Harvest Moon: Where you can pick apples and buy a cow

North Salem’s Harvest Moon Farm & Orchard’s Fall Festival is one of our area’s biggest annual events. Every weekend in September and October you can go for the apple picking and stay for the hay and pony rides, the face-painting, farm animals, live music, and their famous apple cider donuts and smoked turkey breast BBQ. But the best deal at Harvest Moon may come from their pasture an hour north where their Sottish Highland cattle graze – not the orchard.

Earn your locavore stripes here! If you are a committed locavore and grill-master and you have a big freezer, you can get an incredible deal on grass fed beef there, by buying yourself a whole, half or quarter cow. Or set up a cow-pool with your friends and save.

If you buy the whole cow, the price for their own grass fed beef is $5.50 per pound hanging weight – which means you are paying for everything but the cow bell. The price for half a cow or a quarter cow is $6 a pound.

Why do we always have to do the math? Add in approximately $1.02 per pound for butcher fees and delivery from the slaughterhouse to Harvest Moon and you’re coming in at $6.52 to $7.02 per pound. Assuming a 65-70% yield from the hanging weight, your net cost, if you are buying a whole cow, is $9.32 to $10.03 per pound. For a half or quarter cow you’re out of pocket $10.02 to $10.80 per pound – for grass fed beef. That’s a big moo!

I just got off the phone with Whole Foods and their cost for grass fed ground beef today is $9.99 a pound. That’s the same price as Harvest Moon – but in addition to ground beef you are also getting the steak – filet, strip, ribeye and T-Bone for the same price. Hello! Anybody want to buy a cow with us?

The beauty of bilateral symmetry: That’s still a lot of cow! Fortunately, cows are bilaterally symmetrical so if you want every cut of beef the animal has to offer you only have to buy half a cow. Or you can choose the fore quarter or hind quarter. The fore quarter is where you’ll find the prime rib, rib steak and rib eyes, shoulder roasts like London broil and cube steaks, chuck and stew meat, brisket, short ribs and shanks.

Or maybe you’re a hind quarter type of person. That’s where the sirloin steaks like Porterhouse, NY Strip and T-Bone come from. The hind quarter also yields sirloin tip, top round for roasts and London broil, Swiss steaks, flank steak and eye roast and bottom round for cube steaks. As an extra bonus for being a back of the cow type – you go home with the oxtail and kidneys.

How thick do you like your steaks? They offer a handy checklist to help you pick how you want your cuts butchered. You can specify how thick you want your steaks, how many ribs you want in your prime rib portions and your desired weight for roasts. You can divvy up your shoulder and top and bottom round cuts between roasts, steaks or London Broil. And they’ll grind any appropriate cut of meat for burgers if you want to concoct your own blend at home.

So how much is a cow going to set you back? Well, a 1,000 pound cow has an estimated hanging weight of 600 pounds. That will cost you $3,300 plus another $615 for butcher and transport costs from the slaughterhouse. That’s $3,915 for 390 to 420 pounds of meat. For a half-cow, you’re all in for about $2,100 bucks for 195 to 210 pounds of meat. And for a quarter cow, you’re ringing up $1,052.50. Buy more, save more as the saying goes.

Bacon makes everything better: New this fall, you can buy their own Pasture Raised Pork in the handy denominations of whole or half pig – deliverable in January. With either order you’ll get the well marbled shoulder cuts for slow cooking, the lean loin cuts for chops and roasts, the leg for ham and pork shanks, and the belly for bacon and ribs. A whole pig will run you $1,445 for a 200 pound pig or $727.50 for a half pig.

That’s a big turkey! And check out those eggs … Fresh for Thanksgiving, Harvest Moon also sells their own free-range, antibitoic and hormone free turkey that ranges from 25 to 40lbs. Their farm fresh eggs come from their own Rhode Island Red, Pullet and Araucana chickens who spend their entire lives on pasture. According to a study conducted by Mother Earth News, pasture raised eggs are signifantly higher in vitamins A and E, beta carotene and omega-3 fatty acids than commercially produced eggs. And they have less cholesterol and saturated fat. Taste better too, says the Huffington Post.

The Harvest Moon country store also sells fresh milk from Ronny Brook Farms, baked goods, jellies and jams, New York State honey and maple syrup, New York State wines, Harney & Son teas and seasonal gifts and home décor items. Did we mention their home made apple cider donuts? (Harvest Moon, 130 Hardscrabble Rd., North Salem, 914.485.1210; www.harvestmoonfarmandorchard.com)

More apple picking   More Country Fairs and Fall Festivals   More fun for Foodies

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