The things that I learn from blogging! For one thing, as stupid as it sounds, it never once occurred to me that I could make my own mincemeat. Your comments led me down a google rabbit hole for sure, and I found a recipe that sounds as simple as...well...pie. So I'm going to make my own mincemeat at some point. I don't know why I never thought of such a thing. Thanks.
Today, we spent the day cutting up and packaging the two deer for the freezer. It was a full days work. We got about 60 more packages of meat in the freezer: chops, steaks, roasts, and hamburger. Tim is very happy with the meat saw/grinder. We had the work done in probably 6 1/2 hours. All I know is that if I ever become a vegetarian, it will be after a day of meat cutting.
Tomorrow will be cleaning the garage and getting that back to rights.
They were calling for us to get a couple inches of snow last night and today. We got seven inches at least. It is still snowing, so hard telling what will happen. All I know is that 'Accuweather' doesn't seem to be all that accurate lately. There's another winter storm warning for our area, from the 4th-6th. They tell us to expect 3-10 inches of snow, and wind gusts up to 45 mph.
Meanwhile, in Erie, it's still snowing. Not all bad news though. A guy found his car.
I know nothing about it, but I am pretty sure that my mother would have made it from scratch.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that you are right. I have been reading about rendering beef fat to suet. The candied orange and lemon peels sounds easy enough. The rest of it is just mixing everything up and letting it cook. There is even a recipe for a crockpot version. It seems like the secret is just simmering it slowly and letting everything cook and blend. Just amazes me that I never gave this a thought.
DeleteSo much snow. We hardly ever see it here so it is a real novelty when we get some. I hope yours doesn't cause you too much disruption.
ReplyDeleteWell, we're not even close to being as hard hit as they are west of us, near to the lake, so basically, it's just a matter of keeping an eye on the weather. We will be heading out shortly to put the garage back to rights and to get the truck back inside and to take care of the kittens. We will be back home well before the 4 o'clock storm is supposed to hit.
DeleteYou must have a huge freezer!
ReplyDeleteI was chatting to a young woman the other day who had always thought that mincemeat was actual meat! Hence she had never had a mince pie in probably 30 years of life in this country. Thought they would be disgusting !
The mincemeat I grew up with as a child in rural Maine WAS made with meat, usually deer meat. I never liked it, even though all my little friends thought it was a real treat. I cannot stomach even the idea of today's mincemeat--because of the suet, it does have that meaty taste to me as well.
DeleteFrances, not so large. It's a chest freezer, and it is quite full of meat. But we also have a freezer we can fill at the new house (the other half of the fridge) and a freezer in our kitchen here, which is used for vegetables, mostly. Lynn, to be honest, I'm not a fan of mincemeat pies. I like it when it is cooked into other things, like Grandma Vi's fruitcake, which is deliciousness.
DeleteThe Delia Smith mincemeat recipe is the best if you can find her/it- she was well known TV cook here for ages, actually it might be on my recipe page.
ReplyDeleteGOOD GRIEF - that buried car!!
Sue, I did look at that recipe yesterday, but I had a question. She called for 4 tsp. of spice. She also called for 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg. So. What spice is she talking about when she speaks of 4 tsp. of 'spice'? I know that I can get raisins and sultanas here, but I'm not sure about currants. Although I wonder if chopped cranberries might work.
DeleteWe almost never get snow along the south coast of England. Glad you are going to make your own mincemeat, you won't regret it, I use coconut oil in mine rather than any types of suet.
ReplyDeleteI see that there are vegetarian and traditional mince meat recipes. I checked right away to see if the Nonesuch that I always use has beef. It does. Since it calls for lean beef, I think that venison could be used as Lynn said. It would be interesting to make half batches of both and see if there is a difference to it.
DeleteMincemeat did start out as meat plus fruit and spices to preserve it, several hundred years ago. I'm not sure when it moved over to the totally fruit version. The word "meat" also just meant "food" at one time.
ReplyDeleteLike poppy I use coconut oil..before that was easy to get I used vegetarian suet, aka palm oil...
I had never heard of vegetarian suet until I fell down a rabbit hole yesterday. It will certainly be interesting to try.
DeleteAh, but if you look on the ingredient label, it does list some beef broth in that lovely mincemeat. Not sure what Google says about it's history. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteYou are right. It does.
DeleteSix and a half hours! That's a day's hard work. Lovely to have your freezer full, though.
ReplyDeleteIt was a long day to be on our feet, but when the kids were at home, when we did not have an electric meat saw or grinder, that kind of work would take us a couple days to do a deer. (We were also doing it after work and school). So doing two deer in one day was amazingly quick to us.
DeleteYour weather seems quite extreme. I've found our government weather bureau to be the most accurate for weather.
ReplyDeleteI complain about how many ramps I have to drive down before I can exit our car park. My issue seems minor compared to finding you car in a snow drift.
It's not like that for us, thank goodness. We have perhaps 7 or 8 inches on the ground. It falls fluffy and tends to flatten down. We are expecting more today, but no one is pinning down an amount. 3-10. We're bracing for 10 but hoping for 3.
DeleteI can't remember if I read whether or not you guys have a generator, as I am thinking about all of your meat. We have had estimates from 2 companies for the automatic kind, and GOD, they are expensive! One estimate was 15g, the other around 12g. We have experienced several times without power and of course, have a gas powered generator to save the freezer stuff and our fridge stuff. But they are big and heavy, even on wheels, and require so much babysitting to run. Also, at this last outage we had, I asked my Hubs, what will I do if something happens to you, and I am here alone, trying to drag a giant generator out and fill it with gas? Sure, right now, I can still do most things on my own. But I am not getting any younger.
ReplyDeleteWe do intend to have a generator. The power goes out a lot more frequently there than it does here. Luckily, we have a brother in law and a nephew who have installed their own generators, and have offered to help with ours, so all we'd have to do is buy the generator. Still though, when power tends to go out here, it is only for a matter of hours, or maybe a day. As long as the freezer door stays shut, your food will stay frozen for that amount of time.
DeleteI made vegetarian mincemeat one year. One of my daughters has been a vegetarian since she was a relatively young child but remembered how much she had loved mincemeat pie. Of course, without the meat, it wasn't technically mincemeat but it was delicious, nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteWe'll try both. I'm interested in this little experiment, which will wait until after the first of the year. I have always wanted to render beef fat though, to make bird food, and it can be bought in good quantity from the butcher shop up on the hill.
DeleteWe've had the cold but not the snow yet. Hope you stay safe, Debby.
ReplyDeleteWhere are you again, Ellen. I've forgotten. We are perfectly safe. We don't have to go out, generally speaking, although Tim wants to go back out hunting tomorrow and next week. We don't need the venison, so that takes the pressure off. He can relax and enjoy it, and come home when he's not having fun.
Delete