Venison (Deer Meat) Recipes

I've recently had some people asking for venison recipes after my husband snagged his first buck on opening day. (Yay! So proud...) I've also finally gotten used to calling it venison and not deer meat. Not sure why it matters, but to hunters, it seems to matter.

While I do scope out recipes online or in my myriad cookbooks, I don't always follow recipes, if that makes any sense. What I love about cooking, as opposed to baking, is the creative process. I make the recipes my own, I don't measure - I eyeball it, and I adjust the taste as needed.  I advise you to do the same.

Happy cooking!

VENISON CHILI

Venison is lean, so you may want to add ground turkey. I do half and half. I also don’t really measure, so these are estimations. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2-3	Cloves garlic, minced
1	Onion, diced
2	Yellow or orange bell peppers, diced
1 ½ lbs	Ground venison
1 ½ lbs	Ground turkey
1	1 can (28 oz.) Crushed tomatoes
1	1 can (28 oz.) Petite Diced Tomatoes (Fire Roasted are great in chili)
1	1 small can of tomato paste
1	1 bottle of barbeque sauce (we use Bull’s Eye)
1-2 Tbsp.	Chili powder (I also use a few shakes of Emeril’s
1 tsp	Salt
¼ tsp	Black pepper/red pepper (to taste)

Directions:

In a large dutch oven or sauce pot, sauté garlic, onion and peppers in a couple of tablespoons of butter and olive oil until tender, medium-low heat. Season with some chili powder, salt, pepper (you will season the veggies, meat, and sauces, so use keep that in mind while you season) while they sauté. Once tender (10-15 minutes), add ground venison/turkey and brown  (10-15 minutes) about half way through, seasoning again.  Then add crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato paste and barbeque sauce, season again and bring to boil. After it comes to a boil, let chili simmer. The longer, the better. I usually let it cook all afternoon, at least 4 hours.

VENISON STEW

1	Onion, cut in large chunks Potatoes, cut in chunks (I usually buy the small gourmet ones that come bagged in the grocery store and throw that in) ½ bag of baby carrots Butter (3-4 Tbsp) and Flour (2-3 spoonfuls)
2  lbs	Venison, cut in cubes (I put one package of cubed meat in there) 1 large container of beef broth
1 tsp	Salt
¼ tsp	Black pepper

Directions:

Venison can taste gamey to some people, so I like to marinate the meat in a mixture of beef broth, Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder for a day before I throw it in the stew. This is a great crockpot recipe – if you don’t have a crock pot, just make sure you use a good thick sauce pot, like a dutch oven, and keep the heat very low while this cooks all day.

I have a crockpot/fryer, so I heat up the butter, throw the meat in to brown a little and add the flour so the flour cooks through and the meat browns. Then I toss in everything else, cover it and let it all simmer for 4-6 hours.

The Know-It-All

I know, it's annoying. That person in your life who is always telling you "if you'd only listened to me then this wouldn't have happened or you wouldn't have had to do that." Yeah. I'm that person. But I have a whole catalogue of events, anecdotes, and, let's face it, life experience, to back me up. So take heed.

The Parental Instinct
I was a child once too and did many stupid things. I got hurt. A lot. No broken bones, thankfully, but plenty of skinned knees, busted lips and bruises. So when I tell our children "don't do that or you're going to get hurt," I'm really just trying to be helpful.

Do they listen? No.

Do they get hurt? Often.

The Wifely Instinct
I'm sorry, but women are just smarter. We read the directions and guess what? We assemble the doodabber or gloogumper with no problem. Men? Well, men refuse to read directions and a string of obscenities can be heard through out the neighborhood. And when I tell you to pick up the socks that you have strewn carelessly on the (hardwood) floor? It's to avoid the inevitable accident that will occur when our buoyant three-year-old sails into the room, steps on said sock and goes careening into a piece of furniture. (For more on that topic, See: The Parental Instinct.)

The Basic Instinct
(Betcha didn't see that coming.)
I have no real sex advice to give, except to tell all of these young girls and women in their 20s to respect themselves and wait for love. It's too late for Sharon Stone, but it's not too late for you.

The Googler
I have always had a penchant for Googling, but my husband actually calls me to do this for him. I try to direct him to his own smart phone that has the ability to do this, but I have to say, Googling can be somewhat of an art form. I have a certain knack for putting in the best phrasing to get the most out of Google. So, when I Google something, and I tell you what I've found? Please don't argue with me. I've GOOGLED it.

Word Nazi
Yes, I'm going to correct your grammar and spelling, whether you are speaking or texting. I'm an unemployed Public Relations/English major. It's all I have, so let me have it, ok?

The Doctor
I grew up with few friends my own age, but we often visited my grandparents or other, elderly, relatives. All those old people would talk about their medical conditions like it was a contest of who had it worse, and who could be the most vivid in the retelling. So if you tell me you've got Gout? I'm gonna tell you how to fix that, stat.  Besides, if it's a condition I'm not familiar with from my PhD with the elderly, then, you know, I Google it. And then I know.

Just Because
I used to have oversight over several employees and was brought in to almost every discussion that affected the agency I used to work for. I was consulted by many of my peers for my expertise in housing, lending, or marketing.

Now I have oversight over a three-year-old who specializes in temper tantrums and a four-year-old who thinks he's the boss.

So I'm going to tell you where it is, when it is, and how it should be done, any chance I get.

Get it?

Got it?

Good.

Overstuffed

Being home with my children has been a well-needed change.  My miserable job environment was making me so miserable, I'd become angry and impatient, and I hated it. I hated even more how angry I would get at my husband and especially our children. 

So, I made some major changes, but am always looking for new ideas, fresh suggestions.

I stumbled on a blog post recently about simplification, and while I agree with the overall philosophy, I have to play devil's advocate on some points that were made when it came to tossing the toys.  The woman who wrote the blog was channeling someone else's advice. (Sidebar: The author kept referring to "Payne." That was it. No first name, no links to Payne. Nothing. Just, Payne said this, Payne said that. Bloggers: Source appropriately and include links. If you're unsure, go to my other blog and I can offer you a free consultation ;-) 

Turns out this someone else is Dr. Kim (Spoiler: It's a dude!) John Payne who states "society is waging an undeclared war... on childhood." I totally agree about over-scheduling our children's lives and about the over indulgence in technology, but I'm not one hundred percent sold on the toy-tossing argument. I say this because I make sure the TV is off more than it's on, the iPads and tablets are hidden out of sight (ok, so I lie half the time and say I can't find them or they're broken, so sue me) and with just this small change I see my children playing with their toys and using their imaginations far beyond what that toy was specifically designed for. And I don't see that as a bad thing. I'm talking dinosaurs overtaking Thomas the Train, stuffed animals coexisting with action figures, and don't even get me started on bath time toys! That shit gets real. Real real. 

Okay, so our kids have a lot of toys.  My boys have hand-me down toys from my husband's son, from gift giving and so on.  I do weed through the toys frequently as my kids outgrow certain ones and donate to local shelters or daycare providers. And since one argument is that our kids are overbooked, what do you expect them to do when there agendas free up?  When I was little, I didn't have dance, music lessons, soccer practice all week long. I came home from school and played - outside, yes, but also with toys. And with our weather conditions, inside play is a reality for most of the winter months. 

What bothered me about this author's take was that it seemed the toy tossing being done was more for the parents' benefit, not for the child's. Let's see where we differ, shall we?

Electronic Devices

For me, in the first few days of being home I found that while we were smack dab in the middle of one of the most gorgeous Central New York falls ever, I had to drag our four-year-old away from the iPad to go outside. This is a kid who normally runs outside every chance he gets. So the tablets are g-o-n-e Monday through Friday. We do allow them on the weekend, but my husband and I have gone in and cleaned up some of the games and replaced them with preschool learning games. We left some other games on there as well, but it's funny, they tend to choose the learning games more and more frequently. Score. I am not against introducing technology as a child gets older, but yes, a four-year-old coveting an iPad is a bit much. 

Turn That Down
Loud toys. We have some toy laptops that are learning aids, and I think they work great. Are they loud? Sure. Do they teach our kids their alphabet? Absolutely. And that's one noisy toy I will welcome. 

Tis But a Flesh Wound
I routinely throw away broken toys, which helps keep us de-cluttered. However, if the toy has special meaning and it doesn't really affect its use, we'll keep it. Besides, hasn't this woman ever SEEN Toy Story? If she wants to be the one to haul Wheezy off to a yard sale, go ahead. I prefer to sleep at night, thank you.

Disney Toys

One of my favorite memories in Florida was seeing my son's reaction to meeting the real Buzz Lightyear at Disneyland. Go ahead, judge me. Tell me I'm materialistic and going to a Pixar-animated version of hell. His reaction was precious, priceless and I will never throw his Buzz Lightyear away. Never. E-V-E-R.  While I agree with the blog's author that Disney commercializes the living crap out of everything, I am going to argue back: Just because Disney is churning out toys faster than Nicholas Sparks churns out loves stories doesn't mean I have to buy those toys. Use that opportunity to teach your children that you can't have a new Buzz Lightyear simply because the old one lost his foot. In fact, get crafty and make him crutches out of tooth picks or something. (Poor Buzz.)

Get Your Crap Together

I don't mind the plentiful toys because I have a system to keep them organized, and when we are cleaning up, our boys know where things go. There's a bin for dinosaurs, bins for books on the wall - you know, a place for everything and everything in its place. I make sure of it.

Burning Books? Banned Books? Ringing Any Bells Here?
I will go through my children's books and donate the ones that are meant for a much younger audience, but I want my children to have books to read, since reading seems to be a dying art. If I find one day they are not, that's a different story, but I want them to have a world of learning and imagining at their fingertips. As a writer and a former English major, books are special to me and are indicative of learning, education. Sorry, but I'm totally befuddled by this concept. 

As I was reading the article on tossing the toys, I kept thinking to myself that it sounded like she was only keeping the things she wanted them to have versus what they wanted. Personally, I'm not a fan of guns, but our family does hunt and if the boys show an interest in that then I feel they should explore it, even if it's not what I want them to be most interested in. In fact, the author even said that she tossed the books she didn't like and kept the ones she wanted them to read. Um, isn't that censorship?

I love my children. Do I want them to have everything? No. Do I want them to have choices? Of course, even if it means choosing something that might not be my preference. After all, I want them to be their own, individual, unique selves, not some miniature version of my self, or who I want them to be. Forcing them to be anything other than who they are?   Toss that idea right out with those broken toys. (Except Buzz. We're keeping Buzz.)

Keep Your Pants On...And Stop Shaking What's in Them

I've been bothered for a long time by images of women that are not tasteful or respectful, evidenced by my Facebook rant aimed at Jennifer Lopez's music video.  (Warning: Besides taking a big crap all over feminism, she also has no musical talent.) I just can't wrap my head around what's empowering about making yourself nothing more than a sex object while getting all touchy-feely with another woman. Am I the only one that gets the heebie jeebies at this stuff? Wait, don't answer that.

And while I don't pay attention to anything Hollywood or who is who, I do obviously see things on Facebook or on the news, since scanning for headlines is a big part of what I do.  What I've noticed is a few similar complaints - one by a brave mother who is taking on Target for selling short-shorts to little girls and another about the sexualization of young female stars.

On the left, a girls size 4-5; on the right, a boys size 4-5.

I'm not going to deal with the Hollywood angle, because it just seems too obvious, and I'm sorry, but those people? Well they're just plain effed up.  But as far as the daisy dukes and the slathering yourself with baby oil in a (wrestling?) unitard and shaking your ass? I mean, can't we do better?

I remember when I was going through those horrible stages bordering on flowering into womanhood, and for god's sake, yes, I'm being facetious. I wanted to hide my body, not showcase it. I didn't want my father to know I was changing, because I was worried it would mean the end of us hanging out, fishing, playing tennis and mowing lawns together, if I had boobs. Lucky me I never actually grew anything remarkable, so continuing on as a tomboy was manageable, but I remember mostly I just didn't want my dad to treat me differently.  Because I respected my father and enjoyed his company so much, I was embarrassed to do anything overtly girlish. Shit, I wore ripped jeans, Nine Inch Nails Tee Shirts and Flannel Shirts all through high school. I certainly wasn't at risk to star in a J-Lo video, so maybe it's hard for me to relate, but I'm wondering if strong father-daughter relationships are the missing link.

Television shows and movies are also to blame. Yes, I said it. I don't have to watch the crap on TV to know it's true, and you can ask my husband, since he laughs every time I mock the idiotic scripted words provided for the bimbo screen stars in action movies. Seriously, yes, you, the girl from the latest Transformers movie? Could you please stop hugging your boyfriend when your father is friggin Mark Wahlberg? What are you stupid? And while you're roaming around the earth dodging bullets, please button your friggin' shirt and put on a pair of sturdy Levi's (that go all the way down to your ankles) during the robot apocalypse. That'd be great. Thanks.

Writer and director Tessa Blake would know too, since she is a minority on the other side of the lens.

The more media a girl watches, the fewer options she feels she has in life. The more media a boy watches, the more likely he is to develop sexist views. No wonder. Only 25 percent of leads in movies are women, and men are more likely to be shown with a job. Weirdly, we don't even have equal representation when it comes to crowd scenes.

I know that I can just not watch. I get that. And for the most part, I don't. I guess my complaint goes a little bit deeper - to not just wish that the offensive images weren't such a staple in our culture, but to wish that young women (and old women, I mean really, leave the Daisy Dukes in the 70s - yeesh) didn't emulate that image.  Even when it was preferable to reveal your midriff in the early 2000s, and yes, even though I had awesome abs, I did not. You know, just cause they're doing it? Doesn't mean you have to.

Why should a mother of a young girl have to shop in the boys department if she wants longer shorts? I get the argument to not buy the short-shorts, so don't play that card, but if that's all there is to choose from? Yes, that IS a problem.

And the fact that it looks like J-Lo and other young women are opting for the short-shorts too in order to define themselves in an otherwise tasteless and tacky society that encourages women to use their bodies, not their brains, it means the voices that count, the Tessa Blakes and the Angry Mom Blogger who took on Target? Those voices need to sound off just a little bit louder.

Thirteen Years Lucky

An old photo of me sitting on the lap of the Coca-Cola bear brought back a lot of memories, and made me realize what a snazzy hair-do I had in college. A lot of people tell me I haven't changed much, and I usually respond, "Because I was twenty going on forty." (Seriously, look at my hair!)

I was in Atlanta for a public relations conference for PRSSA. I was a senior in college and we visited the Coca-Cola factory.  I know for a fact this was in the Fall of 2001, because we rented a car and drove - the four of us who refused to fly post 9/11. As I sifted through some relics from my past, I had to ponder the fact that I was such a serious student, so focused on my career, and then juxtaposition that to where I am now.  I am getting more than a little discouraged at where my career is today. I had so many goals, so many ambitions. It's hard to believe this was thirteen years ago.

Sidebar: If you're shocked that a twenty-one year old college student was spending a weekend networking and learning about how to break into the field of public relations, then you must not know me very well. I was a nerd growing up and still am. I didn't drink and party while in college; I worked three jobs simultaneously and studied. I went to class in dress pants and business suits. I was often mistaken for the professor. It is what it is.

Then I read a great blog post on LinkedIn called When to Turn Your Back on Your Career and I mentally slapped myself in the brain.

She was right. It's a career. It's not my life. It doesn't define me. When I went through my box of memories, it was those crazy adventures with my friends or pictures of my family acting goofy that meant the most. Sure, some of it I had completely and totally forgotten about -- either early signs of dementia or proof that when new information comes in, old information gets tossed like yesterday's trash, but a little reminder brought it all back, and that, in turn, brought a smile to my face.

I have learned a lot in thirteen years. I am not where I had pictured myself to be back when thirty seemed like a swear word, and a million miles away.  I am in a better place, and for once in my life, I'm not grasping at whatever comes my way. I'm making choices and taking charge. I think that young woman on the bear would be shocked, but also smiling, to glimpse what the future held.

Home Work

I know my husband thinks I have it easy right now, but I'm doing more work now that I'm home than I've ever done before.

Sure, some of it's self inflicted. I do love to cook, and I find myself making whatever pops in my head. Pumpkin bread with mini chocolate chips? Sure! Homemade croutons? Why not! Lasagna, chili, French Onion soup, oh my!

The other items are things that have been neglected since we moved in to our house in June.  Since I was only (grudgingly) given less than two full days off (I went in to work the morning we closed, had to work that Saturday for someone on short notice, and was only given Monday off when it turned out we had no power and had to wait for National Grid, whose appointment time frame consists of any time between dawn and dusk), there was a lot I didn't get to do.

And because we had no power those first few days, my plan of deep cleaning the house and painting before we moved all of our stuff in was totally shot down the shitter. So, I've been steam mopping, steam cleaning (yes, for the obsessive compulsive cleaners like me these are two completely different endeavors), and vacuuming WITH all of the attachments, among other things.

(Sidebar: Who came up with the spelling of vacuum? Why does it have two "u's?" That's insane! I always want to spell it with two "c's" because I know it has two of something and the "u" just doesn't strike me as a double letter sort of letter.)

Oh yeah, and then there's the two little devil monsters, I mean ANGELS, that were 99 percent of my decision making process when I left my job.  I felt like I never saw them and when I did, my interaction with them was angry and impatient because everyone I was surrounded by at work was angry and impatient.

Turns out, you need angry and impatient in your back pocket with these two.  They do, after all, take after their mama, and I was no angel. Cute, yes. Capable of bringing down the house with any one of my myriad comedic routines? Sure.  But I bet if you asked my mother if I was easy to raise you'd hear the peels of laughter in the Sudan.

So let's do a quick summary of my work at home thus far:

• Deep cleaning (including a stint where I dipped an old cloth in a mixture of hot water and Spic-N-Span and wiped down all the baseboards, heating baseboards, and all of the stairs BY HAND.);
• Normal every day cleaning (i.e. picking up after ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE!);
• Cooking (and photo documenting it on Instagram and Facebook to make everyone's mouths water. Jealous?);
• Making sure my boys don't maim, hurt, claw, bite or otherwise injure themselves or anyone else;
• Teaching my little ones some preschool stuff since my four-year-old is preschool wait-listed (don't they know who he is?);
• Lumberjacking. Yes, I said lumberjacking. It's now a word and I'm making it a verb. As in, my husband got the super fun job of hacking up the enormous twenty foot weeping willow tree hunk (cause branch just sounds too weak - this thing was mammoth) with a freaking CHAIN SAW (if you know me at all, you should know I have serious love for power tools of any kind) and I got the super not-fun task of lumberjacking all the hacked up wood to the road so the town could come pick it up. I'M STILL SORE;
• Plumbing. Yeah, Bob Villa's got nothing on me, wassup? Ok, so the parts I bought didn't completely fix our running toilet because I bought them at Kmart and it turns out they were a total blue light UNspecial, but when I get the right-fitting parts next time, it's going to totally kick ass;
• Painting. I finally painted over the fugly olive green paint in the kitchen and now need to settle on a color for the entry way.  I'm thinking of a yellow-gold, but am willing to consider suggestions;
• Organizing. I finally have a closet I can be proud of! Shoes on display! Everything hung all nice and neat AND I have closet space to spare! Woot woot! And;
• Channeling Martha Stewart. I have a super clean house, yard (I even planted mums post-lumberjacking) AND I have all my Halloween decorations up.  Maybe I'll schedule some afternoon horseback riding after my spot of tea. If only I had a horse...

Are you exhausted yet? And I didn't even mention all of the writing I'm getting done (my content marketing blog and some fiction writing, thank you very much) or all the books I've read. Cause I can multi-task. And I can never sit still.

Pretty soon I'm going to need a break from all of this work, and actually go back to work.

Off the Cliff

I stepped off the proverbial cliff today, way out of my comfort zone.

I have no alarm to wake up to tomorrow.

I'm home with my children at 6:20 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, which hasn't happened in almost a year.

I have no idea what the future holds for me.

I've never felt better.

I am not someone who says yes all of the time out of conformity or fear. I'm an idea person. I need to make a contribution, even if that idea is not liked, used or preferred, all I ask is that it be considered. Maybe that's frustrating to the person who just wants a simple answer, but I'm always thinking, can I improve this? Can I make this better? Can I offer a compromise that makes more sense and is better for a larger number of people?

I've worked in many different environments and have been at the bottom.  At this point in my career, and I want a career, not a job, I feel I should not have to settle, should not have to be degraded, condescended to or treated like a number. I'm a person.  And if I find myself at the bottom, it won't be for long, and I need to know that.

I need to be in an environment that favors intellect, that nurtures growth, that promotes humanity and kindness.  I'm not afraid of challenge.  Maybe that's why I took this leap today, to challenge myself. To find a way back to myself. To navigate blindly down the path that will lead me someplace better.

I'm scared. I'm excited.

Hell, I'm unemployed.