Macaroni

Growing up, we ate this dish quite often (although not with venison), and I've always loved it. We just called it Macaroni. We knew that if Mom said she was making Macaroni for supper, it was going to be elbow macaroni with ground beef, canned tomatoes and usually cheese. It's nothing fancy but it's always delicious.

Substituting ground venison for the ground beef is also delicious.

Ingredients
2 Tbsp oil
1 1/2 lbs ground venison
salt and pepper
1 onion diced
1 can sliced mushrooms
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 dried cayenne, minced
1 can diced tomatoes (I used tomatoes with herbs)
1 tsp dried thyme (I would omit next time)
1 box elbow macaroni (I used whole wheat)
1 1/2 cups grated old cheddar

Directions

1. Brown the ground venison in the oil. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from pan and set aside.
   
2. Add onions and salt (and a bit more oil if necessary, depending how fatty the meat is) to the same pan and sauté until tender.
   
3. Add the garlic, mushrooms and cayenne and sauté for a couple more minutes.
   
4. Add the tomatoes, meat and any herbs you choose to use. Cover and let simmer gently.
   
5. Cook the pasta
   
6. Mix the pasta, meat mixture and cheese. Add a bit of pasta water if the cheese makes it too thick.

Mmm, Mmm, Bambi

Not much of a recipe tonight, but I ate the first of the venison from my first deer, a young doe. I pan-fried some chops, seasoned with salt and pepper, medium-rare. They were tender, delicious and very mild. The potato salad and bean salad from the deli counter at Loblaws didn't do it justice.

Venison Chick Pea Madras

Venison in the freezer and madras sauce in the pantry led to this one. It was pretty tasty but I wish I would have had some yogurt and nan bread.

Ingredients
2 venison steaks, trimmed, deboned and cubed
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
1 jar madras sauce

Directions
Slow cooker on high for about 6 hours.

I served this with boiled red potatoes but it would also be good with rice.

Pea Soup

I was trying to decide what to have for supper when I ran across a Chef at Home video online. The video showed Michael Smith making pea soup. I was sold. I stepped out to the grocery store to get some carrots, chicken stock and frozen bake-at-home bread and the rest is history... delicious history. I used a mixed soup blend of split peas, whole peas, barley and mixed beans instead of just split peas but otherwise I followed the video to a T.

Pea Soup
Courtesy of Michael Smith (Chef at Home)

Ingredients
8 slices bacon, diced
1-1/2 cups diced onion
3/4 cup diced carrot
3/4 cup diced celery
2 cups mixed peas, beans and barley (or just split peas)
8 cups chicken stock
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
2 bay leaves
salt & pepper

Directions

1. Cook bacon until crispy on medium heat. Drain off most of the fat, keeping 1-2 Tbsp.
   
2. Add onion, carrot and celery. Stir and cook on medium until veg starts to soften.
3. Add pea mixture, stock, rosemary, time and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered for 1-2 hours.

Note
I had to simmer it for the full 2 hours because of the whole peas. If using only split peas, I don't think it would take so long. Lentils would be even faster... hmmm... lentils...

Venison Burgers

Nothing crazy tonight, but they were tasty.

Ingredients
1 package ground venison (mine had about as much fat as lean ground beef)
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 bread crumbs
2 Tbsp spicy mustard
1 egg
salt and pepper

Directions

Mix all ingredients, form into four large patties and grill.

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving at The Farm

Well, supper this evening was good but nothing special. BBQ chicken, tabbouleh and fresh bread from the butcher shop with a simple tossed salad (red leaf lettuce, red onion, olive oil, rice vinegar, salt and pepper). But tonight wasn't about supper, I made the dishes that I'm responsible to bring to The Farm for Thanksgiving.

We've been doing this for quite a few years now and I think we've pretty much got it down. Everyone (15-20 people) brings something and we all pretty much know what we're bringing. I bring a ham and a meat loaf and usually some breakfast food (pound of bacon, dozen eggs, brick of cheese) I also try to bring something special.

A few years ago, I made bacon from scratch. Cured it for 4 days then smoked it on the BBQ Saturday morning. It was awesome. This year I'm bringing a case of fresh pesto, made tonight and some pickled El Jefe peppers that I made about 5 weeks ago. They should be ready to eat by the weekend. Or at least ready enough.

Anyway, I made the ham, the meatloaf and 12 x 250ml jars of pesto tonight.


Ham in Coca Cola
Courtesy of Nigella Lawson (Nigella Bites)

Ingredients
1 ham - I always look for the biggest butt half I can find, 3.7kg this year but I'd prefer at least 4kg.
3 2L bottles of Coke
2 onions, peeld and halved

2 Tbsp whole cloves
3 Tbsp dry mustard
3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp molasses

Directions
1. Put ham and onions in a large stock pot and cover with Coke. Cover and simmer for 2.5 - 3 hours.

2. After 2.5 - 3 hours, carefully remove the ham from the pot and place on a roasting tray lined with heavy duty foil.

3. Preheat the oven to 450°F

4. Spike the cloves all over the ham, sprinkle on the dry mustard and brown sugar, then drizzle with the molasses.

5. Bake in the oven, uncovered for 10 minutes.

6. Baste the ham with the glaze in the bottom of the pan a few times as it cools on the counter.


Meatloaf
Courtesy of Mom and/or Gram

Ingredients
1.5 - 2 lbs ground beef (I used venison last year)
1 packet of dry onion soup mix
1 can evaporated milk

Directions
Mix all ingredient, bake in a loaf pan, at 350°F for 1 hour. Drain the fat from the pan when it comes out of the oven.

Pesto

I made some about a month ago and froze it in mini muffin tins. I had to run hot water over the bottom of the tin to get the pesto out so then I had to re-freeze them a bit on a plate. Not that big a deal and it worked out pretty good. I forgot to write down the recipe I used so I took another swing at it tonight and I think I got it pretty good.

Ingredients
6+ cloves of garlic, peeled
3/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
fresh basil leaves - enough to fill about 3/4 of the blender, lightly packed (about 4-6 cups loose)
olive oil - I didn't measure but if I had to guess, I'd say 2-3 cups.

Directions
1. Pulse the garlic in the blender.

2. Add a few Tbsp of oil, then lightly pack in the basil leaves until the blender is 2/3 to 3/4 full. Add the nuts and cheese. Poke down and stir a bit with the handle of long wooden spoon.

3. Turn the blender on and slowly pour in some oil until the pesto starts to mix at the bottom. Turn the blender off and poke and stir some more with the spoon handle. (Uhhmm... of course I unplugged it) Keep repeating these 2 steps until the pesto is smooth and as thick or thin as you like it.

Note
I started with a slightly smaller batch and got 3 x 250ml jars, not quite full. The 2nd batch was a bit bigger and gave me 4 jars. The 3rd batch was as described above and I got 5 jars. One full case to bring to the Farm to share with my family for Thanksgiving.

Venison Slow Cooker Stew

A recent Question of the Week on foodtv.ca/blog got me thinking about venison. It's almost hunting season again and I still have a shitload of it in my freezer so it's time to do something about it. I cut up the meat, carrots, celery, onions and garlic and set everything out the night before. I left the potatoes, celery root and squash 'til the morning 'cause I didn't want them to turn colour (I'm not too sure if celery root or squash will turn colour but I didn't want to take the chance.)

Ingredients
6 medium potatoes (Yukon Gold)
4 large carrots
2 medium onions
1 small squash (Sweet Potato Squash)
1 celeriac (celery root)
6 cloves garlic
venison (2 packs chops and 1 pack stew)
salt
pepper
dry rosemary
dry thyme
1 can tomato paste
2 bottles of beer (McAuslin Blonde)
1 large box of beef stock

Directions
1. Peel the carrots, onions, squash (you'll need a friggin' sharp knife here), celeriac and garlic. Leave the skin on the potatoes if they're new). Chop all of the vegetables except the garlic into bite-size pieces. Leave the garlic whole. Put all of the vegetables in the slow cooker. Add salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.

2. Trim and de-bone the chops and cut into bite-size pieces. Obviously this would have been easier if I had a bunch of pre-cut stew meat, but I didn't. Just the one pack. Add the chopped chops and the stew meat to the slow cooker and add more salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.

3. Add the tomato paste, beer and stock to the slow cooker, cover and set on low for 10 hours.

Notes
1. This recipe filled a large slow cooker to the rim.

2. It was delicious but I think it would have been better with a bit more venison and a bit less potato. 3 packs (~3lbs) of venison seems like a lot but there's not that much left of the chops once they're trimmed and de-boned.