Stay up to date with what's happening down on the farm
This Sunday we will be at Castle Drogo for their Festive Food Fair. We’ll be selling meat and also have a few special offers for Christmas, so pop by and say ‘hello’.
For more details please see http://bit.ly/6yUDB6 (Dartmoor Events Website) or http://bit.ly/6fmjoZ (National Trust Website – Search for ‘Castle Drogo’).
In the run-up to Christmas we are going to be cutting Beef, Lamb and Pork every week. Please contact the farm to get your order in.
We know that Lovaton Meat is delicious and great value, but we still love to hear what you think. This is a recent comment from a discerning admirer:
“Just a quick e-mail to say thankyou for the taster box! We had the steak on Saturday……delicious, and the joint of beef for lunch today… astounding! The meat was so tasty …and the steaks like butter.”
We also tickle the taste-buds of professional tasters. This is what the judges of the Taste of the West awards had to say about our Dexter-cross-Devon Beef Rib on the Bone (as they gave it a GOLD award):
“Good creamy fat and good marbling throughout the meat. Properly chined. Very tender- superbly so! Melt in the mouth and quite remarkable. A cracking piece of beef.”
Why not let us know what you think about Lovaton meat by dropping us an e-mail.
At last the wait is over and Iggy our handreared, bottle fed piglet has now become a mum to 8,though her maternal instincts leave alot to be desired.
Blacky had 12 yesterday and all doing fine, sotty pugs everywhere.
Just waiting now for the combine to cut our wheat and then it will be time to start all over again planting next years crops.Where does the year go??
This summer Lovaton Farm had its most successful year so far at the annual Taste of the West awards. These awards are given “for excellence in quality for appearance, texture, aroma, packaging and of course, taste”.
This summer we won five awards:
Gold for our Dexter-cross-Devon Rib on Bone;
two Silver awards for our Dexter-cross-Devon Sirloin Steaks and our Lleyn Lamb Rolled Loin;
and two Bronze awards for our Gloucester Old Spot Leg of Pork and our Lleyn Lamb Valentine Steak.
You can get you hands on all of these delicious cuts of meat by contacting the farm on 01647 231649.
We have had an amazing month so far, with fantastic guests coming to stay and two local shows (Okehampton and Chagford) with a stand promoting our produce.
We also have a new puppy ‘Midge’, a ‘Westie’ cross ‘Scottie’ terrier who is a complete nutter and has learnt to swim very quickly having fallen into a lake and the garden pond within the first two weeks!
Sadly, we lost one of our favourite sows ‘Molly’, who left us with 10 piglets to feed.
Fortunately, Simon loves this job and you often see him crossing the yard with some warm milk, to top up the Yorkshire pudding tray and other dishes which the piglets drink out of.
We have just weaned the lambs (off the ewes), so have had a few noisy nights but as we are so tired we tend not to notice!
People are always asking us what’s been happening on the farm, and Simon is often out with his camera documenting new arrivals and recording the changing seasons.
Now, you can keep up to date with all the latest news and photos from Lovaton Farm with our new blog.
Every so often we’ll post an update or a photo of farm life, and from time to time, we’ll let you know about special offers and limited produce. Next week, for example, we are going to be cutting pure bred Dexter beef, so drop us a line if you want to get your hands on some of this lovely meat.
We would also love to hear your comments and ideas and if you e-mail recipes or photos of what you did with our meat, we’ll try and include them here as well.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Jane and Simon
Christmas Reviews
January 8, 2010 in Customer Comments by Lovaton Farm
Occasionally we get an e-mail that reminds us just why rare breeds and free range farming are worth all the effort. This week, amongst the snow and ice we were treated to a meal by meal account of how our meat was used over Christmas by one customer.
We’d love to hear what you do with our meat, so please drop us an e-mail next time you’ve been busy in the kitchen.
In the mean time, here are those christmas reviews to whet your appetite:
Beef mince for hamburgers and chips- Really delicious beef- great flavour- some of the best burgers we’ve had and I’m American!
Sausage meat for Xmas stuffing (cranberry, cornbread and much else)- Very good and with a beautiful natural colour.
Roast shoulder of lamb coated in mustard- Sensational flavour and incredible succulence- one of the best roast lambs I can remember in many years. I noted that the neck fillet was still attached underneath the shoulder. Is this a West Country practice? In any case, it was handy to discover extra meat as my daughter produced an additional 3 people for dinner at the very last minute. As an aside, I feel that in the distant past, almost all British lamb was at least very good but this seems to me to no longer be the case. Is this because lambs are produced several times per year?
Marinated grilled rib of lamb chops- one version in spicy Indian style & another in Southeast Asian-style marinade. Both very good.
Pork chops with wild rice- Good flavour though we slightly overcooked the dish so it was a bit dry and probably not at its best.
Feather steak used in grilled Vietnamese beef with green mango salad with peanut, chilli and shallot dressing- This was OK but a little dry. I find it a bit hard to believe this is feather steak as I know it (though British butcher’s terminology can be strangely varied and I never quite understand it). Your beef had almost no marbling whereas feather steak is very marbled and although classed as braising steak, is very tender if cut across the grain, marinated and grilled or sauteed.
Chipolatas cut up and served on cocktail sticks as part of our joke Bridget Jones ‘turkey curry buffet’ (complete with bad jumpers wrapped as presents for all guests). Very good and with a natural pork flavour.
Hanger steak- Fantastic flavour and quality. This looked just like the cut we wanted (the French ‘onglet’) though it strangely did not taste of kidney as is usual since this cut is quite close to that organ. None the worse for that, however. A really terrific steak- leftovers made a great hot steak sandwich another day.