Venison Round

Once again, I didn't take a picture of the first night's meal.  But here is what I did:  I thawed out a venison round roast and cut it into pieces about 1 1/2 inches thick.  I trimmed off all of the silverskin and excess fat and then put them between two sheets of plastic wrap.  Then I pounded the crap out of them with a meat mallet, dredged them in flour and put them in a frying pan with a little olive oil.  I cooked a few minutes per side until medium-well done.  I had never tried this with venison before and I think that I would do things a little differently next time.  I think that I would dredge the meat in a beaten egg first and then in cracker crumbs instead of flour - just to give it a bit more texture.  Then I think that I would only cook them to medium-rare.  I served them with salad and bread.  They were pretty good, but like I said - I will do things differently next time. 

Next night - I cut up the venison and stir-fried it with garlic and veggies.  I started the rice first, and then chopped up all of the vegetables.  I used kale, beet greens and winter onions.  I chopped the garlic very fine and kept it separate.  Then I heated about 2 tsp of olive oil in my wok (you could use a frying pan instead) and added just the garlic. 

I stir-fried the garlic for about 30 seconds before adding the vegetables.  After these had wilted I added the meat - I added it last because I didn't want it to overcook.  When it was heated though I served it on a bed of rice, with roasted asparagus and popovers.

Yum.

This is one of many recipes that I have used for popovers.  This is the one that I grew up with and it is always a hit.

Popovers

1 cup bread flour - this is one recipe that I haven't gotten to work with wheat flour yet - but I will keep trying.
1 cup milk
2 TBL salad oil - I use a bit more than this.
2 TBL sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs

Mix everything and beat really well with an electric mixer (very, very well - you want to get air in there!).  Pour into a very well greased popover pan (I used a muffin pan for years - it works fine - but only use eight of the cups).  Bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

I like to put butter and jam on mine, but they are great plain too!

Venison Loin

Alright.  So once again, I decided to combine a couple of recipes.  Hugh Fearnley-Whittenstall is one of my favorite sources, so I owe him for most of this recipe.  Then I also came up on this video which showed another way of making venison which I hadn't tried before, so I had to jazz it up a bit with that too, although not nearly as fancy as his.  The result was phenomenal, and definitely something that I will try again!  Here is what I did:

First, I cut my venison loin into noisettes about 3/4 of an inch thick.  Then I sprinkled a little salt and some freshly ground pepper on each side.  I put them into a hot(!) pan in which I had melted a bit of butter and added some olive oil.  I seared them for about a minute on each side (I like my venison pretty rare).  Then I added a small glass of whiskey (I would have added brandy, but I didn't have any) and set fire to it with a match.  After the flames died down I transfered the meat to a warmed dish.

Using the same pan that I cooked the venison in, I added a few TBL of red wine (I had some raspberry wine leftover) and deglazed the pan over medium heat.  Then I added about 3 TBL of red currant jelly and reduced for a few minutes.  Then I added 1 TBL of cream, reduced a bit more and poured over the venison.  You could obviously do this with a beef loin as well.


Potatoes

I used some small Russet potatoes and boiled them until easily pierced with a fork.  Then I crushed them with a glass and put them into a frying pan with three cloves of crushed garlic and some butter (enough to keep the potatoes from sticking to the pan).  I had some kale that had overwintered in my garden and was starting to put out new leaves, so I stole those, chopped them coarsely and added them to the potatoes - probably a couple of handfuls.  I cooked until the kale had wilted and you could smell the cooked garlic.  Serve with the venison.  Yum!
 

The next night I cut up the venison, added some more kale and (after boiling until easily pierced with a fork) some fingerling potatoes.  I had bought many pounds of them at the farmer's market last fall and as you can see I either need to use them up or plant them.  By the way NEVER eat potato sprouts or any green part of potatoes.  Potatoes belong to the deadly nightshade family and the green parts are poisonous. 

ljnob

Then I just cooked it all together in a pan for a little while and we had a wonderful hash.  Don't forget to add all of the leftover sauce too.

The third night I took the leftover hash and incorporated it into an egg dish.  This is one I made up completely and I don't remember how I did it.  I forgot to write it down, but I imagine that it was something like this:

I think that I had about a cup or maybe two of hash leftover.  Add three beaten eggs and mix together.  Add 1 cup of warm whole milk.  Stir and sprinkle the top with chopped kale and 1/4 cup Parmesan.  Cover and bake in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Remove cover and bake for another 10 minutes or until set in the middle and slightly browned on top.  

That is my best guess as to what I did.  I will try and make something like it again soon.  Good luck!   

 

Chili Mac and Beyond

So here ends the saga of the second pile of taco meat.  Hooray!  Actually all of these were pretty good.  I was just a little tired of the taco seasoning taste by the end.  First up is a variation on chili mac.  I just cooked a package of elbow macaroni (in retrospect, I should only have cooked half the box).  Then I put those in a 9x9 cassarole dish and topped with the leftover salsa and taco meat.  Then I grated some cheese, sprinkled it on top and baked it for about 25 minutes in a 325 degree oven.  That was pretty good, but I sent it in Jake's lunch - so I had to come up with something different for supper.  (Remember the two meals in a row rule?  BTW - Jake says he wants to be recast - he says he sounds too picky in my blog.  I told him that if he wasn't picky he wouldn't be portrayed as picky.)  Anyway.  I fried up some potatoes and then took the meat/cheese/salsa cap off, broke it up and sauteed it for a few minutes with the potatoes.  I forgot to take a picture of the final produce, but you get the idea. 

I still had the noodles to deal with.  I intended to make some kind of noodle pancake, but the elbow macaroni didn't want to stick together nicely like spaghetti do.  It still turned out fairly well though.  My five year old loved it.  I mixed a couple of eggs in with the noodles and broke up a couple of pieces of bacon that we had leftover from our waffle weekend.  Then I just sauteed the whole thing in some butter (or maybe bacon fat - I don't really remember).  So that was the last of it, and I don't think that I will be making tacos again for a while...

The Tacos and What Became of Them

Well, you might remember that I had to mix up some venison with about 20% pork for hamburgers. Of course that gave me much more meat than I needed, so I froze half (in 1 1/4 pound packages), used 1/4 for burgers, and used 1/4 for tacos. I made my own seasoning this time, because I ran out, and it was really tasty. It needed a little salt, and I think that after this taco seasoning runs out I am going to make this taco seasoning instead, since I like a little more zip. This gave us more taco meat than we needed, so after serving tacos a couple of times, I knew I needed to come up with something different (remember, my husband "can't" eat the same meal three times in a row). A quick internet search and: Taco Eggs! I used toasted english muffins instead of pita pockets and I cooked my eggs ( in a bit of butter) before adding the meat. Then I sliced some cheese. My husband loved these, I think he ate three. After this, I had a bit left over, but I felt that I had reheated this particular meat enough and it wasn't safe to eat anymore, so, much to my dismay, into the trash it went. Oh well, I won't overestimate the number of eggs my family can eat next time.

The funny thing is, that my parents were visiting us this weekend and they agreed to watch the kids for us one night while we brought supper to some friends. I knew that the kids like tacos and that the folks like tacos (sometimes they are not so crazy about some of my more creative dishes), so I made them tacos to eat while we were gone. Of course they couldn't eat all of that meat either, so now I have leftover taco meat. Again. What to do? What to do? Another search for leftover taco meat and I came up with: Chili, mixing it with tomato sauce for a spaghetti bolognese kind of thing, chili mac or all kinds of other ideas. I am thinking about either the spaghetti or chili mac. I will post pictures, along with a recipe if any of these come to fruition.

Tonight - Hamburgers, Guac and Deviled Eggs

Hooray! I used to hate hamburgers, I now love them. Of course, tonight what we will actually be having is burgers made with ground venison and about 20% pork. There isn't enough fat in venison to keep it from drying out if we didn't add the ground pork, but they taste delicious! My dad hunts in the fall, and we reap the benefits. We have 2/3 of a deer this year (we split it with some other people) and I am very grateful. My brother and sister in-law also gave us some of the stuff that they don't want from their CSA including some avocados which I don't normally buy, but I am looking forward to some guacamole! Now most recipes call for tomatoes, but those are a little scarce in February in Wisconsin and I found this recipe: http://www.guacamolerecipe.net/ - I have plenty of salsa that I made last fall in the freezer, and I am thinking that salsa would be a good addition to the hamburger toppings as well as the tacos I am planning to make tomorrow night with the leftover ground venison/pork. And I have an in with an egg-lady so free-range eggs all around! What a feast - and thrifty too!


NOTE:  I was at my co-blogger Marty's house recently and she served guacamole in a dish with the pits on top.  She said that it stopped the guacamole from browning.  We were there for hours and it didn't brown at all!  She had made it in the morning and it still looked perfect.  Awesome tip!




Laura

Laura's Laws of Thrifty Cooking #2

LOVE YOUR LEFTOVERS!

I hate to waste food, but I also have a husband who absolutely refuses to eat the same meal more than twice in a row. This has allowed me to become very creative in the kitchen. I enjoy the challenge of creating new and different meals out of the same ingredients. It saves a lot of time in the kitchen and money too. I recently created three different meals from a venison roast. We had the roast the first night with plenty of veggies (carrots, potatoes and onions) and yogurt biscuits. Venison meat can get fairly dry, but we had cooked bacon that morning and I was able to sear the roast in the leftover fat and then drizzle the remainder over the roast to keep it lubed up while cooking. Caution: This will not work with the watery stuff that you get from typical supermarket bacon. That is injected with a brine to speed curing. You need some real bacon from a farm-raised pig (more on this in a future post). You could put uncooked bacon over the top of the roast too, but I prefer eating the bacon for a separate meal. The next night, I cooked some rice, sauteed the venison and some of the onions with a red pepper and some fajita seasoning, served with sour cream, some salsa (or relish) and cheese and Ta-da! Fajitas!

The third night I put the bone from the roast, some meat (reserved when I cut it up the night before), the leftover veggies, a bit of flour and we had a wonderful venison soup. It was supposed to be a stew, but I wasn't really paying attention and added too much water. I crumbled the leftover biscuits from the first night over the top, and served it with fresh bread and a mixed salad. And, if I do say so myself, it was wicked good.

This combo of meals actually served us five suppers and five lunches, but my kids are pretty small yet, so it may not last you quite as long. I still have leftover rice that I am going to do something with tomorrow. Probably fried rice?

Anyway, the point is: it is completely possible and makes excellent sense in terms of both time and money to make meals that taste very different, and yet still use the same basic ingredients. By varying the meals, you can keep your family happy, and your pocketbook too!