Friday, October 19, 2007

Phew!
--Venison Au Jus




Venison Au Jus
Venison Cookbook 1993

2 pounds thinly sliced venison
2 strips bacon I used turkey bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced I used 8 ounces
¼ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon in a skillet. Remove it and crumble the strips. Brown the meat, onions and mushrooms in the bacon drippings. Add the red wine vinegar, crumbled bacon, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 30 or 40 minutes, stirring from time to time. Add a little beef stock or water if necessary.
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This was the first taste of my husband's latest deer. I was worried that I wouldn't like it. I don't think we had any venison last year. But, fortunately, this was fine, albeit a little bit chewy. I can't bring myself to leave venison a little rare and I didn't cook it long enough to soften the meat fibers. There were no leftovers though so my husband didn't seem to mind.

The deer wasn't huge but it will supplement my grocery budget nicely. I'm sort of torn about a trip to Costco this weekend. I could stretch it out a little bit longer but I usually get my Halloween goodies there. I'm sure I could find something good to hand out in Wal-Mart. I'd actually like to skip it but my son enjoys seeing the costumes.

This is cookbook number 200! I've sampled almost 550 recipes from 200 cookbooks. That would have covered my entire collection when I started this blog but, um, my collection is a bit larger now.

Blast From The Past: Hunter’s Favorite Chili from December 2005. I might try this again and leave out the beans.

Question of the Day: What do you give out on Halloween?

6 comments:

Wanda said...

I love seeing the costumes...and dressing up, myself, too. And decorating the yard and ALL that. For several years, my cousin pulled a flatbed trailer with hay bale seats, and all lighted and decorated like a float, to take his and all the kids (big, little and adult) of friends and family around on Halloween night. Fun! Since he started doing that, a few other people in town have started doing similar things...or having Gator (those little vehicles) caravans of trick-or-treaters.
Anyway, I used to always go to great lengths to buy little toys and pencils to hand out, not only to save some kids' teeth and health, but because I thought they'd like it better. But as I realized that the kids really wanted candy, I have started handing out that. I usually just get lots of packages of a variety mix with some packages of better ones thrown in - like little boxed kind or Sugar Babies or something like that. Last year, I think it was 176 trick-or-treaters we had.

Anonymous said...

I give out candy, but like my sis (see above), I would try to have other things, such as pretzels, etc. I'm pleased to find that you can now find these items in Halloween packaging. I even found Halloween little packs of tissues one year. (Don't you know the kids were thrilled with that! Bet the parents didn't mind, though.)

Jan

Red Dirt Mummy said...

We don't really 'do' Halloween here in Australia although I'm noticing quite a bit of Halloween-y stuff in the shops at the moment (more than I've seen before). We do tend to get the odd group of teenagers who decide it's worth the effort of knocking on doors to get free goodies although there were none last year. I usually buy a bag of chocolate frogs just in case - then if no-one turns up I get to eat them!

Annie Jones said...

I hope my husband gets a deer this year. We haven't had any venison for about 3 years and I miss it.

For Halloween, we give out the candy we like, in case we don't have many kids come by and are stuck with the "leftovers". My husband likes the little Snicker bars, while I prefer sours like SweeTarts and Spree.

Randi said...

Last year I gave out candy necklaces which I got at the dollar store. I think I got 12 necklaces for 1.00. We don't get that many trick or treaters. I think about 20-25. This year, I bought packs of mini-magic markers. There are about 6 in a package. They were 75% off so I got each pack for 12 cents. Can't beat that!!

pam said...

I give out good candy that I like, and then I hope not many kids show up!