Today I am very excited to introduce to Jenny from The Magic Farmhouse. Jenny resides in Illinois on a family farm with her husband and three boys. I love her blog for it’s diversity in content. From serious to funny motherhood, health related issues, farm family and everyday life stories, Jenny connects with many audiences and I love it. We connected on Twitter and today she is sharing with us her Dreamy Venison Stew which is very appropriate since deer hunting just kicked off this past weekend for us on the North Dakota prairie. She has many pictures and it looks and sounds mouth watering. Plus we all need one of her one of a kind cookers. Read and see for yourself. Welcome Jenny, A Magic Mama!
My desire (or lack of) for cooking: The journey of my cooking ‘career’ could be described as a Sunday drive through rolling hills. While growing up, 4-H was always a huge part of my life. Ultimately, being a 4-H member is how I learned the basics, and in some cases specialities, in cooking and baking. As the years went by some projects were great and some not so great. Eventually, in my last few years of 4-H, I enjoyed great success by winning many awards for my breads and pastries. Somewhere during my adult life, my love affair with food went back down a hill and seem to lose its steam. My husband is phenomenal in the kitchen, on the grill or in the fire. I’ve become quite reliant on his talents. When you add our middle-son, who is an extremely, picky eater, I’m easily frustrated and have no desire to cook. In fact, last year during our firearm seasons, we did a bit of a role reversal. I was the huntress while he ran the household. Although, I was unable to successfully bring home the meat, I always looked forward to coming in from the cold to a nice, warm and delicious meal…breakfast and supper! Last year was the first year in many that I wasn’t pregnant or home with a newborn during deer season so I was a bit rusty. I took advantage of that time learning and re-visiting many lessons in hunting. Now I’m chopping at the bit for this year’s seasons to begin so I can help feed my family.
Why we hunt: Hunting has been a tradition in our family and it is very rewarding to know you are providing for your family from beginning to end! While a nice, juicy beef steak is generally my favorite (we also raise our own beef), I’m also a huge fan of deer as the meat is non-marbled, making it low-fat.
Favorite dish: One of my favorite recipes to cook for my family is Lasagna made from ground venison. It provides an added boost of protein next to the cottage cheese and the meat does not need to be drained due to the lower-fat content.
Today’s recipe is a ‘deer’ creation my hubby dreamed up and is only one on a long list of his specialities. We hope you enjoy!
Dreamy Venison Stew
1 head cabbage, shredded
1 onions, coarsely chopped
1 pepper (green or red)
1 (8oz.) container of fresh mushrooms sliced (optional)
1 (18oz.) bottle BBQ sauce (we prefer Famous Dave’s Sweet & Zesty)
1 (3-4lbs.) Venison Back Straps (may substitute with Beef Roast but we prefer deer)
1 tbsp. granulated garlic (may substitute 1 garlic clove)
1 tbsp. Lowery’s seasoning salt
3+ cans beer of choice
4 cups of your favorite lemon-lime soda
Marinade:
1/3 cup Brown sugar
1/3 stick of butter
1/3 cup soy sauce
In the morning you’ll begin marinating the meat. In a plastic gallon bag mix brown sugar, melted butter and soy sauce. Add your defrosted back-straps & place in refrigerator for approx. 6 hours or overnight.
Fire up your grill using wood or charcoal until it reaches approximately 375 degrees.
Side-note: The cooker we used is one of my husband’s favorite inventions & use of re-purposed materials. It looks a bit like a vertical LP tank but it actually surrounded a separate container which housed water.
His ‘gem’ in the rough was thrown out as a result of a building renovation. The owner’s were glad to see it being re-used. At the time it was painted green & is now waiting for a new paint job. For the flue, he used a portion of an old field disc welded to a couple of other old pieces of metal. The cooker is connected to his grandparents old wood burning stove where we place our dutch oven when cooking side-dishes. See my blog for more info on the cooker.
Next, you’ll begin preparing the vegetables.
Chop the cabbage, cut onions, peppers and slicing mushroom in halves.
Begin layering into a large aluminum roasting pan (12 in. x 18 in.) 1/2 cabbage, 1/2 onion and 1/2 pepper.
Then place all of the meat on top. Add BBQ sauce, evenly. Sprinkle with Lowery’s seasoning salt and garlic.
Add mushrooms and cover in BBQ sauce, evenly. Cover with a layer using the remaining onion and then the remaining cabbage. Pour beer then 7-Up, evenly.
Place pan in grill for 1 hour at approximately 375 degrees. After an hour, stir completely, mixing well then covering meat with the mixture. Check every 25 min. thereafter until the meat falls apart for approximately 3 hours.
This dish will be the consistency of a thick stew when finished. Garnish with garlic or toasted French bread. Variation: Serve stew on your favorite gourmet buns for BBQ sandwiches.
***The most important step when making this dish is making sure it does not dry out. If the dish is low on moisture you will need to add more beer and 7-UP in 1 cup increments.***
Although this dish takes a bit to complete, it is totally worth the time and wait! Feel free to experiment with different variations of ingredients and amounts. Please let us know if/how you decide to make it your own!
Twitter: AMagicMama
Facebook: The-Magic-FarmHouse
Contributing writer for http://www.mamabuzz.com
Do you eat wild game? Cook wild game? Any tips and tricks you have? I am digging out some venison from the deep freeze and going to make Dreamy Venison Stew. I think it’s going to be worth the effort! Thanks again Jenny.
I’m linking up Dreamy Venison Stew with Hunk of Meat Monday and next week you’ll hear from Val at Wag’n Tales for our final…for now installment of wild game recipes. I have learned so much from this wild game series and will do a recap of the recipes shared from venison, duck and elk. I might even still sneak in a pheasant recipe for you. I am a novice wild game cook and have really appreciated the sharing from fellow blog friends through this guest recipe blogging. Thank you for reading! Happy Hunk of Meat Monday…
Yummy! This recipe sounds fantastic. Love cooking with beer:) I also think I might have shown Jersey cattle with the family your guest blogger married into when I was in 4-H. It is such a small world! Thanks for linking up to Hunk of Meat Monday.