Monday, February 15, 2010

Freezer challenge: venison & peaches

Don't worry, we didn't make a dish that included both of those! Though I guess it could be done with a peach chutney, but I don't like chutney.

Anyway, we have a fair amount of venison in our freezer. Jeremy didn't get the deer, but he did help his friend dress it and then he got a lot of the meat. We've had a couple stews with it and lots of steaks. We thought we were out of steaks (I mean, the deer is from fall 2008!) but then Jeremy found some more. We ate a couple more steaks and then Jeremy decided he was tired of steaks.

So he pulled out our tiny grinder and set to work grinding up some of that deer.



It ground very nicely. Venison is a very lean meat so Jeremy added some rendered pork fat so the final product would have some extra flavor and not be so dry. He added some shallots, fish sauce, and tamari and cooked up a couple burgers (topped with cheddar from the co-op).



Served on my latest batch of whole wheat bread rolls, with a slather of mayo and mustard and a mountain of sprouts which we grow on our kitchen table. Jeremy of course had his beloved bread and butter curry pickles on the side.



For dessert, I had baked the Whole Wheat Peach Kuchen, found in the Simply in Season cookbook.



It's a pretty simple recipe - flour, baking powder, a little sugar and butter and press that into a springform pan. Put peaches in the pan and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. I used our peaches from the freezer which worked quite well. They weren't even quite thawed and it still worked fine. You cook this a bit then pour in a mix of yogurt (I used buttermilk instead since Jeremy can't handle yogurt), egg, a little more sugar, and some vanilla. It's a custardy dish full of peaches. It can be done with blueberries too, but I haven't tried it yet.

I'm really glad we've taken on this freezer challenge because it has meant some seriously tasty meals.

I didn't get any pictures, but in the last few weeks we've had a pancake-fest making Righteous cakes (vegan, tofu, etc), buttermilk pancakes, pumpkin pancakes, and corn pancakes. Of course the main ingredient for the last two were from our freezer.

2 comments:

Karin McAdams said...

Aimee, I'd eat anything on your whole wheat rolls! Even venison. Oh, and where do you get your seeds for sprouting?

Aimee said...

aw, so sweet. =)

We get our sprouts in bulk at the co-op. We've gotten a few different kinds of sprouts, but these are the only ones that have worked so far. I've been meaning to do a post about them - they're so easy!