My oldest daughter is now 19. A month before her birthday her son turned one year old. I'm one proud Geema but I'll tell write more about that in another post at another time. At the birthday party, my dd's friend's boyfriend & my husband sparked up a conversation. They ended up exchanging numbers because they're both "Outdoorsmen". A few weeks later, the new friendly hunter was able to get a young deer during muzzleloader season & dropped it off at our house that evening.
That very night Jason & the kids went out back & got to work on processing the deer. They absolutely loved it. Some would say that is gruesome but it's very educational. Eating natural food off the land is very healthy for the body as well. Venison is so super uber lean as well. Every kill, even though this one was given to us, we say a prayer in gratitude for the harvest. My grandfather always said to never kill for sport or in vain. Take what you need for your family & use as much as you can, so that's what we do.
Below are so pictures from me playing around while making some yummy Jerky, Bratwurst & Bologna. Instead of finding recipes & doing everything from scratch, Jason bought us kits from LEM. They were awesome to use! He even got me a jerky gun & made making jerky easy peasy.
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The meat is so fresh & bright in color.
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I love this grinder attachment on my kitchen aid mixer
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| This is the mix of ground pork shoulder & venison. You have to add a really fatty meat to venison prior to making sausages because venison is soon lean. Pork is used because its flavor will not overpower the venison but take it on & keep the sausage from being dry. |
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| The bowl at the bottom is strickly venison for jerky. The top bowl was cut in half for brats and bologna |
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I used original & he told me I don't listen because he requested teriyaki.
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| Jerky meat mixed prior to going in the jerky gun. |
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Racks on racks on racks of jerky. Cured & slow cooking in the oven.
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| I was surprised at how well the bologna turned out. I had never mad that before. |
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This seasoning for the brats was perfect. The flavor was on point.
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| The casing on the left is for the brats & the casing on the right is for the bologna. |
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Here I have the casings soaking to prepare them for bologna & bratwurst
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| This is one of the many packs of cheese he bought. It's pretty darn good. |
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When he got home from work he couldn't wait to change out of his work clothes so he could play in the ground venison. He added his high-temp cheese to the last batch of brats.
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| This is a very complicated process. I'm getting better at it but it's not perfect. This is the bratwurst. |
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| Jason taking a sample of that yummy goodness. It was delicious. |
