Venison Stroganoff

This is the time of year for comfort food and Venison Stroganoff is just one of those in our household. 

It all starts with Venison.

  I normally use parts of the shoulders and parts of the ham for stroganoff because it cooks low and slow and that helps break down all that connective tissue that is in the shoulder.  The pieces that come off the ham are pieces that are too small to be used as steak bites. 

 

So cut up about 1lb. of venison.

 ** Note to the reading audience.  I don't think that deer or any wild animal tastes "wild".  I've heard that expression used most of my life and just hate the term.  Deer tastes like deer.  If you want it to taste like beef then eat beef.  The only "wild" taste that I can decipher would be if a deer or any other wild animal is not cleaned and dressed properly.  For all you non-outdoor people...that simply means, skinned, gutted and cut up.  Deer have a lot of glands all over their body and if you happen to cut through one of those it will definately taint your meat if you continue to butcher without cleaning your knife.  Good knife skills matter and if you watch where you put your knife you will never have any problems.   Sorry about the rant...it just one of those things that bug me, because I can't understand why you would choose to eat something and want it to taste like something else.  If you want to eat something else then eat that.  I'm done...sorry.

 

O.K. where was I...Oh yeah, cut up about 1 lb. of venison.  You can cut up the meat in strips or cube it, whatever floats your boat.

Toss the meat in a little flour till it's completely covered.  This step will help thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Take 2 Tablespoons of butter or olive oil and melt in a heavy stockpot or dutch oven.  I prefer butter in this instance but you use what you like. 
Brown the cubes or strips on all sides...slowly, slowly...remember we want to break up that connective tissue.  And we'd like to get some of that dark goodness on the bottom of the pot that will help with flavor later on.

While the meat is browning cut up about 1/2 a large onion and a couple of cloves of garlic.  Add them to the browning meat and stir all together until the onions are transparent and limp.

Once the onions have cooked add 1 can of tomato paste.  Mix throughly through the meat and onion/garlic mixture till it looks throughly combined.

Then add 1 cup of beef broth and some wine.  I prefer a white Zin but you use what you like to drink.  I'm not much of a red wine drinker although I do use it in my spaghetti sauce but I also use the white Zin as well.  As to how much to add.....it's up to you.  I add at least 1/2 cup but if you feel like you need to add more then add more.

Once all this stuff is added and mixed well together, put on the lid and let it simmer for about 1/2 hour.  Check several times and stir to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot.  About 15 minutes before serving add a cup of sour cream or if you are looking to make it a little healthier then you can add the same amount of Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream. 

 

 Mix in the sour cream well and let it all get nice and warm.  Don't let the mixture come to a boil at this point.  Just make sure it all gets mixed in together and all warm.

While the mixture is getting warm start to cook your pasta or rice.  Some people prefer rice in this dish and I can eat it either way but my hubby prefers pasta.  I use extra wide egg noodles.

 

Once the noodles/rice has cooked then just put noodles/rice in your bowl and spoon the stroganoff over.  I serve this with a green salad and some Rustic Rolls.

 

Recipe: 1 lb. Venison
flour to coat
2 Tbls. butter or olive oil (you might be need another 2 Tbls. later on)
1/2 large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 small can tomato paste
1 cup beef stock
1/2 cup wine
1 cup sour cream

Cut 1 lb. venison into strips or cubes.  Coat meat with flour.  Melt 2 Tbls. butter in Dutch oven or heavy stockpot and when it's melted add the meat.  Cook still it's brown on all sides.  You want to cook it slowly but you want to hear it sizzle.  Remember the idea here is to melt all that connective tissue. 
Then when browned add the onion and garlic and cook 3 or 4 minutes till onion is translucent.  Now if the pan is a little dry you can add a little more butter or olive oil.  Sometimes I need to do it, sometimes I don't.  Depends on how fatty the dear is...sometimes some deer have more fat than others.
Now blend in the tomato paste and mix well with meat.  Stir in the beef stock and wine and cook gently till thickened and bubbly.
About 1/2 hour before serving add 1 cup of sour cream and mix in well.  Cook gently till all is warmed and serve with egg noodles or rice.

The Front Yard Project

 I've wanted to post these pictures of the Front yard project for a while now but life sometimes get busy and complicated.  My normal time to be on the computer is early in the morning when I get up and the house is quiet but my job these past couple of months require me to be out of the house by about 7:30 and so getting some quality time on the computer has come to almost a standstill.  And then when I got home there were other things that required my attention so no computer time for me.

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Up until now we have been a one computer family and it's worked just fine.  I mean we are only two people so one computer seemed to work just fine...that is until my job changed and I couldn't get to the computer during the day.  I'm sure you are asking yourself why didn't I just use the computer at night....there are several reasons for that.  1 is that my husband is usually on the computer in the evening and it's how he winds down after a hard day of work.  Another reason is that I gather my thoughts best when I don't feel like I'm under a time constraint and even though my husband would be just fine with me using the computer all evening....I'd just rather do it at my leisure.  

So I'd been tossing around the idea of a laptop for a while now and I'd done some homework on them and I bit the bullet and bought one.  For someone who has always been a desk top person there is a bit of a learning curve but I am getting used to it slowly .  

That was a bit of a long way of getting around to posting these pictures but if you look back at the first post about the front yard project you can see we've come a long way.  We still have some work to do but you can see the direction that we are headed.   I will be very excited to get this project done and finally have the front garden that we both want and can be proud of.                                              

I'll post more pictures when there are more to show and I'll keep you updated on the backyard as well.

Fire and Rain

As you can see by the rain gauge, we have received 3 3/4" of rain this past week.  It's a wonderful thing in this drought stricken part of the country.  It isn't a drought breaker, (we'd need this amount every week for at least a couple of months before we could say that)
but it is a step in the right direction.

So when we have a chance at a few days of drizzle and the county lifts the burn bans we get to work on much needed chores...which are burning burn piles.
Let me just say this for the record.....I am skeered of fire...very, very skeered.  A wild fire through here, with the conditions such as they are could do an incredible amount of damage (look at the reports of the Bastrop Fire a year or so ago ) in a short amount of time.

One reason is that when you live rurally like we do you are only covered by small independent Fire Stations.  We don't live in the city limits so we don't have the infrastructure (fire hydrants) that a fire truck could pull up to and start spraying water.  We are limited to trucks that can carry their own water.  There are not roads everywhere and the terrain can be treacherous so fighting the fire is just altogether difficult.

IMPORTANT NOTE HERE:  I'm having trouble posting pictures....but wanted to publish this so I'm just going to continue this post and maybe add the pictures later...although it won't nearly be as interesting without the pictures of FIRE!

 

Even though we have an established road and driveway....vegetation continues to grow...even in a drought and we do have to do some trimming from time to time.  What usually ends up happening is that we do a fair amount of trimming and put it in a pile or two and then when the conditions are right we burn it. 

It's always a little scary for me in the beginning...even though we've done this a time or 10.  When that first bunch of branches finally catches on fire and it's on it's way.  And for some unknown reason...even though it's been dead calm...the minute the match lights the first branch on fire...the wind begins.  Maybe it's because fire creates wind...I don't know that to be true but it sure does seem like it. 

So we got the rain and the burn ban was lifted for a couple of days and we thought that we'd take advantage of  it all and burn, baby, burn.

We actually had two piles to burn but decided that we'd just do the biggest pile for now and wait until we had more rain to do the second.

The whole process took around 3+hours from start to the ash pile.