Beef Heart

I've discussed at length my food ethics and my family's commitment to eating in a healthful and humane way, so this recipe will make a lot of sense to you all in that context. We budget in such a way as to allow for the best, most healthful food, which we afford by limiting our meat intake. If we eat vegetarian or vegan several times a week, we can buy local organic meat once or twice/week that was grass-fed and raised in a humane and sustainable way, and we can also afford more organic produce. With pregnancy, and especially early pregnancy when meat was about the only thing that eased my misery, my meat intake had to increase, but our budget didn't magically increase. And compromising our food ethics was not an option, so we had to get creative. At the farmer's market, I spoke with our favorite beef vendor and noticed beef heart on his list for $2/pound. I love so many things about this:

• The price, obviously. Grass-fed, organic, local beef for $2/pound. Yes, please.
• Avoiding waste. The choice steak cuts are in high demand, but there are many parts to a cow, and it is a shame to kill an animal without using as much of that animal as possible. The Native Americans were notorious for their creativity in using every part of an animal, but we consumer-driven Americans, unfortunately, are notorious for being incredibly wasteful.
• Although an organ, the heart is also a muscle. All of the steak cuts of a cow come from different muscles. Muscle is the part of an animal that we most commonly eat. Since the heart is also a muscle, it has a taste and texture very similar to that of a steak.

I have not yet ventured into preparing any other organs, but the heart is a great place to start. It's sort of that gateway between organ and muscle. Although, I am a very adventurous eater and would happily try pretty much any food, especially if it was prepared for me. Here's how we cooked our first beef heart. The one we purchased was cleaned already, so we just sliced it into stew-sized pieces. Since it was summer, we used the crockpot in order to avoid turning on the oven in 100+ degree heat. Here's what went in it:
1 beef heart, in chunks (approx 3 lb)
carrots (large pieces)
potatoes (quartered)
onion (sliced)
broth (an inch or so–keep an eye on it to see if you need to add more)
salt & pepper, as you like

After 8 hours in the crockpot on low, it was delicious served over rice or noodles. I had high hopes. Josh was skeptical. But, honestly, it was terrific, even he agreed. Tender, lean, flavorful. It tasted like any other beef stew. I don't even think you would know it was heart without being told. And with 3 pounds of meat, it easily lasted 2-3 meals for our family. I probably would have preferred to have twice the veggies and half the meat, but you have to buy the whole heart, and it's frozen, so you can't really save half of it for later once it's thawed. Only sorry I didn't get a photo.

Have you had beef heart? How did you prepare it? Or do you have experience cooking with any other organ meat?