An odd article title I know, but one of my most ignored article categories here at The Outdoor Smorgasbord has been ‘RECIPES’. That is really a shame considering eating is one of my favorite activities. I love food and all the fresh tastes of wild game and home grown vegetables. In fact, Kara has been embarrassed on occasion of my obsessing over food at the dinner table whether at home, friend’s houses, or at restaurants.

Anyways, I had to fend for myself and Raelyn on Friday night as Kara went out with friends for her birthday. Fortunately, I had enough foresight to thaw out a package of frozen deer ‘fish loins’ (you might call them sweetmeat or tenderloins). My favorite preparation of this cut- bar none – is to melt butter in a skillet and fry flour-dusted medallions for 4 to 5 minutes on each side. Just enough to get some brown color on the flour coating and then lightly dust with salt and pepper. Simple but brilliantly tasty! Dad likes a sprinkle of Montreal steak seasoning on his fish loins.

I’m always up for a new food or method of preparation and when my buddy told me I needed to try couscous last year, I thought he was putting me on to a hippie food or something. Maybe so, but I don’t care. A grain-like pasta that is high in protein, preps quickly, and soaks up flavor of other ingredients. In this dish, I put a backyard garden diced green onion and 2 tablespoons of a vinaigrette salad dressing. Definitely something you should try if you’re unfamiliar with this side dish.

I hope my love for food transfers to Raelyn and we don’t have a picky eating toddler. It won’t be for lack of trying, that’s for sure!

Still have 1 turkey left in the freezer from this year’s turkey hunt in Kansas, but I thought I would share the 3 recipes we fixed on the first bird – maybe give you some fresh ideas for those fortunate to still have days left in turkey season or some turkey meat left in the freezer from this spring.

Kabobs – marinated yellow squash, zucchini, onions, and chunks of turkey breast in Italian dressing and skewered them on sticks and put them on the hot grill. Just be sure to cut big enough chunks so that the turkey doesn’t dry out while grilling.

Turkey pie – my wife tried out a new recipe that takes 2 pie shells with cream of chicken, yellow squash chunks, corn, green beans, and carrots along with the turkey inside. It was mighty good. Just boil or saute strips of the turkey, then shred it with your fingers. Awesome.

Barbeque turkey sandwiches – turns out you can’t fit a whole shredded turkey breast with all those other vegetables and ingredients in a pot pie so I had a rather large container left over of shredded turkey meat. A little barbeque sauce and a fast run through the skillet made some awesome sandwiches.

Brewed a triple dose of the Salisbury wild game steak (wild hog/pronghorn combination) today at the office. Was a big hit. Need to mention that you should remove the lid of the crock for about the last 30-45 minutes as this will help the gravy thicken up… mmm mmm!

Just wanted to jot down a recipe that worked out good in the kitchen last week.  I took one package of cubed deer steak and laid it in a crock pot on ‘low’ for 3 1/2 hours.  With it, I put half an onion, one can of cream of mushroom soup, 1/4 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of milk, salt, pepper, and garlic salt.  We ate it over mashed potatoes, but it would be great over white rice as well.  Dynamite venison and gravy.  Hope you enjoy! 

I’m making a 3XXX batch of it tomorrow for the grad students at my office, so I’ll let you guys know what they think of it.  Til later ~ dihardhunter

Wednesday night, I thawed out 4 packages of mule deer steak and trimmed them into 1/2″ thick jerky slices.  Here is the result of a 24-hour seasoning and cure period headed into the oven.  Only took about 2 hours drying in the oven and TaDa!  MMmmm…mmm…good!  It turned out awesome!

Now that is some tender goodness…:)