Touchstone Farm
September 21, 2000
Dear Customer,
With September comes a number of seasonal inevitabilities – the end of vacation, kids returning to school, shorter and cooler days, and, we hope, your annual lamb order! Here at Touchstone Farm the nights have already started to get cooler and the dogwoods are showing their first hints of autumn color. Our lambs, plump from feasting on lush summer pastures, are ready to go to market.
This past year, despite a few frustrations that are part of life on any farm (tractor repairs, lightning strikes, etc), has been rich in rewards. Our winter lambing season produced twenty-seven lambs – our biggest crop yet. Spring and summer were wonderfully mild and wet, which, after two years of drought, produced incredibly lush pastures and refilled our streams and springs (often to overflowing).
Our range of farm products is slowly expanding. This year all the wool from our spring shearing was sent to a woolen mill in Vermont. It came back a few months later as incredibly soft creamy 2-ply yarn. It’s been selling steadily in local yarn and specialty shops at $11.95 a skein, but we can offer it to you at $7.95). Call or e-mail us for more particulars. With the arrival of four goslings this April, our Buff Goose breeding population is now large enough to start offering limited quantities of Christmas goose to customers for next year’s holiday season.
Touchstone Farm is expanding as well! We’ve been fortunate to be offered some land immediately adjacent to ours. The addition of this parcel will allow us to increase the size of our flock and to grow our own hay (which will help us keep our lamb prices reasonable). Better still, this beautiful property has tremendous views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and a lake stocked with bass. We hope that next year you’ll come out to the farm to pick up your lamb order and stay for a picnic and some fishing.
It’s a good thing that we’ll have the extra space for expansion, because interest in our lamb has grown faster than our flock has – so much so, that we now have more interested customers than we have lambs available for this year. While this is very encouraging, we hate having to tell people that we are ‘sold out’ for the year. For this reason, we are writing first to you, our regular customers, to make sure that you have the opportunity to order your lamb before we begin to fill orders from those on our waiting list. We’ll begin filling the waiting list orders on October 6th, so do try to get your order form back to us before then. Our prices remain as they were last year, $6 a pound for a ½ lamb (approximately 25 lbs of meat), or $5 a pound for a whole lamb (approximately 50 lbs of meat). You can either order your selected cuts on the enclosed order form, or you can save time and postage, and place your order on our website at: www.touchstonefarm.org.
While we’re on the subject of lamb, we thought we’d share with you this great recipe we recently tried and loved. Some of our customers have remarked that they weren’t quite sure what to do with the lamb shanks that came with their orders. They’re often overlooked, yet this humble cut of meat can create a wonderfully rich and hearty meal. It’s easy to prepare and slow cook on a crisp fall day while you’re out walking in the woods with the dogs or doing yard work around the house. It goes very well with red cabbage and Bavarian bread dumplings, so we’ve included recipes for those as well. Wash it down with a hearty burgundy wine or a full bodied Belgian farmhouse ale.
Enjoy your lamb!
Yours,
Alan Zuschlag
4 tablespoons olive oil 1 pound onions, sliced 5 large shallots, sliced (about 1 cup) 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary 6 lamb shanks All purpose flour 2 ½ cups dry red wine 2 ½ cups canned beef broth 1 ½ tablespoons tomato paste 2 bay leaves Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced onions and shallots and sauté until brown (about 20 minutes). Mix in 2 tablespoons chopped rosemary. Remove from heat. Sprinkle lamb shanks with salt and pepper; coat lamb with flour. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in heavy large skillet over high heat. Working in batches, add lamb shanks to skillet and cook until brown on both sides (about 10 minutes per batch). Using tongs, transfer lamb shanks to plate. Add 1cup dry red wine to same skillet and bring to boil, scraping up any browned bits. Pour into Dutch oven (or crock pot) with onion/shallot mixture. Add remaining 1½ cups of wine, canned beef broth, tomato paste, and 2 bay leaves. Bring to a boil, stirring until tomato paste dissolves. Add lamb shanks, turning to coat with liquid. Let mixture come to a boil (or leave on highest crock pot setting for 30 minutes). Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until lamb is tender, turning lamb shanks occasionally (about 1 ½ - 2 hours) (or low crock pot setting for a day). (note: this can be prepared a day ahead – just cover and refrigerate).Uncover Dutch oven and boil until liquid is reduced to sauce consistency, stirring and turning lamb shanks occasionally (about 30 minutes). Place lamb shanks on plate (one or two per person) and cover with gravy. Pennsylvania Red Cabbage 2 tbs. Bacon drippings ¼ cup vinegar 4 cups shredded red cabbage ¼ cup packed brown sugar ½ tsp. Caraway seeds 2 cups cubed, unpeeled apples Heat bacon drippings in a skillet. Stir in brown sugar, vinegar, caraway seed, ¼ cup water, 1¼ tsp. Salt, and a dash of pepper. Add cabbage and apple, stirring to coat. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. For crisp cabbage, cook 15 minutes. For tender cabbage cook 25 to 30 minutes. Makes 6 servings. Semmel Knoedel (Bread Dumplings) 1 loaf day old French Bread (diced in crouton sized squares) 2 oz. butter 1 bundle parsley, chopped 1 tsp salt freshly ground nutmeg 2 medium yellow or white onions, finely chopped 4/5 cup milk, hot (but not boiling) ¼ tsp pepper 2 eggs Place bread in large bowl. In large frying pan, heat butter and sauté onions for a few minutes, add parsley, and pour over bread. Pour the hot milk over the bread mixture, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Do not mix yet, let rest for 30 minutes! Lightly beat 2 eggs and pour over bread mixture. Thoroughly, but carefully, mix the bread to keep the diced bread pieces from being mashed. Divide into 8 portions, and with wet hands, shape into round dumplings. In large pan bring plenty of salt water to a boil. With a slotted spoon, carefully drop dumplings in water and immediately reduce heat so that the water barely bubbles, and let simmer for 15 minutes. Remove dumplings with a slotted spoon or wire spoon. Briefly set on paper towels to soak up water and then serve. |