You know how I often say that I'd like a meat grinder?

Well, I don't have one yet. But I did discover that you can "grind" meat in a cuisinart! (a.k.a. food processor) No bone-in items though, since the cuisinart is not mine, and if I break it with something like that Mom would get very very angry. Which kinda keeps the actual reason why I wanted to use a grinder still floating out there somewhere.

Anywho, this is my adventure in cuisinart meat mincing.


First, you need a cuisinart. Or other similar food processor. Mine is a Prep Plus 11 (no idea what year) with a 3/4 horsepower motor. That's plenty of power to mince that meat up quite nicely.
Next, you need some meat. I do not know the exact weights on some items, but I do know that I minced up four beef hearts equaling about 6.3 pounds. All the beef heart fit into one gallon ziplock after mincing. In total I think I turned over 20 pounds of meat into mince.
A good sharp knife, large cutting board, and several bowls are also handy to have.

Start by chopping your meat into minceable size. 1 inch chunks or smaller works good, and try to get them about the same size or they will mince unevenly. I put the chopped meat into a bowl to await mincing so I had a ready supply.
Note: Partially frozen meat works best. Thawed meat sticks together in a ball after a few seconds, while frozen meat stays separate and "fluffy". Totally frozen meat won't mince completely and will make a lot of noise and possibly break your cuisinart (or whatever you're using).

Next, dump some chopped meat into your cuisinart. I filled it about 1/3rd full to ensure even mincing. More than that and it shakes a lot and doesn't mince. Less and it shakes a lot and tends to stay in one bunch and not mince.

Mince the meat.

See that handle? Hang onto that, or the cuisinart will dance across your counter in a slightly frightening manner and threaten to fall off and smash your foot.
I just let the thing run for a few seconds then use the pulse button to get all the larger bits hanging near the top minced. Some bits will be smaller or larger, and that is basically unavoidable unless you spend forever trying to get exact consistency.

Once you are satisfied with the consistency of your minced meat, dump it into another holding bowl or into the container/bag you will store it in. Pick out any large chunks and put them back into the cuisinart to be minced with the next batch.

The meat, depending on what it actually is, will be nice and fluffy. Odd word to describe a decimated part of a dead animal, but that's what it seemed like to me. There will be a lot of air in the mince and will take up a lot of space if you don't squash it down. If you are refreezing the mince, I suggest packing it as tightly as possible to get more into your container, and reduce the total amount of air that could damage the meat, and save space in your freezer.

This is the meat I minced.

From bottom to top: Pork shoulder (high fat, as evidenced by the numerous white flecks), beef heart (very dense and little fat), beef meat (less fat that I normally have), chicken breast (skinless, so not much fat), pork fat (LOADS of fat!), and thymus (I have no idea, I've never had this before).
Pre-mincing, this took up about 1/4 of the room in my freezer. Post-mincing, it fits in about 2/3rds of that 1/4 space, leaving me a nice chunk of now vacant freezer to fill with something else.

Before you ask about the pork fat, I have it for a reason. The beef heart and chicken breast have very little fat in them. Fat is where Conker gets a very good chunk of energy from and is vitally important to his health in many ways. So whenever he gets a large amount of meat with very little fat in it, I add a hunk of pork fat to bring the levels back up to what he does best on.
The minced pork shoulder has an almost perfect ratio of fat to protien for Conker.

If I'd had a meat grinder, like I'd wanted from the beginning, those dang chicken backs taking up another 1/4+ of freezer space could be reduced to less than 1/4. But no, a meat grinder still eludes me, much to my annoyance. I bet the thrift store workers around here wonder why I come in nearly every day but never buy anything.