Turtle Mist Beef!

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder; hopefully, this means there are folks out there who LOVE the sporadic entries on this blog...

My favorite farm, Turtle Mist, is now offering 100% grass-fed, pastured beef. And its wonderful. Gene and Barry came for dinner last night and we had a fantastic chuck steak and some local purple-hulled peas with jowl bacon. All finished with Pappy Van Winkle's 15 Year Family Reserve. If you're a whiskey drinker, look that one up.

Like all grass fed beef, this is leaner and more flavorful than commercial, corn-fed meat, but I prefer it for a multitude of reasons. The biggest one being that you know you're getting beef and not an extra dose of hormones. Anyway, here's the recipe:

Turtle Mist Pot Roast with Dumplings

2 lb. chuck steak
2 cloves garlic
1/2 sweet onion
2 stalks celery
4 carrots
1 pkg mushrooms - I used baby portabella
1 1/2 cups red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
flat-leaf parsley
2 cups flour
ice water


1. chop the onion, celery, and carrot into large pieces; place into the bottom of a Crock Pot.
2. Place the meat on top of the veggies in the crock. Salt and pepper the meat.
3. Place the mushrooms and a generous handful of parsley on top of the meat.
4. Add half of the wine and half of the chicken broth to the crock.
5. Cook on low for 4 hours.
6. At 3.5 hours into the cooking, make the dumplings
7. Add 1 tsp salt to 2 cups flour and mix
8. Slowly add ice water into the flour and stir with a fork - you will use about 3/4 cup
9. Once the dough is formed and no longer sticky, turn onto a floured surface and roll to 1/2 inch thick
10. Pinch off bite size pieces of dough to form the dumplings.
11. Add the remaining wine and chicken broth to the crock.
12. Add the dumplings to the crock.
13. Simmer for 4 more hours on low.

Optional: Remove the meat, dumplings, mushrooms, and some carrots from the crock. Use an immersion blender to blend the remaining cooked veggies and liquid together to make an amazing gravy.