I’ve enjoyed a great deer season this year, and I’ve added enough wild venison and pork to see my family through the year, or at least until the 2023 season reopens in September. I do all of my own processing of the meat, and though it’s a chore, it’s also a comfort knowing that my family is eating healthy, free-range protein, fresh from the field, with full knowledge of how cleanly it was handled. We live pretty close to the land and enjoy the benefits of it.
I get a lot of doubt from folks about hunting for meat versus the sport of it. I don’t have deer heads hanging from my walls from my forty-plus years of hunting them. I don’t have any stuffed boars in my home or strutting turkeys, either. I take lots of photos of my success in the field, but the real trophy, the only one that matters, is the excellent dining it affords. For instance, only this weekend, we enjoyed venison fajitas and a big venison meatloaf. Not bragging; just giving an example.
If you want to eat healthier, without the hormones, E. coli, salmonella, or antibiotics found in commercially raised meats, wild game is your best bet. So, recently, I fired up the grinder and mixed up a seasoning blend to make some homemade sausage. It turned out amazing, and I’d encourage all of you to give sausage-making a try. There’s no one way to make sausage; it depends on your personal taste, but I have a few recipes that have become favorites with our family over the years. I’d love to share them with you too if you’d like; just shoot me a quick e-mail, and I’ll be very happy to pass them along.
I begin with a course grinding plate and run through five or ten pounds at a time. Next, I add in my seasoning concoction and mix thoroughly for a good five minutes to help ensure the seasoning is mixed evenly before adding the fine grinding plate on my grinder and running the batch through once again. At that point, I divvy it up into even portions and package those into quart-sized freezer storage bags. I prefer to use my sausage in patty form, but if you’d rather case them, most grinders do come with easy-to-use casing attachments.
For beginner sausage makers, there are a number of sausage-making kits available, such as those found in the sporting goods section at Walmart, that come with easy-to-follow instructions and everything you need to get started. Well, except for the meat. That you have to provide yourself, and there are still a few parcels of state lands remaining open to hunting hogs. I’d love to meet some of you folks; if you need any help acquiring that, I’ll do what I can to help out. In fact, I’m heading south on February 7th for another pig; this time, I’ll be firing a new prototype broadhead I designed for traditional archers. Hopefully, it works as planned, and I’ll have some cool photos to share with you all down the road.
As always, if you have any comments or questions or just want to share your success from the woods, give me a shout-out at [email protected]. God Bless and good hunting!
