A good homemade meatloaf should be in every cook's repertoire. Keeping our freezer stocked with Mountain Beef has prompted us to seek out sustainably raised pork from a local farm. (We buy from Nash Huber http://www.nashsorganicproduce.com/), and when we combine lean Mountain beef with the fatty sausage made from Nash’s pigs, the results are amazing...

Strict rules govern the exact proportions and procedures for making the authentic meat sauce of Bologna. (It is important to remember that this sauce is a meat sauce with tomato, not a tomato sauce with meat.) But the West Coast version is less rigid, more forgiving, and slightly lighter in nature. In its home territory, the dairy-rich Emiglia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, Rágu Bolognese is always finished with a generous splash of heavy cream. Here, olive oil is the primary enrichment. 

When folks made beef stew before World War II, all the ingredients were organic by default; agricultural chemicals were rare and expensive. And beef ranchers seldom finished their animals on expensive grain; instead, all the beef was grass finished. Now, older folks complain that modern foods don't have the flavor of the stuff they remember from childhood. Mountain Beef with its clean grass finished flavor brings back the old-time flavor...

Salisbury was a health food advocate form the turn of the last century who recommended eating ground beef because it was easier to digest than steak. The late great Peter Canlis developed his signature take on Steak Diane even before he opened Canlis Restaurant in 1950. We revisited his recipe when we were looking for a new way to prepare ground beef for a casual weeknight supper that could be prepared quickly. 

These meatballs are tender but they hold together well and they’re easy to make. They are browned in the oven then finished on the stovetop in a pot of beef broth. The meatballs may be made and browned ahead, then held in the freezer to be simmered in the beef broth, or a pot of tomato sauce later.