Tentative steps towards eating organ meat

I've known for a while that I should eat organ meats, because they are so nutritious.* But knowing something and acting on it are two different things.

Luckily my new blogging buddy, Debbie from Easy Natural Food, encouraged me to give it ago. She told me she was once squeamish about organ meats too, but has got to the point where it's like eating any other kind of meat for her. Debbie also gave me a good tip - start with lamb's liver because it's milder than beef liver.

So I did. Last week I stopped in at my local butcher and bought a lamb's liver.

Lamb's liver.

It only cost $1.20 and it's about the size of my hand, so that seems like a bargain for meat to me.

That evening I chopped the liver up into chunks...

Chopped up lamb's liver.

and whizzed it up in my food processor.

Whizzed up lamb's liver.

I froze the whizzed-up lamb's liver in cubes so I could pull out small amounts at a time to add to mince dishes.

Whizzed up lamb's liver ready to freeze into cubes.

My reaction to the lamb's liver amused me. I was so nervous around it, washing my hands constantly and scrubbing all the dishes with hot soapy water... before putting them in the dishwasher. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to eat any of it.

But today I did.

I pulled out one of those cubes to add to the meatballs I was making for dinner. It's amazing how much less scary it is when it's just a frozen hunk of brown something. I couldn't smell it, and it didn't look like a liver any more, so I was able to treat it like any other ingredient.

I still didn't use much of it though. You can see the actual proportion of liver to beef mince was tiny:

And I added in other ingredients to disguise the taste, using a recipe from Joan Bishop's NZ Crockpot and Slow Cooker Cookbook, which I'm reviewing at the moment. But it was a start.

When all the ingredients were mixed together I couldn't tell what was what any more.

So there you have it. Tonight's meatballs, with a sneaky introduction of organ meat.

*Note: Organ meats are high in protein, iron, B vitamins (important for a healthy blood and nervous system) and vitamin A (important for growth, reproduction, immunity and healthy skin, hair and eyes).