Tuesday, October 13, 2009

It only seems appropriate...

OR NOT! For this to be my next post.
But here it goes anyway...

I am always excited when one of "my men" bring home a big kill. (elk and deer)
However, if I were to be honest, (AND I am an honest person) the thought of processing the animal looms over me. I know what is to come and it is unavoidable!

OK...so, we let the elk hang in the garage for 5 days to cure.
(I will spare you the pics of that scene)

Then it was time to "process" it! Oh joy.
(yes, there is a tinge of sarcasm in that statement.)
Don't get me wrong, I am thankful that we have organic elk meat and that the processing is something our family does together and that we save tons of money by doing it ourselves.
It's just the process. It's time consuming. It makes for a long day.
But it is all good. Because in the end - - we have yummy eats in our freezer to last us a year. So, really, who am I to complain?

Abbi and Hudson then cleaned off the bones and cut the meat in small chunks.

Weston ground the small chunks. Elizabeth weighed and bagged the meat.

Maggie and I used this handy dandy little machine. We sealed and dated the goods. Then out to the freezer it went. Without this, this task would be extremely difficult. It is a Foodsaver Air Vac sealer. LOVE IT!!

fyi- Dani and Tessa took naps. The lucky ones! :)

The other necessity for processing meat (for us) is the Bosch Universal. We actually use it for bread, baked goods and fruit shakes but with an extra attachment we are able to grind meat.

P.S. I have not been able to get my pictures to post. I think the problem is with Blogger and I am looking into it. So, for now, there are no pictures. This is probably a good post to NOT have pictures. 

2 comments:

Cinnamon said...

Yes, thank you for NOT having the pictures. Although we'd love to see all your smiling faces :-)

The girls excitedly got the letter from Abbi and Maggie today.

They've already written back.

~Cinnamon

Devin and Tiffany said...

Hey, Dev got a deer for the first time this weekend. It is curing right now, any tips for us? We have no idea what we are doing, but would love to do it ourselves. If you have any advice please share, also venison recipes, I have no idea how to fix it. Thanks!!