In your share

• Chicken
• Lamb stew meat
• Ground beef
• Ground pork
• Pork chops
• Chuck eye steak

On the Farm

Now that we are at the time of year where the day lengths are getting ever so slightly longer as the calendar ticks by, the farm is also seeing its first inklings of spring. Our first pair of lambs was born on January 6^th, and this of course follows the litter of puppies that arrived the day before Thanksgiving. In between those, we helped put another farm that was forced to make some changes by agreeing to purchase their boar, sow, and 11 piglets. Even with all that, though, things are still a bit more of a leisurely pace this time of year, that is until the snow and ice storms arrive. I’m writing this before the big storm that is predicted to hit in a few days, so we’ll see if we have to make up for that decrease in workload soon.

Recipe

Cider Braised Pork Chops from our kitchen

This is our favorite way to eat pork chops and this was adapted and modified from a recipe that used scallops instead of pork chops. Amounts of ingredients resented here are kind of vague because we usually just wing it, but this dish is very forgiving.

Ingredients

• 1 package Terra Farma pork chops
• 1 pint apple cider (the juice kind, not the hard cider – but we’ve never tried that, so who knows?)
• ¼ cup butter
• Fresh sage, to taste
• Julienned apple

Directions

1. Heat the cider in a small saucepan over medium heat until it is reduced by about half, set aside.
2. Pan fry the chops in an oiled skillet on med-high heat until they are almost done, then remove from skillet and set aside.
3. Add the butter to the hot skillet and simmer it until it browns, stirring as needed to keep from burning
4. Once you have brown butter, add the reduced cider and sage to the butter, then add the chops to simmer in the sauce until they are done.
5. Add the julienned apples right at the end, so that they can warm and soften a bit, but still maintain their shape.