{"id":4404,"date":"2010-10-26T18:24:58","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T01:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=4404"},"modified":"2010-10-26T18:24:58","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T01:24:58","slug":"home-cookin-meadowland-farms-ground-chuck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=4404","title":{"rendered":"Home Cookin &#8216; &#8211; Meadowland Farms Ground Chuck"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4407\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4407\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/cargill_logo_hi.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4407\" title=\"Meadowland Farms Beef by Cargill\" src=\"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/cargill_logo_hi-300x146.jpg\" alt=\"Meadowland Farms Beef by Cargill\" width=\"300\" height=\"146\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4407\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meadowland Farms Beef by Cargill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Picked up a fresh pack of this the other day, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.meadowlandfarmsbeef.com\/\">Meadowland Farms<\/a> is a trade name of agri-giant Cargill. \u00a0Their ground chuck is an 80\/20, and is described as &#8220;fresh&#8221;, which I take to mean &#8220;not previously frozen,&#8221; but I am not sure there is a USDA definition of &#8220;fresh.&#8221; \u00a0 With Cargill, they claim the ground beef is produced regionally, allowing them to product to your supermarket faster, so it is &#8220;fresher.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meadowland Farms produces the range of fat ratio ground beef, from 80\/20 to 93\/7. \u00a0 Although my particular package is labeled &#8220;chuck&#8221;, \u00a0the producers website states &#8220;Meadowland Farms\u2122 ground beef&#8217;s source grinds include sirloin, round and chuck.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Not sure if that means either\/or, or each pack could be a combination of the grinds.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Further online investigation seems to indicate Cargill has at least three plants produc<\/strong><strong>ing the burger, in PA, WI, and CA. \u00a0Curiously tho, the USDA sticker on my package does not include the site number. \u00a0I wasn&#8217;t aware a manufacturer could exclude that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The package further indicates that the &#8220;meat is in a protective atmosphere to prevent color change.&#8221; \u00a0(This means there is a gas inside). Generally this &#8220;gas&#8221; is merely an increased level of oxygen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>My pack was approximately 2.5 pounds, at $2.78 per pound. \u00a0 I made 7 patties out of the pack, keeping two out for lunch today, and freezing the rest. \u00a0I freeze my patties for a half hour on parchment paper, then tear or cut the parchment to size before placing in a freezer bag. \u00a0This makes the patties easily accessible, and not stuck together when removed from the freezer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The ground beef, raw, has a nice flavor. \u00a0 The grind is &#8220;medium&#8221;, which is to my preference.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>(Several hours later).  Fried up two patties in the cast iron.  Gotta say, didn&#8217;t care for it all that much, didn&#8217;t live up to its hype.  Meadowland Farms makes a fuss on their website about the difference between &#8220;ground beef&#8221; and &#8220;hamburger&#8221;, and for my money, this was the latter.   It didn&#8217;t have any particular specific beef flavor to it, and for 80\/20, there was a lot of fat both in the pan, and in the medium rare patty.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Would I buy it again? \u00a0 Doubtful. \u00a0Living in Oregon, I have a wide variety of local beef to choose from, and as I have written about before, I have a fondness for <a href=\"http:\/\/burgersdogspizza.com\/?p=4326\">Painted Hills brand, which I buy at Barbur Foods<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Picked up a fresh pack of this the other day, Meadowland Farms is a trade name of agri-giant Cargill. \u00a0Their ground chuck is an 80\/20, and is described as &#8220;fresh&#8221;, which I take to mean &#8220;not previously frozen,&#8221; but I am not sure there is a USDA definition of &#8220;fresh.&#8221; \u00a0 With Cargill, they claim&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/?p=4404\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Home Cookin &#8216; &#8211; Meadowland Farms Ground Chuck<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,16],"tags":[770,846,1635,1756,2233],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.peterstromquist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}