Where's the Beef?

My uncle and cousin raise Angus cows.  I have often mentioned to my mom that I would love to buy one from them to have processed.  She mentioned it to them in either December or January and, after many phone calls, we now have a freezer full of wonderful  Angus beef.

It is a huge blessing to have all of that tasty meat just ready for the grill, stovetop, or oven, but at the same time it causes a little bit of a problem.  You see, next week we will pick up 100 chickens to raise for meat.  There is absolutely no room in our largest freezer right now!  The chickens will be ready for slaughter in about 8-10 weeks, so I have to get creative.  We had already been trying to eat up most of the vegetables and fruits from the freezer that have been in there since last summer...and some from the summer before.  I do have a large freezer as part of my refrigerator and a 6 cubic foot freezer that we generally use for our home-prepared freezer meals.  I really don't want to purchase another freezer as we would have to put it in our detached garage.  We've had a couple out there in the past, but I find it easy to forget that they are out there.  And then there is the added expense of running them as well.

So, what's a woman to do?  My plan is to can the meat....as much as I can!  : )  I plan on canning chili, spaghetti sauce, beef stew, beef tips in mushroom gravy, sloppy joes, taco meat, and just plain ground beef.  When we ordered our cuts from the butcher we requested he save and freeze the bones for us as well.  We had a large box with around 40 pounds of bones!!  This past week I roasted half of the bones and made beef broth and canned it!  It only took 5 days for the entire process, but we got 31 pints of beautiful, wonderfully nutritious beef broth!  This week I will work on getting the rest of the bones processed and that should definitely give us enough beef broth for the year.  What a blessing!

We'll also make many freezer meals using the ground beef such as this family favorite:

LASAGNA--this recipe has been in my family for about 38 years...we all love it.  My brother who was single for many years also makes this recipe and adds lots of veggies to it.


1 lb. ground chuck 

1 cup chopped onion
2 large gloves garlic, minced 

2 tsp. oregano, crushed
2 cans tomato soup

 ½ cup water
2 tsp vinegar

 ½ lb lasagne noodles (cooked & drained)
1 pint cottage cheese

 ½ lb mozzarella cheese, grated
grated Parmesan cheese

In saucepan, brown meat, cook onion, garlic, oregano. Add soup, water and vinegar. Simmer 30 minutes, stirring frequently. In baking dish, arrange 3 alternate layers of noodles, cottage cheese, meat sauce, mozzarella. Top with Parmesan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Let stand for 15 minutes. I usually double or triple as it freezes well.

Mini-meatloaves, meatballs, beef enchiladas and frozen grilled hamburgers are also some of our favorite beefy freezer meals.  If you have more canning or freezer ideas for the beef, I would love to hear them!!

I'm learning as I go on the canning and have Jackie Clay's canning cookbook to guide me.  Chicken ala  king, plain shredded chicken to use for salads, casseroles and fajitas, chicken stew, chicken soup, and chicken and rice soup.  And, of course, I will be canning all that chicken broth as well.  I'll also be pulling out some of our favorite chicken recipes for the freezer, too.  Creamy green chili chicken enchiladas for some reason the link is not showing up, but click on enchiladas for the recipe....I recently found that someone had pinned it on Pinterest!!)  are always a hit on our dinner table, a variety of seasoned chicken strips, cajun chicken, a variety of grilled chicken....oh, I'm hungry just thinking about it!!

If you have any canning tips for either chicken or beef, I would love for you to share them.  And, if you need me, you know where I'll be....keeping my busy hands and busy minds in the kitchen!!

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