Fava Beans and Short Ribs, Summer 2017 PFI Newsletter

Two styles of grass-fed beef short ribs.

If you haven’t gotten your Summer 2017 issue of the Practical Farmer, our quarterly newsletter, it should be arriving in the mail soon. In it, you’ll find a couple articles about food. One is authored by former PFI staffer and chef Tomoko Ogawa (it’s a fascinating update on her culinary adventures in Japan and Spain since leaving PFI 3 years ago). The other is an article I wrote “Cooking Adventurously to Support Local Food and Farmers” after talking to members Jamie Hostetler (cattle farmer), Jordan Clasen (veggie grower) and Bobby and Ty Gustafson (meat locker owners).

I wanted to know how friends of farmers could support farmers with their purchasing power. As a friend of farmer myself, what do farmers want me to eat? I get into some of their responses in my article, but a lot of it comes down to what’s good for the soil. The one caveat is that sometimes the vegetables and cuts of meat that farmers need to sell are ones that are a bit trickier to cook.

So I bought some grass-fed beef (helps support farmers who put more perennials on the landscape) and chose a cut of meat that usually just gets ground – beef short ribs (which I had never cooked before). Then, I chose a vegetable – fava beans – that Jordan told me is good for the soil due to its ability to fix nitrogen, and its root system. But, again, how do you cook a fava bean? You can read the results in my newsletter article, but I relied on my favorite food blog Serious Eats for guidance. I adapted these recipes to my own taste, and you can too.

Beef Short Ribs with Chimichurri (make sure you read the whole story on this here, it’s really interesting)

Fava Beans (I really just took the fava bean part of this recipe and added lots of slow cooked garlic, a little honey, a little soy sauce, a little salt, and a little red wine vinegar).

Support your local farmer and have some fun in the kitchen!