I Know - TMI but these are the good old days!!!

(Written at 9:30, Monday, January 5, 2009) I've just gotten to sit down for a few minutes after cleaning and packaging deer meat for the past three plus hours. Thank God Mike found some guys at Garland's (auto repair place just up the road from work where we get our oil changed and other minor vehicle maintenance) that will take all the deer meat we can provide them. I went through the meat I still had this afternoon when I got home and discovered I had 10 tenderloins and 10 hind quarters. That's a tremendous amount of meat for one person to clean up, cut up and pack in only a couple of days. I put five hind quarters in a cooler and buried them deep in ice and they'll be going to the guys at Garland's tomorrow. It's good that they want some meat because it would be a shame to waste it. We had eight deer; Shaun took one, Mike took two and that left me five - Brother John!!

I cleaned and cut up all 10 tenderloins and two hind quarters. I still have three hind quarters that I'll cut into jerky tomorrow. I made four packages of thinly sliced tenderloin to use the way Brian and Mike do cooking at Sammy's pond. Sam Jr. has the recipe and I'm looking forward to that - it's just plain delicious - Sammy told me one of the keys is cutting it thin and then mashing it paper thin with a hammer before you bread it and cook it. The secret is also in the spices used with the breading - Sam Jr. knows what those are too so we should be good to go.

I also made three packages of tenderloin steaks or medallions or whatever they might be called. They're very good on the grill, maybe marinate them a little before hand, wrap bacon around them, attach with a toothpick and grill for a couple of minutes on each side - very tasty.

My last hour or so was spent cleaning the last tenderloin and two hind quarters and cutting it all up (by hand) into jerky sized pieces of meat and stuck them in the freezer until I can get some more marinade ingredients.