I grew up eating meat direct from a local butcher, and if you’re used to the same, you can imagine the shock and horror face I wore when I first cooked ground beef I bought at the local grocery store shortly after moving 550 miles from home.
It didn’t take long for me to start begging frozen packages of meat off my parents, and we’ve done so ever since. Buying in bulk just didn’t make sense for me and Rob. We didn’t eat enough of it to bother, and if we couldn’t get it from my parents, we just pretty much went without.
But now. Now we have three extra eaters in the house, and while you wouldn’t think three tiny toddlers would require that much more food, YOU’RE WRONG.
It’s time for us to buy bulk on our own.
Internet Big Brother, don’t mind me as I exhaust the Web in search of advice on picking out chicken, pork and beef options and cuts. “They have whatever you want,” just isn’t helpful enough for this choosy shopper, and why oh why doesn’t our butcher have a real Web site? Oh, that’s right. They’re old fashioned farmer types, and that’s part of what keeps their shop classically and perfectly delicious.
P.S. Buying bulk meat is going to give me that final punch on my Official Grownup card. Yikes!
I know what you mean. We feel really lucky to be able to go to local farms to buy our meats and produce. It makes a HUGE difference!
We started buying whole animals and having them custom butchered a few years ago. I love that we can get great quality meat that was raised ethically for around the same price (or less) than the crap sold in grocery stores.
We ordered a 1/2 of cow just a few months ago and think it will probably last us a year. We have 4 people: 2 adults, a 3 year old, and 1 year old. We have previously bought a 1/4 cow so we stepped it up. I ordered mine to be butchered with a lot of ground beef because we’re hamburger/taco/spaghetti people and my husband really doesn’t like pot roast. So I kept all the good grilling steaks (that’s how my butcher put it. I didn’t have to specify t-bone, rib steak, etc. I just said I wanted to keep the tender grilling steaks.) The tougher slow cook steaks I had ground into ground beef. I kept a couple roasts and then, again, had the rest ground into ground beef. Hope that helps!