Dark Days: Buttflap

My mom came to visit, all the way from Texas. I saved the most prized cut of meat from the meat CSA expressly for her visit: the Buttflap. That's right, the meat CSA came with some delectable steak-like item labeled Sirloin Buttflap. I had no idea what to do with it. Neither did anyone else I talked to.

The internet provided some ideas towards making it into fajita meat, but we didn't have time to marinate it and we weren't making fajitas. My mom cut it into bite-sized chunks, removed most of the fat, and marinated it for about fifteen minutes in apple cider vinegar. Then she sauted it just a little in olive oil.

I chopped a large turnip and peeled and chopped a small butternut squash and put them together in a dutch oven. Then we poured the semi-cooked meat and all its liquids on top, added more water, salt, turmeric and pepper, covered and simmered until done.

Tough, chewy, gamy? A bit. But flavorful and an excellent combination! I would do it again, with a proper marinade next time.

This was a three-course meal....a surprise salad! A woman in my writers' group has an organic CSA membership that is giving her more greens than she knows what to do with, so I benefitted from the bounty. (No, the olives are not local, but they're organic and they're a gift from my mom!)

And, custard for dessert! Local eggs and milk with a bit of honey and amazake. Normally, I have local honey in stock, but as I was out I used some raw honey from elsewhere. The amazake was a leftover that was going to go bad. I feel, generally, that using leftovers, rather than wasting, is ethically on par with eating local foods even if it may not be nutritionally comparable (dumpster-diving, anyone?).

A lovely end to a lovely three-course meal....oh, and the custard was cooked in my brand-new glass baking-and-storage dishes, courtesy of my mom as well!