Late this Spring we finally ran out of grass feed beef for the first time in 6 months. The original “family sampler” we bought from Lasater Beef of 36lbs lasted about 6 months for 2 people. We decided to try another place as Lasater raised their prices significantly and we wanted to try another Colorado rancher to compare quality, price, and packaging. While I was scouting around the internet we stumbled on Sun Prairie Natural Beef as they were doing a closeout on their spring inventory. We got a great deal on some lower quality cuts like ground beef, roasts, spare ribs rather than the mix we previously had, which included high-end steaks. We jumped at the deal and ordered a 25lb box with pick-up in Denver at an average price of $4 per lb. Since then we’ve eaten our way partially through the box and are very pleased with their meat.

Unlike Lasater which wraps their meat in butcher paper and then freezes it, Sun Prairie’s processor vacuum packs the meat before freezing, which makes it much easier to thaw in the sink without a mess when you realize last minute that you don’t have the meat thawed that you planned for dinner. The processor also does a great job tenderizing cuts of meat such as cube steak and flank steak so that it’s more tender and easier to cook. The beef also tastes better with a less gamey flavor than Lasater. I don’t know if it’s a difference in the breed or the pasture, but it results in a better steak, this is especially noticeable on the lower quality steaks such as round steak. And to top it off they are cheaper than many of the other grass fed packages we’ve found around here and on the web.

Sun Prairie is now doing a summer harvest for the first time this year, normally they only do a spring and fall harvest, with pick up on August 22nd around the front range. If you live around the front range you should definitely give them a try as they have pick-up locations all around the front range including several in Denver, Boulder, Longmont & Fort Collins . They also deliver via UPS if you don’t live in the front range or can’t make the pickup times. They have 3 types of boxes available in either 25lb or 50lb sizes. They also allow you to make substitutions, which is great if you are like us don’t need 10lbs of ground beef and would rather use sausage and other cuts. If you place an order use the code “sunprairiebeef” and save an additional 5%. We just ordered another 25lb “Economy box” with several substitutions to get the cuts we need right now to fill out our fridge. In the fall we’ll order a box that includes more steaks and enough beef to get us through the winter. I can’t wait!

Buff Orpington rooster - Photo by Mark Robinson

Jeremy was doing some internet surfing a while back and came across Eastern Plains Natural Food Co-Op.  The Co-Op mostly provides heritage breed turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and eggs but also provides some pork products like bacon and sausage and also lamb. If you have read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, you’ll remember Barbara Kingsolver talking about trying to raise heritage breed turkeys, and how most conventional turkeys can’t breed on their own.  She talked about her struggles to get hers to breed and delight when they were successful at it. Well, ever since reading that book along with a few others, Jeremy has been trying to find pastured heritage breed birds, so he was really excited to come across this co-op and talked me into joining.

The Co-Op was formed by Tedach Ranch outside of Bennett, Colorado and it costs $85 to join, but with your initial buy in you get the option of several membership gifts, and we selected the 4 whole heritage chickens for our gift.  If you renew for a second year, you get additional products as well.  Then you can purchase as much for the rest of the year as you want.  We purchased some packages of BBQ’d turkey, several whole chickens, some chicken breasts a couple of turkeys for around Thanksgiving, eggs, and a bacon value pack. While it is a bit more expensive than the grocery store, it is not much, and you are guaranteed the animals are humanly treated, they even have a humane certified slaughtering process.

They have several drop off points around the area but we actually went out to Tedach Ranch which was about an hour from us, to pick up our products because we were hoping to see the farm.  Dallas Gilbert who runs the farm immediately offered to show us around when we got there and we got to see the chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese all around his property.  They all had tons of space, seemed happy, and were pastured.  He was hoping to show Jacob some baby chicks that had just hatched but couldn’t find them under the brush where the chickens live.  The turkeys lived in a big old open barn with a large pasture surrounding it and came complete with two guard donkeys.  We thought he was joking about the donkeys being guard donkeys at first but then he said coyotes are scared of donkeys and he hasn’t had any trouble with coyotes getting his turkeys since he added the two donkeys to the pasture.

All in all it was a very cool operation, the birds were very pretty, the turkeys were blue and the chickens we saw were gold, he had descriptions and pictures of all the breeds on the website: http://albc.easternplains.com/breeds.htm .  We forgot to bring our camera with us so don’t have any pictures of our own.  He also just installed a wind generator that powers his whole farm and even generates enough power to sell back to the electric company.

So far we’ve tried the barbecued turkey, the chicken breast tenders, and a whole roasting chicken.  The BBQ turkey and chicken breast tenders were good but didn’t taste a whole lot different than normal chicken, but when we roasted a whole chicken, it was delicious.  It was so much tastier than normal chicken you get, we had it the first day with roasted vegetables and then made some soup from the leftovers, and chicken stir fry from the rest.  We can’t wait to cook another one and are really excited we have three more of them!

If you live in the Denver metro area and have the freezer space we definitely recommend checking out this co-op.  And if you decide to join drive out to the farm and check it out, it was really cool to see everything and Jake loved seeing all of the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys.