My husband and I recently became Paleo and now pretty exclusively eat grass fed beef (vs industrial feedlot beef). We've found that Whole Foods (downtown) generally has an affordable selection of cuts, and we usually end up getting a 2.5 lb chuck roast at 5.99/lb for the slow cooker. I've heard that buying a partial cow and paying for processing is a pretty affordable way to eat more grassfed beef (along with nicer cuts), as long as you have the freezer capacity. I did some initial research on Texas farms that offer this, and I have listed them below. My question is, has anyone ever done this, and if so, what farm would you recommend?

http://www.beefmaster-ranch.com/orderform.htm
http://www.darbyfarms.com/purchaseinformation.html
http://www.nativesonranch.com/nsrbeefforsale.html
http://shadygroveranch.net/products/b...

I'm so happy I found this thread! Whenever I eat out, what makes or breaks my experience is the quality of their desserts. Here are my standouts, after eating my way through $-$$$ restaurants these past few years:

Foreign and Domestic -> (Deconstructed) Banana Tart
I'll let the photos do the talking: http://blog.fndaustin.com/2011/11/cre...

Walton's Fancy and Staple -> Flourless Chocolate Hearts
At $1.50, they're relatively affordable. For dark chocolate lovers, as it is not that sweet (vs. every other dessert there

Lick Ice Cream -> Any flavor, but I like salted caramel, coconut+avocado cream, and their seasonal spiked eggnog
It's the best ice cream in town, IMHO. The flavors are excellent, creative, *fresh*, local, and not too creamy or too sweet to give you a tummyache if you want to eat a TON

Wheatsville Co-op -> Vegan Peanut Butter Cups
You can find these in the deli section, when they're not sold out. So rich and chocolately and peanutty. They make Reese's PB cups taste artificial and cloying. Other places in town that make their own VPB cups but aren't as good: Quack's Bakery, Progress Coffee

Upper Crust Bakery (and Quack's Bakery) -> Sugared cinnamon roll
If you like cinnamon rolls, you've got to try this. It's crammed with butter and sugar, and it's a delight to peel it and eat it layer by layer

Fabi + Rosi -> crack pie hooch cream
It's Austin's version of Momofuku's crack pie. Super simple, very sweet, oh so satisfying if you've got a major sweet tooth happening.

Enjoy! We live in a wonderful city where people demand good desserts, and get them!

Let me preface this by saying, I am a chocolate fiend! I used to buy a bar of Chocolove every other day (mm toffee & almonds in milk!), thinking that the $2.35 price at my nearby Natural Grocers was a steal. The bar is 3.5 oz and when I finally did the math, it calculates out to $11.75/lb. This is more than I'll pay for grassfed beef! So imagine my delight when I found bulk chocolate "buttons" sold at Central Market for a mere $8.99/ lb. It's not super cheap, but it is really high quality chocolate generally only sold to distributors and not direct to consumers. Alas the manufacturer's name eludes me now, but it is on par with Valrhona - I'll follow up on this post when I find out!