Making ground beef

Sometimes I find beef roast or steak at a price cheaper than the price of ground beef.  A very, very long time ago I had a hand crank grinder.  It was also one of the things I gave away in a fit of organizing.  I regret that decision as well.  

Now that I have a new Kitchen Aid with a grinder attachment I'm making my own ground beef again.  Yippie!  I'd still love to have a hand crank grinder again.  I may start watching the thrift stores to see if I can find one.

Ok, about making the ground beef..... I take a pack or two or three of discounted beef.  Whatever amount I want to use. 

I cut it into strips small enough to fit into the grinder attachment.  Partially freezing for about half an hour  helps the cutting be much easier to do.

I feed it through the grinder a piece at a time.

It comes out like this. 

Before I know it there's a whole bowl full of ground beef. 

Simply pack it away in freezer bags. 

Other options could be to cook it right away to be frozen and used in quick fix meals.  I could mix up a couple of meat loaves to freeze and be ready to cook.  There are lots of options about how to use ground beef once I have it. 

I had to laugh at my neighbor who came over when I was grinding the beef.  He asked what I was doing and I told him.  What?  You can do that?  How?  So I showed him how I made my own ground beef.  He didn't know people could make it themselves.  He thought only stores could make it.  Then I got really sad.  Far too many things have disappeared from the grocery shelves in favor of convenience.  Our younger generation doesn't know what real food is these days.  Their taste buds are trained to believe starchy fillers to be zapped in a microwave are the way foods are supposed to taste.  There are so many things I remember from only about 40 years ago that are no longer available in the stores.

There was a time when I could go to the butcher and get a pack of beef or pork fat to make my own lard for cooking.  Despite what we have been told by the media hype; lard is not a bad thing to cook with. Bits of meat in the fat became cracklings to flavor other dishes.  There was a time when all meat came with bones in it.  Bones were saved to make our own beef or chicken stock.  These days bones are removed from the meat before it's sold. 

There was a time when, as a young person, I learned to cut up a chicken into 10 or 12 pieces for a family meal.  Even the back, neck, gizzard, heart, and liver were eaten when we had chicken for Sunday dinner.  My father loved the back and neck.  I loved the gizzard and liver.  When was the last time you saw a pack of backs, necks, and gizzards sold in a store?  If you are a young person you may not have ever seen those chicken parts in the grocery. 

Sad, so sad.  What have we done to our younger generations?  Is it too late to reverse the damage?  I don't know but I'm sure going to do all I can and as much as I can to educate the younger generation about lost skills by posting them on my blogs.