Opening Day of Muzzleloader Season

Today was opening day of muzzle loader season here in TN.  Jamie took another buck!!!!

Jamie & Hailey with a 3pt TN buck

Jamie went out this morning and didn't see anything.  He came in and had some lunch and went back out at 2:00pm.  The kids and I were just getting home from soccer and food shopping when at 3:00pm we heard a shot.  I tried calling Jamie's cell but he had no service.  We waited and waited and finally he called at 3:45pm, letting us know that he had gotten one and would be up out of the woods soon.



Jamie got the deer hung and it weighed in at 75lbs dressed which is a good weight for a TN year old buck.

The nights are cooler now here so the deer will hang overnight and then Jamie will butcher some of it tomorrow.  Of course he will cut up the good parts into steaks and roasts but he will take all the tough meat and extra left over meat and can it.

TN buck hanging

Jamie's friend's Tim and Tina from NY introduced Jamie to canned venison a few years back.  Canned venison is jokingly in this house considered gold.  Jamie rations it and only shares it will few people.  Hailey and Jamie both love canned venison.  They are both very happy that their stock supply will be replenished as they are down to 6 jars left from last year.

If you would like to try to can some venison it is very easy.

Take your venison meat and cut into 1 inch cubes, pack raw meat into hot jars and then add 1 beef bouillon cube to pint jars and 2 cubes to quart jars. Make sure you leave 1/2 head space at the top.  You can also add cut up onions and peppers if you would like too. Do not add any liquid.  Process in a pressure canner.  Pint jars at 10lbs pressure for 75 minutes. Quart jars at 10lbs pressure for 90 minutes.  Once done, let jars cool overnight.

The meat is now fully cooked and extremely tender.  Jamie and Hailey's favorite ways to enjoy canned venison it to make Venison stew with potatoes, carrots and other veggies we have on hand in the crock pot.  They also heat it up in a frying pan with peppers and onions and have it as a sub or over egg noodles.

Jamie still has 1 more buck tag left. Hopefully he will get the large 7 pt we have seen on our property with the trail cameras.  We also need to get one more deer because Hailey and I really want to be able to make some Italian venison sausage.

Preserving through Canning

The garden is producing is mass quantities now, especially, zucchini, squash, cucumbers and pickling cucumbers.  So I've been doing lots of canning the preserve these delicious veggies.

Fresh veggies from our garden

I've gotten so many pickling cucumbers that I've had to make two batches of dill pickles.  One batch is a little dill which I like and the other batch is extra dill for Jamie and Hailey.

Jars of really dill pickles

So far I have made 4 quarts and 10 pints of light dill pickles and 1 quart and 12 pints of really dill pickles for us to enjoy this winter.

When the Royalty's were here visiting us girls went blueberry picking.  Hailey and I picked extra of course to make some blueberry jam.

Fresh picked blueberries

Blueberry Jam

I only made 6 1/2 pints of blueberry jam.  I'm the only one who really likes this jam.  I love to have this in the winter for breakfast on some toast with a mug of tea.  Yummy!!!

Lastly I made some Ziesty Salsa.  It's not really Ziesty but that is the name of the recipe from the Blue Ball canning book that I followed a little bit.

Pot of Salsa cooking

This salsa is very tasty an not hot and spicy at all.  I make this salsa every year for Hailey as it's one of her favorites.  This year I added zucchini, yellow squash, green onions, white onions all from our garden and then also carrots, celery, 2 types of mild peppers, jalapeno peppers for a little spice, cilantro, garlic and tomatoes.

It's has lots of veggies in it as you can see but tastes great.

Ziesty Salsa

I ended up making 1 1/2 pint and 15 pints.  The 1/2 pint was gone the next day, Hailey actually ate the whole jar in one sitting.

I defiantly will be making more of this I think before the season ends.

Below is a picture of my canning cabinet, It's pretty full already. I do have one more shelf on the very bottom which I usually keep my empty jars on.  Jamie & I have talked about adding some kitchen cabinets in our laundry closet which is in our kitchen.  We should be able to fit at least 2 double door cabinets.  We designated putting the kitchen cabinets in as a winter project but I don't think we can wait that long.  I still haven't even canned any of the pears that our growing in our orchard, any peaches we have too that may have survived the cicadas and I always make applesauce and I wanted to try apple pie filling too this year.  Of course Jamie will be canning some of his venison too once hunting season is here.  So I guess we will be putting in the cabinets as soon as we have some extra time.

Canning cabinet almost full already