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The crisp air, ever changing temperatures and moments of utter silence are among many of the reminders that I am home. It has been two years since I packed up my car and left for Austin, Texas and although I miss it dearly it is so nice to be back. I am looking forward to contributing more to our ranch and business. In the words of a cowboy, I am happy to be riding for my own brand.

For the past two weeks, I found myself in a familiar position, taking care of the ranch while the bosses were away. Craig and Liza Jane headed East to congratulate James in his graduation from Officer Candidate School. He is now Lieutenant James Nash of the United States Marines and we are proud and thankful for him.

Meanwhile back at the ranch everything was going quite well. I had quickly discovered that other than my whisking and stirring muscles, I had lost a lot of my strength in my time away from ranching chores. Chopping firewood and cleaning ditches proved to be a lot harder than I had remembered. I can only imagine what I looked like when I put all of my back, shoulder, hip, chin and fingers into lifting the one hundred pound grass hay bales onto the back of the pick up. There was sure a lot of huffing and puffing, but after day three or four I felt like I was back in action. It was around day six out of ten I began daydreaming about being the ranchhand hero who had taken care of all the various animals and land without any disasters, when disaster struck.

The second to last pasture I had to feed that morning was the pasture with the mature bulls. There were 26 of them and they get two bales of grass hay, I reminded myself while I hopped out of the truck to walk down and open the gate. The sound of gravel caused me to turn around and helplessly watch as the truck rolled quickly into the barrow pit. As I scrambled to jump into the vehicle I could hear Craig's advice in my head "be sure to push the emergency brake all the way down and even then don't count on it working." By the time I had stopped the vehicle, the damage was done. I had flattened a good portion of fence and caused a considerable amount of scratching and denting to the front of Craig's pick up.

So what does a girl do? I slammed it into four wheel drive and backed my way out of the ditch taking with me a certain amount of dirt and gravel. Then I drove through the open gate to feed to bulls in order to distract them from their most recent escape opportunity. Fixing the fence was something I knew how to do, given the right tools, and after a couple of hours it didn't look too bad.

To fix the truck, I made a pie. Delivering a fresh pie to one of the local mechanics got the bumper tacked back on and licence plate border straightened and screwed back in. It was not fixed but it looked much better. I used a similar tactic to tell Craig. I told him over dinner, a comfort food dinner. And? Well I am still here to tell the story. Never underestimate the power of a good meal.

The recipe is listed below.

Cheers!



Soothing French Dip



Start with a grass fed corriente sirlion roast, seasoned generously with salt and black pepper. Place the roast into an appropriate sized roasting pan on top of large diced vegetables that have been washed and tossed in salt water. I like to used one yellow onion, two carrots, two celery stems, three cloves of garlic and two stems of fennel stalk.

Place in a pre heated oven at 425 without a lid for 20 minutes. Turn the temp. to 200 and cook for 8-10 hours. After 4-5 hours add four cups of beef stock to the pan and add a lid to the pan.

Remove the meat and strain the vegetables while reserving the juice. This will be your au jus.

Thinly slice one yellow onion and add to saute pan over medium heat with one tablespoon of butter. Cook until golden brown, adding water to pan if onions begin to burn or stick to the bottom. This will take about 20 minutes.

Toast sliced french bread in the oven with a small amount of butter on each slice.

Add freshly grated horseradish and lemon juice to three tablespoons of mayonnaise.

Create the sandwhiches layering the bread, mayonnaise, meat, onions, mayonnaise and bread. Serve with a small cup of pan au jus.

Last week I had the opportunity to provide a Corriente beef tasting to several of my former Chef Instructors from Texas Culinary Academy here in Austin, Texas.
When I came to school here I did not have much restaurant or other related work experience in the field of culinary arts. What I did have, was the knowledge and sense of where my food came from and how it was being produced. My beliefs about the importance of knowing those topics led to many great conversations with my instructors involving the goals and current ongoings of my home and the 6 Ranch. It was exciting to let a few of them taste what I could not stop talking about during my time at school.

I have to admit I was a bit nervous to be cooking for the audience of Chef Gary Ackerman, Chef Robert Brady, Chef Steven Loiacono and Chef Kevin Quinn. Each of whom are now instructors and staff of TCA and have substantially unique and prestigious backgrounds in their field of expertise, food.

I used a simple grilling technique * for two separate cuts of meat to be tasted. I was using ribeye steaks and a tri tip, both of which came from Grass-Fed Corriente Cattle. Everyone sampled the slices as I talked mostly about the nutritional value and numbers. All of the feedback was extremely positive; they asked many questions, about the beef, the breed and the way in which the cattle are raised. I showed off the website and ranch photos and talked about future plans that I will be asking for their helpful advice, for years to come I am sure.

The overall evaluation concluded in an initial surprise about the tenderness in the meat, without the marbling, as that fat content is thought to be essential in steaks. The flavor profile was described as a strong beef taste with a nice finish of an almost grassiness, that is light and distinctive.

*My simple grilling technique is a great way to cook these cuts of meat when you really want that beef flavor to come through. I seasoned the ribeye steaks with a generous amount of salt and black pepper before adding them to the hot grill, after they were cooked to the desired temperature (I recommend medium rare, if not rare) use a small amount of butter to coat each side and let rest for half of the amount of cooking time. When cooking the tri tip I used the same grilling procedure only I used salt, black pepper, paprika and garlic powder to season the raw meat and did not add any butter , although it never hurts. When slicing the tri tip, it is best to slice thin pieces again cut against the grain of the meat.

Check back for more recipes soon! Cheers!

Welcome to the 6 Ranch web site. This blog will keep those of you who are interested informed on what has been happening here on the ranch. We'll provide you with links to other sites which provide information on grassfed beef, Corriente cattle, events and healthy foods. Adele, a recent graduate of the Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts Institute will share recipes for you to try with our lean beef. If you have ideas or recipes, please send those to us and we'll share them here with other customers, too!

We have finished weaning our calves this week. Early winter is Nature's time to wean young grazing animals from their mothers. By weaning later than common industry practises, we've found that many of our cows have already weaned their calves, so the stress on both is less. We also start feeding hay before we separate them, which reduces stress on the calves when they are on their own. They'll be in a pen for about 4 days, then we sort them and they are turned back out to pasture for the winter.

The weather has at last warmed up to above freezing. For two weeks the temperature had stayed below freezing, and was often below zero. One of our cows fell on the ice and wasn't able to get up again; she froze in a matter of four hours. Winter is a long, hard season in Wallowa County - our best efforts aren't always enough to keep these animals healthy. This is an unsung reality of ranch life.

Between keeping the ice broken, so everybody could drink, and feeding hay, there hasn't been too much daylight for anything else. We'll have the whole family home for Christmas, and are looking forward to that time together and Adele's cooking!

Thanks for checking in with us! We wish you all a warm, delightful holiday!

Welcome to the 6 Ranch updates. This section will be updated regularly to keep you posted on changes in our business, specials, and information about Corriente Cattle and the industry. Please check back to see additional updates.