearly GMP audit for food safety.

We ship right from the farm and though we have come a long way from our beginning with 4 home-style upright freezers (we now have a 25 X 30 walk-in freezer at the farm). Many of our customers visit us at the farm to pick up their beef. It is fun showing people the farm and the animals, from the 5 star chef who chooses to support local farmers to families on a country outing.

I refer to what we do as relationship marketing.

It involves building a long term relationship with our customers. Over the years, we have come to know many of our customers by first name as well as many of their stories and how they came to support the grass fed message.

Marketing directly to our customers with a niche product has breathed new life into our family farm. We have a passion about encouraging other family farms to do the same. It provides a way to survive in the world of integrated behemoth farming enterprises.

Rain Crow Ranch is named after an old hunting camp in the Florida Everglades located next to the Seminole Indian Reservation. My husband, Mark, spent time there as a child with a reclusive woodsman who hunted alligators. Days spent with Jennings Bryan at the camp were the best of memories and the beginning of his lifelong passion for the outdoors.

Animal Welfare Approved published this article to help our son, Jack Whisnant, with his Joplin relief efforts:

All of us at Animal Welfare Approved have been concerned about the seemingly endless spate of devastating weather across the country, and are doing what we can to reach out to our farmers in affected areas. Our hearts go out to all of those who have suffered the overwhelming loss of loved ones, homes, and livelihoods.

As the people of Joplin, MO work to pick up the pieces and move on from the disaster in their area, we have become aware of a unique effort springing from within the AWA family and we are doing all we can to support it wholeheartedly.

Jack Whisnant, the son of Patricia and Mark Whisnant (Animal Welfare Approved farmers from American Grassfed Beef in Doniphan, MO), is leading a group to Joplin to provide BBQ pork and grassfed burgers over the Memorial Day weekend and following week. Jack recently lost his smokehouse to fire and is working back at the family farm.

As a member of a Missouri farming family he feels strongly that it is his duty to help as best he can with the efforts in Joplin. Jack is heading to Joplin, MO today with a group of volunteers, smokers, grills, coolers, AWA grassfed beef as well as pastured pork and bottled water. He will be providing hot meals for all those in need throughout the weekend and coming week, and plans to stay for as long as he can.

To read this article please visit Animal Welfare Approved. ]]> http://www.raincrowranch.com/news/join-us-in-helping-awa-farmer-feed-joplin/feed/ 0 http://www.raincrowranch.com/news/savvy-shoppers-take-note-place-your-bets-on-grassfed-beef-you%e2%80%99ll-come-away-a-winner/ http://www.raincrowranch.com/news/savvy-shoppers-take-note-place-your-bets-on-grassfed-beef-you%e2%80%99ll-come-away-a-winner/#comments Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:57:39 +0000 admin http://www.raincrowranch.com/?p=94

Animal Welfare Approved wrote this artcile about our Rain Crow Ranch American Grass Fed Beef:

Not that we like to gloat, but….

Grassfed beef from two Animal Welfare Approved farmers has gone head-to-head with conventional beef in separate taste tests. The results are in and, well, to be modest, SMACKDOWN!