Meat week

We have spent the week working on various smoked and cured meats getting ready for Christmas.  I have ground or processed close to 200# of meat!  Something new for this year is a ground flat jerky.  We make jerky every year, but this year I bought a jerky gun and been playing with different recipes.

I didn't get a lot of pictures, making sausages is pretty labor intensive and messy...and my daughter was out of town visiting her cousins.  These are the ground sticks, aka slim-jims.

Once pressed out of the jerky gun they are slow dried in the oven at 200º.

I made a LOT of slim-jims.  I didn't count them, but it was about 5# of ground meat.  That is a LOT of slim-jims!!

Once done, they are a very tasty treat packed with protein.  Next was Summer Sausage and hot links.  I dry these in the oven for a short time before moving them to the smoker.  We made several varieties of Summer Sausages....Beef/Pork mixture (using our home grown pork), all Beef, and Venison/Pork with varying degrees of spiciness. 

We should have the last of the meat done by the end of the weekend.  We have a turkey ham in the cure, another turkey waiting to be smoked, and 9# of bologna setting up in the fridge.

And finally I took some time out and noticed how beautiful the trees in the yard are.  We lost a big tree this year, but it hasn't hurt the view.