Tag Archives: Hormone-Free Meat

Recipe: Filet of Beef with Red Wine Sauce

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This next recipe is a classic that every cook needs to have in their back pocket for a quaint dinner party at home. Served with crisp steamed asparagus, filet of beef with red wine sauce makes for a beautiful presentation and an irresistible meal. As with any recipe, this one tastes best when prepared with quality, hormone-free, platinum reserve beef.

If you’re interested in finding out more about our gourmet food delivery service and how you can request a free food sample click here. Passanante’s Home Food Service would love the opportunity to deliver quality meats and organic vegetables to your home and save you time by reducing pesky grocery store trips!

Beef Filet

What you’ll need:

  • 4 Filets of beef, about 6 ounces and 1 1/2 inches thick
  • 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 3 Cups sliced mushrooms
  • 3 Tablespoons butter, divided
  • 3 Tablespoons shallots, finely chopped
  • 3/4 Cup red wine
  • 1/2 Cup beef broth
  • 1 Teaspoon tomato paste
  • Parsley
  • 1 Package noodles
  • Salt to taste
  • Pepper to taste

How to make Filet of Beef with Red Wine Sauce:

  1. Cook noodles according to package directions
  2. Sprinkle both sides of beef filets with salt and pepper
  3. In a skillet large enough to hold all of the filets flat, heat the vegetable oil
  4. Add the filets and cook about 2 minutes over relatively high heat until browned and slightly crisp
  5. Turn the filets over and continue cooking on low heat for about 3 minutes for rare meat, or 5 minutes for well done
  6. Transfer the meat to a warm platter
  7. Pour off the fat from the skillet
  8. Add 1 tablespoon butter and mushrooms and stir for about 2 minutes
  9. Add the shallots and continue cooking briefly
  10. Add red wine, beef broth, and tomato paste
  11. Add any liquid accumulated around the meat
  12. Cook while stirring over relatively high heat for 5-7 minutes or until the liquid is thick and reduced to 1 1/2 cups
  13. Swirl in 2 tablespoons of butter
  14. Serve this mixture over hot meat with noodles.
  15. Sprinkle with parsley and enjoy!

Recipe: Gourmet Pork Chops

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A friend of ours had the pleasure of enjoying this next recipe while on a small-town vacation in Texas. These “Gourmet Pork Chops” are fancy enough for any dinner party and apparently pretty hard to forget.  We know a lot of effort goes into preparing a gourmet meal at home, which is why we only provide the best hormone-free meats available — nothing can ruin a great recipe faster than a bad cut of meat. All of the pork Passanante’s Home Food Service delivers is locally raised, corn and grain fed, and consistent in color and taste so you can be sure your recipe will turn out just the way it’s meant to!

Pork Chops

What you’ll need for “Gourmet Pork Chops”:

  • 8 – 1/2 inch thick pork cutlets
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup Madeira wine
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1/2 cup onion, chopped
  • 1 cup plum tomatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1 large lime, peeled, seeded, and cut into small cubes
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated lime rind
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander or parsley
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

What to do:

  1. Soak the raisins in the Madeira wine for 30 minutes.
  2. In a large non-stick frying pan, heat the vegetable oil.
  3. Remove the fat from the pork cutlets and pound them slightly flat. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper before placing them in a pan over medium heat. When both sides are browned, cook for another 10 minutes. Move to another frying pan and keep warm.
  4. Discard all fat from the first frying pan and add the onion. Stir and brown slightly.
  5. Add tomatoes, lime juice, chicken stock, and lime. With a spatula, scrape and stir to dissolve the solids in the pan.
  6. Add raisins and Madeira, and the lime rind.
  7. Reduce the liquids in the pan to about 1 cup.
  8. Swirl in 1 tablespoon of butter.
  9. Pour the sauce over the cutlets.
  10. Serve very hot, garnished with fresh coriander or parsley.

Love pork chops as much as us? Check out a few more incredibly share-worthy pork chop recipes from our blog!

Pork Chop Casserole
OMGoodness Honey Tabasco Pork Chops & Creamy Butter Beans
Grilled Pork Chops with Apple Compote

Happy Eating!

U.S. Chicken Plants to Increase Chemicals

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Poultry Plant

In an unfortunate turn of events, the USDA is expected to approve a number of new regulations for the United States poultry plant industry as early as this summer. In an effort to keep up with the ever increasing demand for chicken and turkey, the new rules would allow for a 25% increase in poultry line speeds — that’s an increase of 140 to 175 chickens, and 45 to 55 turkeys per hour.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, right? Unfortunately — wrong.

With the birds moving down the line at such an increased rate, the ability of workers to spot contaminants including fecal matter would be greatly reduced. With the current regulations, when a bird is identified as contaminated it is removed from the line for manual inspection and a cleaning process which involves dousing the poultry with antimicrobial chemicals. With the new regulations, such slow and manual processes would defeat the purpose of the increase rate. The solution? No birds would leave the line, and to prevent massive contamination issues ALL birds would be dosed with large amounts of antimicrobial chemicals.

According to federal officials as reported by The Washington Post, “the problem is government agencies have not conducted independent research into the possible side effects on consumers of using the chemicals. Instead, they review data provided by chemical manufacturers.” But, these are the same chemicals which have been identified by poultry plant workers as catalysts for major respiratory complications, asthma, burns, rashes, sinus ulcers, and even death.

Thankfully, the poultry delivered directly to your home from Passanante’s Home Food Services is not the same poultry whizzing down the conductor belts in these plants across the country. We pride ourselves on being a credible food delivery service who provides fresh, clean and natural grade A poultry. None of our products are CAFO raised or mass produced. All of our poultry is raised on local farms in Maryland and Pennsylvania on a natural, seed based diet — free of hormones and antibiotics.

At Passanante’s we’re serious about the quality of foods we provide to our customers, we even guarantee it. If you’re interested in speaking to someone at Passanante’s feel free to give us a call at 800-772-7786.

Three Detoxifying Foods Your Liver Loves

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Artichoke | Detox Food

Even with all of the tasty organic veggies and hormone-free meats you could want at your fingertips (that is, if you’re a Passanante’s customer :),) resisting the urge to indulge in the not-so-good-for-you foods and drinks during holidays, world-travels and weekends can sometimes be futile. But hey, we’re only humans so there’s no reason to beat yourself up after a little bit of fun!

At Passanante’s Home Food Service we believe in balance. It’s no secret that staying in and preparing organic vegetables and hormone-free meat meals at home is a healthier alternative to eating out, but sometimes you have to live a little — and that’s where detox foods come in.  As you embark on a new work week following St. Patrick’s Day weekend, you may feel a little more bloated, foggy, or sluggish than usual as your body tries to filter through the foods and drinks from your weekend celebrations. No problem! There are dozens of great detoxifying foods out there that you should try to incorporate into your diet to help get you feeling like your old self.

Check out these three detoxifying foods that your liver loves and help kickstart your cleansing process by working these into your meals this week.

1. Garlic – The allicin and selenium found in garlic are two natural compounds that aid in liver cleansing. Also, The sulphuric compounds found in garlic make this tasty ingredient a powerful antiviral, antiseptic and antibiotic which can help the body purge free radicals and improve liver function.

2. Artichoke – The cynarin found in artichokes is known to help prevent indigestion, assist the digestion process, increase bile production, and purify the liver and gallbladder. Additionally, artichokes work as a mild diuretic for the kidneys, which helps to remove toxins from the body once the liver has filtered them out of your system.

3. Organic Cabbage – Believed by the American Cancer Society to reduce the risk of cancer, organic cabbage is an incredibly powerful detoxifier. Packed full of vitamins A, B, C and E, cabbage has all of the necessary nutrients to help effectively cleanse the liver.

Politics in the Pantry

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Produce Inspection

With the Presidential election behind us we just may begin to see some changes in food regulation laws as a result of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) signed into law by President Barak Obama back in January 2011.

Impacting roughly 80% of consumer purchased foods not including meat and poultry, the FSMA is the most dramatic change to food regulation laws in the United States in more than 70 years. The premise of the FSMA is to emphasize prevention rather than punishment by implementing four sets of rules designed to reduce foodborne illnesses which impact some 50,000 Americans each year and result in an average of 3,000 deaths annually.

The goal of the  four regulations associated with the FSMA is to increase monitoring of imported foods, while taking aggressive measures to prevent produce contamination including but not limited to more frequent and thorough inspections of food packaging facilities.

In the summer of 2012, America experienced four major outbreaks linked to FDA-regulated foods. While the cost of increased regulation through the FSMA is steep, falling in the billions of dollars range, a 2010 Pew Trusts study estimates the total ‘costs’ of foodborne illnesses at $152 billion each year.

At Passanante’s Home Food Service we pride ourselves on the safety and quality of foods we provide to hundreds of families each month. We don’t need the federal government to tell us how important food safety is or to implement laws to protect you — we do it on our own and are conscious of it everyday. Passanante’s has always adhered to the strictest of policies and actively looks for opportunities to improve our methods.

We love being the company you can trust for safe organic produce and hormone-free meat delivery and look forward to continuing to impress each of you!

Happy eating! ❤