Latest news with #dairyfarm
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The 50-Year-Old Iowa State Fair Recipe My Family Will Never Stop Making
Every August, when the Iowa State Fair rolls around, my Midwestern relatives make the trip from their scattered rural homes to the capital city of Des Moines to see one of the world's largest pigs, the famous butter sculptures, and to eat their way through the fairground's endless midway vending booths. Like the rest of us, my almost 90-year-old grandmother loves an indulgent hot, saucy, cheesy sandwich. She and my late grandfather operated their dairy and beef farm in northern Missouri for many years, stocking all of their extended families' freezers with enough ground beef and steak to collectively save us hundreds of trips to the grocery store. Though my grandmother doesn't make the trek to the sweltering, busily buzzing—albeit highly entertaining—11-day state fair any more, she still holds a soft spot for the fair's famed Italian grinder sandwich. This hoagie rolled mess of ground beef and hot Italian sausage in pizza sauce with melted mozzarella made its way from the fairgrounds to our family tables four or five generations ago. Mothers have scrawled the simple recipe onto white lined recipe cards for their daughters for as long as I can recall. The Iowa State Fair Legacy The Italian grinder sandwich (called the Guinea grinder once-upon-a-time) is a comfort food classic. The satisfying, meaty creation combines minced onion and fresh basil with shakes of fennel seed and red pepper flakes for a sandwich we come back to over and over again. It's just one of many favorites folks have plucked from the fair's culinary pages. The Iowa State Fair began as an agriculture and livestock showcase in 1854, welcoming a dairy building, machinery hall, cattle barn, and the now legendary carnival and food vendor midway over the years. Iowa's single largest event has become synonymous with indulgent deep-fried foods on a stick. Fairgoers return year after year to stand in line for bacon-wrapped fried Twinkies and juicy skewered whole pork chops. Of course, you can always get a corn dog, funnel cake or paper basket of cheese curds, but it's fun to check out the latest compilations on the 'what's new' list. In 2024, dozens of new items tempted tastebuds, including a bacon cheeseburger eggroll, lobster corn dog and the Iowa sm'oak'ed roll—a flattened pork tenderloin layered and rolled with jasmine rice, jalapeno cream corn and smoked poblano queso cut into sushi-style bites. One of the longest standing Iowa State Fair food staples, the Italian grinder is a saucy, meaty family favorite and an easy weeknight throw-together dinner. My Family's Italian Grinder Recipe Makes: 4 Italian Grinder Sandwiches Ingredients 4 hoagie rolls ½ pound ground beef ½ pound ground hot Italian pork sausage 8 ounce jar pizza sauce 1 tablespoon minced onion 1 tablespoon chopped basil 1 teaspoon dried oregano ½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon pepper ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes 4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese Directions Step 1: Brown meats together in a pan over medium-high heat until no longer pink. Drain grease. Step 2: Mix onion, basil, oregano, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes into pizza sauce. Add to pan of pork and beef. Step 3: Simmer meat and sauce mixture over medium to low heat for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Step 4: Preheat oven to 375 F. Split the hoagie rolls open. Layer each roll with the meat and sauce mixture and mozzarella cheese. Wrap each sandwich individually in foil and bake for 15 minutes in the oven. Serve hot with banana pepper rings as an optional topping. More Italian Sandwich Inspiration 20 Timeless Italian Sandwich Recipes To Try ASAP 17 of the World's Best Sandwiches Slow Cooker Italian Beef Recipe Read the original article on ALLRECIPES
Washington Post
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
A Vermont dairy farm was raided. The mixed messages from Washington since then have increased fears
MONTPELIER, Vt. — After six 12-hour shifts milking cows, José Molina-Aguilar's lone day off was hardly relaxing. On April 21, he and seven co-workers were arrested on a Vermont dairy farm in what advocates say was one of the state's largest-ever immigration raids. 'I saw through the window of the house that immigration were already there, inside the farm, and that's when they detained us,' he said in a recent interview. 'I was in the process of asylum, and even with that, they didn't respect the document that I was still holding in my hands.' Four of the workers were swiftly deported to Mexico. Molina-Aguilar, released after a month in a Texas detention center with his asylum case still pending, is now working at a different farm and speaking out. 'We must fight as a community so that we can all have, and keep fighting for, the rights that we have in this country,' he said. The owner of the targeted farm declined to comment. But Brett Stokes, a lawyer representing the detained workers, said the raid sent shock waves through the entire Northeast agriculture industry. 'These strong-arm tactics that we're seeing and these increases in enforcement, whether legal or not, all play a role in stoking fear in the community,' said Stokes, director of the Center for Justice Reform Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School. That fear remains given the mixed messages coming from the White House. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to deport millions of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally, last month paused arrests at farms, restaurants and hotels. But less than a week later, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said worksite enforcement would continue. Such uncertainty is causing problems in big states like California , where farms produce more than three-quarters of the country's fruit and more than a third of its vegetables. But it's also affecting small states like Vermont, where dairy is as much a part of the state's identity as its famous maple syrup. Nearly two-thirds of all milk production in New England comes from Vermont, where more than half the state's farmland is dedicated to dairy and dairy crops. There are roughly 113,000 cows and 7,500 goats spread across 480 farms, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, which pegs the industry's annual economic impact at $5.4 billion. That impact has more than doubled in the last decade, with widespread help from immigrant labor. More than 90% of the farms surveyed for the agency's recent report employed migrant workers. Among them is Wuendy Bernardo, who has lived on a Vermont dairy farm for more than a decade and has an active application to stop her deportation on humanitarian grounds: Bernardo is the primary caregiver for her five children and her two orphaned younger sisters, according to a 2023 letter signed by dozens of state lawmakers. Hundreds of Bernardo's supporters showed up for her most recent check-in with immigration officials. 'It's really difficult because every time I come here, I don't know if I'll be going back to my family or not,' she said after being told to return in a month. Like Molina-Aguilar, Rossy Alfaro also worked 12-hour days with one day off per week on a Vermont farm. Now an advocate with Migrant Justice, she said the dairy industry would collapse without immigrant workers. 'It would all go down,' she said. 'There are many people working long hours, without complaining, without being able to say, 'I don't want to work.' They just do the job.' ___ Ramer reported from Concord, N.H.
CTV News
01-07-2025
- General
- CTV News
Quebec dairy farmer chasing down runaway herd with help of drones, neighbours
A Holstein cow stands in a pasture at a dairy farm near Calgary in an Aug. 31, 2016, file photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh A Quebec dairy farmer is relying on drones and the help of family and friends to try to track down a herd of Holstein cattle that escaped their enclosure over the weekend. François Morissette says 24 young animals ran through a fence Saturday night after getting spooked by fireworks. Since then, they've dispersed into small groups and travelled several kilometres around Saint-Gabriel-de-Rimouski, about 300 kilometres northeast of Quebec City. Morrissette says he's been able to round up 15 of the skittish animals but nine remain missing. He says he's getting help from family and neighbours, including a person who has used a drone to help find them. He says he's not giving up on recapturing the rest of the herd, even though they've run into the woods where they're much harder to track. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 1, 2025.
BBC News
30-06-2025
- BBC News
Dartmoor dairy farm 10-year ban for chronic neglect of cattle
A family who ran a Dartmoor dairy farm have been banned from keeping animals for ten years due to chronic neglect of their Dunn, 50, of East Barton Farm, Exbourne, Devon, admitted 22 food hygiene offences and 24 animal welfare charges at Exeter Magistrates' parents Rosamund Dunn, 76, and Edmund Dunn, 79, admitted ten animal welfare judge Stuart Smith said the hygiene concerns at their milk parlour risked the health of the public who bought their milk products. He added that animal carcasses were found around the farms, lame and emaciated cows had to be euthanised by vets, animals were never treated for their ailments and they were living in hazardous conditions on the farm. 'Buried in mud' The judge said animals were surrounded by rubbish, including pipes, gas canisters, cables, metal sheets and old tyres as they tried to get to water and said one carcass was buried in mud and had been there for days or weeks. Another dead cow was lying in a slurry channel risking contamination of the water Herc Ashworth said William Dunn was 'overwhelmed' by the task and despite getting plenty of advice and support, things just got defence lawyer said these were 'distressing and serious offences' and claimed the family were struggling to recover from Covid when staff were laid off and costs increased by £25,000 a month. Three months to sell The lawyer said: "William Dunn was a one man band. It was a large farm operation with one person to manage the whole thing."The Dunns admitted a number of offences in the prosecutions brought by Trading Standards and the Food Standards have been given three months to sell their 170 strong herd owned by the Dunn parents, with William Dunn running the parents were also fined £3,053 each and William Dunn was fined a total of £27,000.
The Independent
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Why this UK dairy farm swapped milk production for cow cuddling
A dairy farm in England 's northeast decided to stop milking its cows and instead charge visitors to cuddle them, a unique pivot driven by years of devastating floods and low food prices. Dumble Farm, established as a dairy operation in the 1970s, faced insurmountable challenges in recent years. Persistent flooding repeatedly washed out crops and destroyed the specific grass vital for their herd, while milk prices plummeted below the cost of production, making traditional farming economically unviable. "The amount of flooding and the pressures on our land were just making it unsustainable for us to carry on," Fiona Wilson, co-owner of the farm, said. Agriculture is one of the sectors worst-affected by climate change, with farmers in Europe and elsewhere suffering under increasing heat, drought and flooding. In 2022, Dumble Farm sold all but a few of its dairy cows and, in a scramble to reinvent itself, began offering "cow cuddling" experiences to fund a wildlife conservation scheme. For 95 pounds, visitors can cuddle, brush and stroke the cows as they lie down on a straw-covered enclosure inside a barn. The experience includes a safari to see Highland cattle. "It's been so worth it, just to get so close to the cows, and they are so loving and gentle," guest Emma Hutton, 25, said after she spent some time cuddling one of the cows. It took over a year to train the cows to feel comfortable with cuddling, but now the animals have fully adjusted, farmer James McCune said. "They like being pampered. They are like big dogs... It's more of a spa day for the cows," McCune said. The farm uses the proceeds to create habitats to protect wildlife and support declining species, such as lapwing birds. "It's great that we can fund the conservation scheme by having visitors to the farm, and that's really the bigger picture," Wilson said.
