Puget Consumers Co-op Vendor Fair

Issaquah PCC Vendor Fair-
September 10^th & 11th - 2011
Field Roast spent this past weekend just 20 minutes east of Seattle in lovely Issaquah as a guest at the Puget Consumers Co-op (PCC) Vendor Fair. We set up our table and canopy in the parking lot and handed out free samples of our 3 sausages: Italian, Mexican Chipotle and Apple Sage, - voted a PCC’s kidspick, and our newest addition to the family the Frankfurter dog! Thanks for stopping by and saying hi if you did, we love to hear from you. We had an ideal location, third stop on the right from the entrance, in excellent company between new and old friends. Our modest booth greeted many new fans, complete disbelievers and even some amazing Field Roast Evangelists. I love telling traditional omnivores that the meat they have in their mouth is completely vegetarian, comes from grains and doesn’t contain nitrates or cholesterol, like a sausage made from animal products.

Some people looked at me in extreme disbelief and wonder – can they trust this girl behind the delicious smelling sausage counter, cooking up the tasty meats? It smells and tastes like ‘real meat’, how can this all be true? I wish I had a hidden camera on all of the stocky sporting looking men who almost choked on their sausage, when I said “it’s completely vegetarian”. This could be my new most favorite part of the job!

Over the 2 day festive and sunny event - Jennifer and I demoed almost 50 pounds of our 3 top selling products. Everyone wanted to try our newest addition to the Field Roast family – The Frankfurter dog. The comments were interesting… one woman said “my childhood has just flashed before my eyes, I haven’t had this taste in my mouth since I was a little girl”. Funny how taste can trigger long lost emotion isn’t it? I know exactly what she meant. I haven’t had a hot dog in years.

My first day working here with the company, I walked in and said I must try the new Frankfurter – today! That night I took it home, grilled it up, put it on a bun with yellow mustard and took my first bite. It almost brought tears to my eyes because I could see my grandmother handing me a traditional hotdog as a child. So many years, even decades have passed since I’ve had this memory; happily triggered by my first taste of the new FR Frankfurter.

The Frankfurter is out in stores now and at Safeco Field if you happen to be at a baseball game in Seattle. Pick up a 6 pack of dogs at your local co-op or grocery store and let us hear your thoughts! We would love to post them on the blog so that others can share in this emotional experience. Go ahead and email us at info@fieldroast.com

Cheers!

FRinEveryKitchen

A hungry PCC employee knows what’s good for her!

For more info on this co-op visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCC_Natural_Markets

Five years of Autumn with Field Roast

This is my fifth Halloween working for Field Roast. My fifth fall and my fifth holiday season. I love that if you take a moment to make note of all the cycles in the seasons, it gives you something to appreciate about where you are now...and where you have been. Field Roast definitely has much to be grateful for. This year we boast 35 employees, all of which we can still squeeze into the common room for a feast once a month to celebrate our work together making food for all of you.

Perhaps many of you have known of Field Roast longer than I have, that you are part of the lucky few that ate a Celebration Roast in 2005 or before for Thanksgiving. They were hard to find those days! I remember the slew of calls in 2006 that began about now and ended in January, those asking desperately "WHERE can I find a Celebrity Roast!!" Of course now I hardly ever hear someone call our Stuffed Celebration Roast by its infamous misnomer, though many still insist it is THE Field Roast. "It's all Field Roast" I answer with a grin.

This year, there is a new beautiful box for the 2 pound Celebration Roast, only slightly different from last years inaugural box design, and it can be found in the freezer set. Not to be forgotten is our 1 pound roast, that is just perfect for a couple or trio of folks that get together for a meal. Next up? A blog telling the story of our newest retail stuffed delicacy...stay tuned.

VegFest Seattle 2010!

VegFest this year was our most ambitious effort yet! Cindi, Danny and Mel all gave their weekend up to "man" the booth and make up four sampler size meatloaf recipes for the masses. We wanted to illustrate this year that the meatloaf isn't just a loaf of grain meat, but an ingredient to add umph to your vegan dishes and make some comfy food that tastes really good!

To kick off the show, we made sloppy joes! This mixture of ground Field Roast Classic Meatloaf, tomato paste, garlic, onions and spices really makes a hearty sandwich. We used slider buns to make them sampler size, but displayed them in their full size...with a side of chips.

Meatloaf with Porcini Gravy ended the Saturday menu, and yes we used our Field Roast Davy's Gravy mix to make this! If you are hoping that this will be available retail...it is a long time coming. The best way to get this into your local store is to bother the folks who fill the bulk section. Who wouldn't want to buy an amazing dry mix for vegan gravy!?

On Sunday, Mel and the volunteers served up our Meatloaf ground up and seasoned with cumin, chili powder for a taco meat. This is one of my favorite dishes to make with the Meatloaf, and the leftover meat even went onto Bob Gerrish's Pizza Works creations at the next booth!

The last menu item was a tiny meatloaf slider. This came about simply because a lot of us here at Field Roast use the Classic Meatloaf this way. Just slice it and pan fry it, and put it on a bun with your choice of fixins. My five year old son calls this his "happy meal". We just used ketchup and mustard, easy peasy.

We also announced our Classic Meatloaf Recipe Contest! This is very exciting...more to come! Soon we will post the entry form online!

Thanks again to Seattle, for being so kind and excited to see us at VegFest every year. And all of our local partners who make making Field Roast all that much more worth it.

A Week of Making Field Roast - Day 3

Hello! Jennifer here, I work in the office at Field Roast. Our Smoked Apple Sage Sausages are our most popular retail product. Perhaps it is the sweet and savory goodness that sizzles right out of them when you put them in hashes for the morning. Or when they are sliced and crumbled into rice dishes, pastas and stews. I really prefer the Mexican Chipotle, which is spicy enough to satisfy my cravings for food that heats you up from the inside. I love it in tacos and and jambalaya.

Our mixing, cooking and packaging processes are as simple as the ingredients of our meats. The above picture is of our sausage linker. It helps us measure the weight and length of our grain meats by allotting specific amounts of into our nettings and casings.

Next you see the Mexican Chipotle Sausages (or MC as we say here) being clipped and cut into groups of four for our retail sausages that are sold nationwide!

In an earlier post, David eluded to our sophistcated labeling process, and we do this all by hand. Our labels and packaging are a reflection of the simple tenets of good cooking that we base all of our recipes on. I like that when I started working here almost 4 years ago, there were about 9 people working for Field Roast. Now...there are about 32. Meanwhile, our sausage linkers and dough mixers are not given more jobs to do, though they are asked to do them more often..the bottom line is despite our growth it's people, not machines who are most involved in making Field Roast. I like that.

Recipe: Celebration Roast with Leeks and Shrooms

The other day, we received an email from a mom out in Dallas, TX whose vegan 17 year old foodie, Issey Howe, made a wonderful dish with Celebration Roast. She sent along a photo and I just had to share it with you!

Often we get calls and emails asking about the way to best cook Celebration Roast. I will most likely refer to the Marinated Celebration Roast recipe on our website, the one that I recently photographed at home and posted as well. This recipe takes off on the steaming method of cooking our beloved Cele Ro...and incorporates lots of love and goodness!

First carmelize finely sliced leeks in olive oil, then add Pacific Organic vegetable broth and Bunapi and Shiitake mushrooms. After cooking down a bit add the thawed Celebration Roast to the pot, cook 15 minutes bathing the roast with the liquid and mushrooms. Serve over brown rice.

Thanks again to Issey and her mom Anita!

Grain Meat Evolution!

There is an interesting article in the latest issue of VegNews Magazine called 'Faux Meat Revolution'. As many of you know by now, Field Roast does not use the term 'faux meat' to describe itself [which is why we were probably not mentioned in the article!;)] however a lot of people like to describe what we make as "fake meat", or "meat analogues" or "not-sausage". We know a lot of other brands, such as those described in the article, do like to label themselves that way, but we challenge that idea, and in a sense, create our own little revolution.

The article has quotes from vegans for and against "faux" meat. We can agree with both sides of the argument. For example, Laura Bohlcke of Carrollton, TX (who is on the"faux" meat side) says:

Faux meat is a great way to introduce carnivores to the vegetarian world in a non-threatening way.

On the other side of the debate Phyllis Jo Kubey of New York, NY says:

I would much sooner see people break the habit [of] meat-substitute consumption and free themselves to enjoy the many more interesting and healthful foods available in the fruit vegetable, grain, nut, and seed families.

We agree with both of these arguments, but we want people to not have to choose between something that is "real" and something that is "fake". By not labelling ourselves fake meat, and instead calling ourselves "grain meat", we at Field Roast are trying to reclaim a word, assosciation and lifestyle. We know that the very term itself [meat] is a highly charged one, and that's why we like to use it. We like to challenge the idea that our proteins can come from an animal source. If we to label our foods "fake" bacon, turkey, beef etc. then we are really just buying into the idea that we need to consume those animals in our diets in some form or another.

The VegNews article, written by Mark Hawthorne, traces the evolution of "faux-meat" from China, however insists on calling it all "meat-substitute". While it is true that Buddhists monks, for instance, were searching for a non-animal source of protein, if we look at classic definitions of the word 'meat' then we can see it is "solid food" (Merriam-Websters dictionary). Imagine if the world added meatiness to a meal from a non-animal source. Why label it an animal when it is not? Why assume animals need to be central to every meal when they don't have to be?We were admittedly a little sad that the article did not address the fact that a choice for real or fake does not have to be made. That there are products available which are delicious and tasty and do not try and make eating animals the agenda. The holidays are coming up and we know a delicious vegan centerpiece that allows grains, nuts, vegetables, and spices to take the stage. Full of protein, a favorite of carnivores, vegetarians, flexitarians and... well... people who love good food. From the compassionate findings of buddhist monks, to European bold flavors, how about a nice GRAIN meat to feed the food revolution?

Join us at Green Edmonds Festival

This year Field Roast will have a booth selling sausages at the Green Edmonds Festival! This outdoor festival will provide a fun and friendly environment for Green businesses and organizations to showcase their products, services and ideas and for attendees to learn how to live a Greener, healthier lifestyle. Exhibitors will offer everything from home improvement ideas to children's products to organic foods to arts and crafts. Sessions scheduled throughout the day on the solar-powered stage will provide easy, cost-effective ideas for living a Greener life. Admission is FREE! To get there click here.

Hope to see you there!

Notes from the Kitchen - Producing the Roast

We have been busy in production that last few months….ramping up for increased volumes and refining our systems. Regular readers of the Field Roast Times will remember when Cary went off to get trained in HACCP. Cary, Malcolm and I (David) have been busy assembling our new program. We’ve been refining our production process from A-Z: receiving, storage, mixing, forming, cooking, cooling, slicing, packaging and labeling. We’ve also re-arranged our plant, expanded our warehouse space and purchased an experienced 140 quart Hobart mixer for mixing batters and flours.

Being 100% vegan, Field Roast is much safer to handle (and to eat) than animal meats. Animal meat production facilities have to have full time USDA inspectors onsite - we don't. We are inspected by the FDA and the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

Have you ever wondered how we make Field Roast? Our process is remarkably simple:

Step one: - Mix wet ingredients (red wine, fresh cut vegetables, lemon juice, filtered water)

Step two: - Mix dry ingredients (wheat protein flour, yeast extract, our own in-house blended spice mixes, etc)

Step three: Combine wet & dry to make a dough. (We use a dough mixer to do all of this.)

Step four: Form the dough (into a loaf, a link, or into a vegan casing)

Step five: then cook. We now use a steam cabinet to cook the dough, but we used to use a kettle. Back in the beginning, we used to use stock pots, then steam kettles. Times have changed!

One of the essential differences between Field Roast and our "competitors" is that our process is much less mechanical and processed. In natural food grocery stores, the section with the most processed foods is the vegetarian meat section. Many of these products are made using the same techniques that are used to make baloney and other highly processed animal meats: they first create an emulsion (like you would to make mayonnaise) in order to put as much water in as possible and then add gums to hold/stabilize the water. That's why so many vegetarian meat products ('specially the slices) resemble baloney - they are made just the same way. The meat they make is very homogeneous in appearance and texture, and it's rather “jiggly” - that's the effect of the added water and gum.

Our slogan written on every package using Chinese characters is “Flesh of the Earth” - Field Roast isn't about emulsians and gums, holding water and tasting like animal meats. It's earthy, fiberous and firm. Flesh of the Earth means vegetables, wheat flakes, lentils, the power of the grain! We buy fresh eggplant, fresh Yukon Gold potatoes, fresh celery, fresh carrots and dice them in-house to add flavor, texture and the energy of the sun and the earth to our meats!

So that is how we do it…from our kitchen to yours. There are no secrets in how we make our veggie meats. We believe that our customers deserve to know. There ARE many secrets, patents, etc in the food biz....but you won't find them here at Field Roast.