Riverview Meat CSA

So we subscribed to a meat CSA. I may have gushed about it earlier. Basically, it's a monthly CSA for about 13 lbs of meat. Guaranteed are a whole chicken, a dozen eggs, 3 lbs of sausage, 2 lbs of ground meat, and a roast of some kind.

We're two pickups in at this point.

Month 1 was the very first month of the CSA, so you have to cut them a little slack. I expected that everything would arrive fresh, not frozen, which was a bad assumption on my part. I had planned to make burgers that night, but to my dismay, there was no ground beef in the pickup. My idea for fried chicken the next night also fell through when I saw that the whole chicken was frozen. We also got three bratwurst and two packages of hot sausage. I made a sausage ragu with just the sausage meat and a can of tomatoes, and J said it was awesome. Too bad it is too spicy for me because apparently, that is some tasty stuff.

A boston butt was in the package with a randomly placed bone in it. I've never cooked a boston butt, so this has so far just been taking up freezer space while I debate how I should prepare it.

I think that's a 3 lb boston butt so that's a lot of meat right there.

The pork chops look like a pretty good size, but there was a lot of fat on it. Actually, I felt like these were too fatty/gristly but looking at the picture now, they really don't look that bad. We ate one that night but I cut the bone off the other to grind up in the future. I think that will be a better use.

Two pounds of cubed pork is a lot. I made souvlaki with it and was sad when a lot of it went to waste.

The sopressata is house-made at the Pine St Market which is our pickup point. The sopressata was pretty fatty/greasy and fell apart rather easily.

I also got a Sweet Grass Dairy fresh chevre (always yum) and a Gray's Goat, which is rather nasty. Perhaps it was past its time which is worse.

This month's pickup contained a dozen eggs, a whole chicken (frozen, of course), two packages of hot sausage, three packages of ground beef, three bratwurst, and a "ham roast" with a bone in it. Whatever that is. Everything came frozen this month. I guess that works better for them.

We defrosted one of the packages of ground beef (it felt like just over a pound) and made burgers on Friday. J said they were awesome, in no small part because of the beef. Still don't know what to do with the pork. I emailed our CSA contact for help.