Venison anyone?

I'm sure that I posted in the fall that someone "gave us a deer". To be quite honest, my family hasn't been terribly impressed with the meat so far and the ways that we have attempted to fix it. But we have kept trying every once in awhile.

For some reason in the last couple of weeks I have been itching to eat out of the freezer/pantry and not buy more groceries until we eat what we have. (Probably Dana's inspiration from her Battle Dish Month.) Well, that meant a whole turkey last week that was a gift from a neighbor, complete with all of the Thanksgiving trimmings, sans the pumpkin pie. This week I tackled the two hind legs of the deer that were occupying a shelf in the freezer (and ways to use the left over turkey).

The first step in tackling these hunks of flesh was thawing them - where do they fit and not spill their juice everywhere? Then my husband had to get the power tools out and saw off the end of the leg bone so this hunk would fit into the oven. Me, the non meat eater, really had no trouble handling the carcass and preparing it to be cooked. I guess, it is a challenge to see if I could make something that my family would really eat and realize that I hadn't spent any of the grocery budget either.

To figure out what to do next, I pulled out the recipe book and found a marinade that required 24-48 hours. I had two thawed hunks of flesh and I really didn't want to wait that long so one of them got thrown in the oven and basted with the marinade. The other did soak in a mixture of red wine, vinegar, vegetables and spices for about two days and I put it in the oven today.

My husband was kind and cut up the thing today and we now have a lot of cooked venison in the freezer. (I did the majority of the carving with the first leg.) We cook and eat very little beef at our house - I haven't eaten it in almost 20 years and my husband doesn't like the smell of ground beef cooking. So, I am somewhat perplexed as to what to do with all of this roast beast that we have. I continue to be up for the challenge though.

Earlier this week I made a bean soup (a mix that was a gift at Christmas - more pantry cleaning) and put some meat in part of it. First son did his usual budding vegetarian eating and ate around the meat. Second son did eat it well in the soup, but he really liked the emu too! There's a crock of soup in the freezer for another meal at some point (though there isn't any non-meat soup left for me) when I'm having another clean out the freezer type of week. I'm sure that I will be bringing a lot of meat dishes to our potluck at church and my cooking ability will be broadened!

We have agreed if there is ever a next offer of a deer, it will very politely be turned down. Until then, we'll be thankful for the food and the experience. We still have some of the backstrap that hasn't been cooked yet, maybe I'll try and figure out how to make jerky...(for those who really like the meat, I know that this seems like a big waste but at least we are using it and not letting it go to waste).