My First Deer...

I have never had a problem eating or cooking deer meat.  So, when I married my wonderful mountain man, I was thrilled he enjoyed hunting and more than happy to use the meat from the deer he killed.  This has saved us a great deal of money in just the (almost) 5 years we have been married.  The past couple years though, we have become a one income family.  Which means I look for any way to save us money each month.  Although using the deer meat sounds totally free...it isn't.  Each year we have to purchase a hunting license, then each deer has to be processed ($55-$75 approx).  While that is still cheaper than purchasing meat at the grocery store (not to mention this meat has no preservatives, additives, or extra hormones) it was not always easy to find the extra money in that lump sum...

Well...I got to thinking...scary!  Why don't we do this ourselves?  We have family that does, it doesn't seem that difficult.  So, when my sweet husband called me that he had killed a deer, and to ask what I preferred that we do with it, I told him I really wanted us to try and process it ourselves.  He said, 'Are you sure?'  I said, absolutely!  We can do this!  Well, we did it!  We had a few hiccups though...

I had seen an electric meat grinder at a local store, so I planned on going out to buy that first thing in the morning.  For some crazy reason though, I decided to research that grinder before I went to the store...well, the reviews were not wonderful.  So, I tried to find other meat grinders in stock near us, that were affordable - guess what - NO LUCK!

So, we pulled out the hand grinder...oh my!!  I pray we never have to use that hand grinder again.  It served its purpose well, but hand grinding almost 40 lbs of meat was no picnic.  I didn't even do the majority of the grinding...I was packaging!  However, we DID process our own deer!  I am working on getting our electric grinder ordered ASAP!



Have you ever processed your own deer?  Do you have an electric meat grinder?  If so, what recommendations do you have?  I will be sure to update you on what we get and how it works!