Meat Processing 2011

On the last weekend in February, we headed down to Nada to process and prepare the meat our family will eat for the year.





The starting totals this year (for four families and one guest):
Deer 249 pounds
Deer Jerky 18 pounds
Wild Pork 104 pounds
Purchased Pork 120 pounds
Total.... 491 pounds of meat!



Usually, we are able to use wild hog for 100% of the hog meat, but this year, they had a hard time trapping wild hogs, so we had to buy pork from a local meat market. It was easier than cleaning a hog, but also not free.

All of that meat went into the four variations of processed meat we make each year:


Jerky, dried sausage (like jerky), summer sausage, kielbasa-stlye sausage and ground meat.

Most of the meat is ground in two industiral sized meat grinders (I usually end up running a grinder for most of Saturday).





We brought home 98 pounds of finished meat this year. 35 pounds ground meat, 50 pounds of sausage (yikes, this sounds like a lot!), 8 pounds of summer sausage, 5 pounds of dried sausage and jerky. My family will eat this for the next 12 months... and with 50 pounds of sausage, that means I need to serve 1 sausage per week!

Menu Planning continued

May 17-23
Sunday- Deer sausage with mac n cheese
Monday-- Chicken spaghetti
Tuesday-- chili with cornbread and dried beans (first time without canned beans)
Wednesday-- Fiddler on the Roof, dinner out
Thursday-- Breaded chicken and spiral pasta
Friday-- out to Bells
Saturday-- at Bells

May 24-30
Sunday-- Homegrown chickens, garden potatoes, garden squash, box mix stuffing (can't grow that!)


Monday--Chicken,Spinach and Swiss chard enchiladas with avacado and garden squash and spinach salad

Tuesday--Stroganoff

Wednesday--

Thursday--

Friday--date night

Menu Planning

The same discussion is repeated every afternoon: "What do you want for dinner?" "I don't care, what do YOU want for dinner?" repeat, over and over and over. We attempted a weeks worth of menus, but apparently this still required my questioning Curtis too much... so he printed off 5 weeks worth of menus from another blog. We spent some time making it our own and as of week 3, we are doing really great at it. The concept is that I do not HAVE to follow the plan exactly, but if I have no other idea, I can just refer back to 'the list'. After 5 weeks, we repeat. I know this will need some updating for the seasons, but overall, the idea has worked very well. I'm showing what we actually ate below for the first three weeks and our plan for mealas after that. I'll see if Curtis can link to the original list. The original list only gives 5 meals per week, but even I can be creative for two days a week.

Week 1
Sunday: Sausage and Beans
Monday: Navy bean soup with bacon and homemade bread
Tuesday: Baked chicken and potatoes
Wednesday: out--burgers at a friend's house
Thursday: Taco nachos
Friday: Enchiladas (with leftover chicken from Tuesday)
Saturday: Spaghetti and fresh bread

Week 2:
Sunday: Crawfish (80lbs for $20--wow!)
Monday: Chicken Pot Pie (still leftovers from the previous week)
Tuesday: Crawfish Ettuffe
Wednesday: Mexican casserole and homemade tortillas (only because we were out of the normal kind)
Thursday: Crawfish Yvette over pasta
Friday:
Saturday: Meatloaf

80 lbs of crawfish is enough to fill a swimming pool and a large cooler. Good thing we have friends who love to eat!

Week 3:
Sunday: Steak and baked potatoes, corn on the cob(Mother's Day)
Monday: Chicken fried backstrap, mashed potatoes and gravy with lima beans
Tuesday: Lasagna and french bread
Wednesday: Chicken Fingers and oven fries with peas
Thursday:
Friday: out--to the lake house
Saturday: at the lake house

Planned Meals for future weeks
Week 4
taco soup
cashew chicken
chili and fritos
chicken spaghetti
sausage with mac n cheese

Week 5
Crockpot BBQ pork
grilled chicken breasts
burritos
pizza
vegetable soup and bread


The list has given me a shopping target each week, even if I end up making something slightly different, at least it is an idea for the meal. Curtis also responds much better if I give him an option, rather than asking an open question... now wait. I have heard that recommendation before... what was it, OH YES, it is how you pose questions to a two year old so as not to overwhelm them with too many choices. HA!