With food prices ever increasing, I'm always looking for ways to shave costs from our grocery bill every month. Who isn't? Shopping around for the best deals, buying in bulk, and recently couponing. I'm, by far, not the next edition of extreme couponing, but I digress.
A few months back, sausage had gotten so expensive that I stopped buying it. I joked that pork roasts and even loins were cheaper per pound that I should just make my own. Surprise, The Mom has a meat grinder. Of course she does.
Now, with droughts, diseases, and recalls, beef prices are so insane I'm fantasizing about stealing one of the neighbor's cows. Don't worry, I could never actually kill a cow, my freezer isn't big enough.
Luckily, for the cow, our local Kroger had a sale recently where hamburger meat was 3.49/lb. This is still out of the park on my budget. However, at the same time, Angus beef was 2.99/lb. Which is not only cheaper, but it has a lot less fat. Since Angus beef is normally well over the $6 mark, I decided this was too good of a deal to pass up and splurged.
I reasoned that now would be a great time to put the grinder to use. I was thinking that it would be pretty straight forward. How hard can this be, right?
As it turns out grinding meat by hand is not for the faint of heart. I wouldn't say that it's extremely labor intensive. Tedious, yes. However, there is a great deal more prep work than I ever imagined. Initially, our meat grinder (maybe all of them, who knows), clamps onto a stationary surface. Of course my counter tops would be designed so that they are ill suited to accomplish this. So I spent the better part of an hour trying to find a surface that was steady enough, the right thickness, wouldn't break under the clamp.
After finding a reasonably appropriate (or so I thought) surface, I proceeded to clean and prep the grinder. Of course it came with directions. I would like to go on record now stating that men have no business writing instructions for anything... ever. The pictures don't match the descriptions, or the grinder for that matter. The handle doesn't fit properly, and it takes a minute to figure out how to hold everything at the right angle so that the front plate is flush and the ring will fit on.
It was at that point I realized that the surface was at an awkward level. Believe me, stooping to crank a machine for 40 minutes, is not pleasant on the back. Also The Mom’s idea, to put a ‘buffer’ between the clamp to save her table, resulted in a less than perfect grip causing the grinder to slip.
The actual process of grinding the meat wasn’t horrible. There was an unexpected hiccup with stray connectivity tissue winding around the blades in the front of the grinder, but all in all it went smoothly, for once.
The finished product exceeded my expectations. It wasn’t tough or stringy, the taste was amazing, and there was absolutely no fat to drain off of it. One of my biggest beefs ;), with commercial ground beef is that up to 30% of it is ADDED fat or injected solutions. When it’s cooked you end up with a pan full of grease or water and very little meat.
In the end, I learned two important things. Sweat equity is expensive and I need more upper body strength. With better tools and proper planning, I think grinding meat wouldn’t be as much of a challenge. It is definitely something I will do in the future to save money and still eat what I love.
4 comments:
Hello Rosalind and congratulations on starting your new blog. I like that you are using labels, as your blog posts grow these will be so useful to your visitors. I hopped over here from the comment you left on Mary Ylisela's Go Crochet Crazy blog. You have a nice way of writing and I read all your post, so true to my own blogging rule here is my comment:-)
I have always thought that prepared ground mince from the supermarket must have an enormous mark-up to the consumer, whilst at the same time it is bulked out with water etc as you have said. Also the meat used is often the poorest quality meat to start with. I like that you have thought this through and I also like that you are prepared to look at your shopping habits and look for ways to save money and improve the quality of the food you prepare.
I am from the United Kingdom and my blog is mostly about crochet and recently I have started some garden posts, as this year I am remodelling my small back garden into (hopefully) a better space for us. I am hoping to grow some edible plants in my small space as I would like to harvest direct from own garden to the kitchen. I will never be self sufficient as I do not have the space, but I am hopefully going to have a nice space outside by the end of the season.
bye for now
Linda x
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Hi Rosalind,
I also found your blog from your comment on crochet crazy.
I just recently started my second blog as I am trying to eat better and lose weight and one of the things I'm contemplating is making our own sausage and our own mince beef.
Like you say, the mince we buy is really less than desirable generally.
One of my friends husband makes their own sausage and mince and he recommends it, so I've been looking around at second hand mincers etc. The one in your picture looks almost exactly like what my mum had when i was younger. I can remember watching her mince all the meat up.
It makes me feel more determined to hurry and find one for us.
:)
Sounds delicious! Lately when I shop I only buy chicken or pork chops because I don't want to spend more than $2 per pound. I'd like to go vegetarian and skip the meat altogether but my family will not get on board with that! You are a better person than I. I would not have the patience to grind my own.
Linda, Thanks for your words of encouragement! Actually we live in a pretty rural community, unfortunately, we live on a mountainside so the options are limited for us to garden on a large scale. We're using a mix of containers and raised beds we built last year to garden this year. It's pretty new to us so I hope to have some success!
Kim, I have had a few 'false' starts on blogging in the years previously. I just couldn't find my voice. Also I had trouble 'specializing', I'm in awe of people that do. I'm eager to read your new blog on healthy eating, I am probably going to start a series about my experiences with the big D word soon.
The Mom found our meat grinder at the local GoodWill, new in the box, for like 10 bucks. I haven't really checked around for them myself, I wish you luck in finding one. (I'm still holding out hope for a KitchenAide mixer one day and all the attachments ;) )
Christen, I feel you! $2/lb is usually my cap off too, but we were lucky enough to find chicken breasts for $0.99/lb this month so we ate a little more chicken and I had a little extra to splurge with.
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