Grinding your own beef (minus the pink slime) and tips on stocking up inexpensively

We've been grinding our own meat to make homemade ground beef here in the Cupcake household going on two years now, long before the disgusting revelation of Pink Slime came about, most recently covered by ABC News exposing that "70 percent of ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets contained the product." So for us, not getting all the weird ground up tidbits and chemicals in our meat that you would find in the store bought variety is really just a nice bonus.  Our main purpose for grinding our own meat when we first began doing so was to save money, plus you get a better quality ground beef that would normally cost a lot more at the local market.  The way we stock up and grind our beef gives us a wonderful, pure ground chuck and at just a sliver of the going rate.   I know the idea of stocking up on meat in large quantities and grinding a large portion of it may seem like a hassle, but the amount of time you do put into doing so is WELL worth the investment in time and effort.

The first step in stocking up on meat is making your purchases at peak sale times when you can get the best quality meat at the lowest prices.  I like to stock up my household quarterly, so four times a year, which gives me 3 months worth of meat for meals.  My two main proteins that I stock up on are beef and chicken. So I always have my eyes open going through the local grocery store ads that come out weekly.  When you watch how the sales in stores go for a while, you'll begin to learn when and what things go on sale, depending on the time of year, holidays approaching, etc. You will also learn which stores have the best sales on which meats. Our local Superior Foods usually has the best sale prices on chicken and pork, but especially chicken.  It's pretty frequent that they have good chicken sales.  Winco Foods, the place that makes it possible for me to live a life where I can cook most of our meals from scratch due to their amazing bulk foods section, usually discounts their meat on Thursday mornings.  So go early and look for the little yellow stickers to get your best steals.  Many times I have stocked up on package after package of chicken thighs or legs that were discounted to a mere dollar or two due to overstocking for preparation for an upcoming holiday.

This time around, with Independence day as the holiday that was going to be happening (which has now passed) it was a perfect time for meat to be on sale.  Which worked out perfect because we had reached our quarterly time for stocking up and were running low.  There was an amazing sale happening for boneless, skinless chicken thighs and it was going for just $0.99/lb with no limit on poundage.  SCORE!  But then the same store was also advertising their boneless beef chuck steaks at $2.27/lb, which is also a very good price for boneless chuck in our area.  It usually goes for $3.99/lb or more on a good day. So hubbs and I did not hesitate for a second, got the three kids loaded into the car, and headed to the store with our usual game plan in mind: Stock up on gallon size freezer bags and prepare to ask the butcher for the whole beef cuts from the back rather than the smaller portioned meat. This is the easiest way to buy the large quantities of beef for grinding without having to build up so much waste from buying package after package of one-meal sized roasts. So you want to make sure to be friendly with your local butcher, because he IS your friend when it comes to stocking up, and he can clue you in on upcoming sales as well as hook you up with the best cuts of meat from the back. Ya dig? So word to the wise, talk to the butcher right away and nicely ask for the whole hunks of meat from the back when you are ready to buy. On this past stock-up trip, we purchased three giant sides of the boneless chuck to grind (about 45 pounds worth) and 80 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  Our cart was literally FULL of meat.  People were looking at us like we were crazy.  DUH!  That's what makes us special.  ;oP

Alrighty, so the way we handle the copious amounts of meat for stocking up is buy a few boxes of the Ziploc freezer bags, bust out my Kitchen Aid mixer, attach the Food Grinder Attachment (which is worth EVERY penny), set out my food scale (because I'm THAT anal about measuring my meals out to be as even as possible) and create a work line with my hubby.  We bought a Kitchen Aid ceramic knife to cut the large hunk of meat into smaller, grindable sizes and I have nothing but praise for it.  It's like cutting through butter, it works THAT good. So hubbs takes the time to cut up the large hunks of beef into a big pile of manageable pieces and then as he runs the meat through the grinder, I scoop out the ground beef and spoon it into the gallon sized freezer bags and then plop them on the scale to make sure I'm putting in the right amount.  Each meal size for us is 1 1/2lbs of ground beef. So I fill the bags, weigh them, and then toss them to the side on the counter.  We keep this process going together until all the meat is ground up. We usually have the radio on and spend the time talking and laughing, and honestly, the time flies by and also acts as another reason for us to spend time with one another and keep our relationship strong.

Once we've ground up all the meat and thrown it into bags, we smash the meat down into flat discs in the Ziploc to where it takes up about half of the bag, then we pull out the air, seal it and fold the other half of the bag over and move on to the next bag.  Pressing down the meat into flat discs not only makes storage much easier in the freezer but it also makes it much faster and even for defrosting purposes. I've been using the flat, disc method for years and years and my freezer and sanity thanks me for it.  With the 45 pounds of ground chuck that was a mere $102.15, we were able to get 30 meal sized portions (1 1/2 lbs) of pure, boneless ground chuck beef out of it at just $3.40. And that is an amazing price for freshly ground BONELESS CHUCK that has NO PINK SLIME or any other additives or chemicals to be found.  And the flavor and quality of this meat is far superior than anything you would find pre-ground in the store. There is no where else locally where you could get fresh ground, high quality chuck for that price.

As far as the chicken goes, that is a MUCH easier process. I stand, holding the Ziploc open while he tosses in 6-7 big thighs into the bag, then I smash it down in a similar, flat disc fashion, push out as much air as possible, and seal it up.  Doing the chicken in this manner also makes stocking up in the freezer much easier, and makes it a breeze to organize all of the meats that we've stocked up on. You could very easily grind up your chicken to make ground chicken, if that is something you're into, just as quickly and efficiently as we do our ground beef.  The food grinder is amazing.  I've had it and used it for years and it's still going strong without any issues.  There is an upcoming sale on picnic pork roasts and I plan on stocking up on some of those and grinding them up to make my own fresh sausage, which is also delicious and nothing like the store-bought. Any meat you are into that is ground is going to be fabulous and far superior than your local grocers meat.  Trust me.  Once you go home-ground, you never go back.  And not only that but you cannot beat the money savings.  Doing this for my family ensures that we have 3 months worth of meals, at least, in our freezer at all times.  It's so reassuring and also makes things so easy for me shopping wise.  And let's face it, anything that makes shopping with three kids for this stay at home mom easier is good for me!