herbiehancock

This is a picture of the beautiful country where my gardener and I live. It's acres and acres of rolling hills in North Central Montana. In the distance are the Bear Paws, aka the Bear's Paw Mountains.  (From Wikipedia): Native oral history (of the Bear's Paw Mountains) ties the name to a lone hunter in search of deer to feed his clan. He killed a deer but, while returning to the prairie, encountered a bear. The bear held the hunter to the ground, and the hunter appealed to the Great Spirit to release him. The Great Spirit filled the heavens with lightning and thunder, striking the bear dead and severing its paw to release the hunter. There are deer and antelope in these rolling hills. You might look at the rather flat land and think "Where would a deer or antelope hide?" There are no trees, but there are plenty of coulees. A coulee is a  ravine in the land. You can walk these rolling hills and see nothing, but come up to the top of a coulee and there down in the ...

The trees are bare here in North Central Montana. The temperature dips down into the teens at night and barely sees the 40’s during the day. Antelope and deer season are in full swing and we’ve had a few days of light snow. Already this year we have wild game in the freezer and there’s no better way to use some of that meat for a hot, comforting bowl of Venison Stew. It seems that I can’t make a small amount of soup or stew and by the time I’d finished, we had enough for a few dinners and a few lunches (and the last bit for my breakfast this morning)! One of the good things about this stew is that as delicious as it was on the first night, it only got better as the days went along. I was prompted to make this after seeing Debbie’s blog, The Friday Friends , when she made Tyler Florence's Ultimate Beef Stew, which she served over mashed potatoes. I put potatoes in my stew, but I think either way would be great. If you make this (and you can substitute the venison with beef stew me...

I saw an blog post the other day for hamburgers that had an interesting ingredient in the recipe: apple p urée ! In his post, Danny said, " The apple p uree  lends a slight sweetness to the meat and also keeps them super moist and tender inside, even if accidentally overcooked."    Since we eat a lot of venison (which because of the lower fat content, tends to be drier than beef) I wanted to give this recipe a try. I used 2 pounds of venison burger, which yielded 4 hamburgers and a meatloaf! The burgers were very  moist and we enjoyed them on some grilled french bread. I intend to incorporate the use of the apple  purée into our next sausage-making session . Venison sausage can be really  dry if you don't add enough fat (ground pork), so using the apple  purée might allow us to be able to cut down on the fat and still end up with moist, juicy sausages. The Ultimate Super Burger (adapted from In Danny's Kitchen ) 2 lbs ground venison 1 onion, fin...

w When I'm looking for a wild game recipe, there's just one place I need to go.  It's Hank Shaw's blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook .  If you don't eat wild game, don't leave yet... Hank offers up a boatload of good stuff.  He can tell you how to cure olives; how to gather wild mushrooms; how to preserve lemons; and how to make sausage and salami, and wine.  If you have an octopus lying around that you're not sure how to cook, Hank's your man.   Last month, in single-digit temperatures, my gardener picked up his .22 and went rabbit hunting.  Being the good gardener (and hunter) that he is, he came home with 3 Cottontails and one Snowshoe .    Even though I have never eaten rabbit, I had no qualms about doing so.  What did intimidate me was cooking  a rabbit!  So, over to Hank's blog.  He'd just posted a recipe for Sardinian Hare Stew.  A hare is a jackrabbit - one tough old bird, er... rabbit.   Yesterday, I printed ...

It's cold and snowing in Montana - perfect weather for Venison Stew!  This recipe can be made with beef as well. I started with two pounds of vension stew meat.  I didn't mess around and use one of the tougher cuts of meat -- not this time.  I took a tenderloin and cubed it up for today's stew! To begin with, rinse and dry the meat, then combine it with some flour and toss to coat the meat. Butter is melted in a pan and a little olive oil is added.  Then the meat is placed in the pan in a single layer (no crowding!) so you may have to do this in batches. The meat is seared until browned on all sides. Dice some celery and shred a large carrot. Thinly slice one leek (white and light green parts, only). After the meat is removed from the pan, saute the leeks. Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic and saute for about 10 minutes. We love mushrooms, so I quartered a pound of white mushrooms and added them to the pot.  I cooked them about 10 minutes. Finally, some b...

Antelope burgers Caramelized Onions Toasted bread - Tomatoes - Provolone Stick a fork in me... I'm done.

When we lived in California, my gardener was busy at the grill four or five times a week all year long. We moved to Montana last summer and this continued... I usually made the side dishes and my gardener would grill the meat (chicken, fish, burgers, steak) pretty much every night. I had no reason to think that might change. December? Ha! Snow? Ha! Wind? Ha! My gardener could handle it... just fire up the grill and put those burgers on! If it gets chilly, just come back into the house to wait for them! Then December came. Then it snowed. Then the temperature dipped to somewhere below zero and the cold wind blew in from the north. One day my gardener said "Why don't you cook those fish inside tonight?" Who knew that it'd get that cold?? As a result we've been learning to cook and eat fish other ways than by grilling them. I've been looking for recipes for trout since we've been enjoying these and decided to stuff and bake a couple trout last night. I cut...

My gardener is also my fishmonger. I was happy when he stopped by the other day with these beauties which he caught while ice fishing. No, this isn't my gardener/fishmonger... it's a picture I found on a Google image search so you could see how much fun this ice fishing thing looks. If you look real close and use your imagination, you can see a smile on this guy's face. Fun! My gardener/fishmonger said he'd give me a discount on the fish if I'd clean them myself. With the tough economy these days, I jumped at the chance of saving a few pennies and asked him to put the rest on my bill. The first thing we do to get these babies cleaned up is to scale the trout. It's just a matter of taking a knife and scraping against the scales until it's clean. Next, cut right in back of the gills down to the backbone. Turn it over and same thing... cut right in back of the gills, but this time all the way through. If you're lucky, when you pull the head off the guts w...

As with pork and beef, the tenderloin (aka filet mignon) of wild game is the most succulent and tender portion of meat. It is located under the backbone of the animal (from the rump to halfway along the back). Did you know that the most tender cuts of meat, whether it be beef, pork or wild game is the meat that is least involved in movement of the animal? The tenderloin just lays along the spine and doesn't do much! Contrast that with the shoulder and neck muscles which do a lot of work and have a lot of movement... this is the "chuck" steak part of the animal, which is much tougher than the tenderloin. Another interesting tidbit I have for you (which has nothing to do with four-legged animals) is that how light or dark the meat of birds are is dependent on how far they fly. Dove, geese and wild ducks are mostly dark meat because they migrate, traveling long distances. Quail, on the other hand don't migrate and search for their food on ground so the meat from quail is...

My crockpot spends most of its life on a closet shelf. I wish I had counter space to keep it out all the time so I'd remember to use it more often! I've never been disappointed with a meal that's come out of a crockpot. With wild game, you sometimes get a piece of meat that isn't quite tender enough; and because wild game is leaner than most beef, sometimes it will be dry. When in doubt, I use the crockpot. I put an elk round steak in the crockpot today topped with a can of cream of mushroom soup (I know, I know... but it makes the best gravy). I sliced up half an onion and three cloves of garlic and put that on top. Then I poured in about a half cup of red wine and sat back and waited for the aroma to begin! Half the fun of using a crockpot is when you leave the house to do errands and return to the wonderful aroma that fills the house! Compared to beef, elk is lower in calories, total saturated fat, total fat, total monosaturated fat, and higher in protein, iron, p...

In honor of Inauguration Day we're cooking red, white and blue! On top of our homemade burger buns made from my artisan bread recipe we slathered some homemade aioli . Atop that is a tender grilled antelope burger with roasted red peppers (there's the red!), melted blue cheese (there's the blue!) and sweet onion (there's the white!). I'm sending this over to Damaris at Within the Corners of my Kitchen . Check out her round-up to see other patriotic goodies!

I can't seem to think of much else than soup for dinner these days. A nice bowl of hot soup with a chunk of artisan bread really hits the spot! Because I didn't measure the seasonings, the amounts listed below are approximate and can be changed to your taste. 1# venison burger 1 medium onion, coarsley chopped 1 can diced tomatoes 1 can kidney beans 1 can beer 2 tsp dried parsley 1-1/2 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp chili powder 1/4 tsp smoked paprika 3/4 tsp crushed red pepper 2 tsp garlic powder Brown venison burger in olive oil. Remove meat from pan and cook onions until soft, about 10 minutes. Combine meat and onions. Add seasonings, adjusting to taste. Add kidney beans, tomatoes and beer. Simmer 20-25 minutes. Serve with grated cheese and bread to sop up the goodness! I'm sending this recipe over to Gloria at Foods and Flavors of San Antonio for her chili cook-off challenge!