Sunday Enchiladas

Most everything came from the freezer and pantry inventory.  Picked-up an beautiful, imported Mexican farmer cheese yesterday while in Sturgeon Bay. 

Lazy Sunday chile verde chicken enchiladas.

From six o’clock, homemade guacamole, lettuce and tomatoes.  Queso fresco and frijoles from our friendly neighbors south of the border.  

Chips.

Post-solstice there’s no eating in the dark either.

How good is that?

 

What's For Dinner?

There are two constants on our menu.

Salmon and venison once a week. Tonight was the latter.

Clockwise, sautéed fresh spinach, baked jacket potato and pan-seared backyard whitetail. Medium rare. 

It's what's for dinner.

Pretty good chow if you can get it.

Easier Said Than Done....

Jägerschnitzel (hunter's schnitzel) was a lot of work.

Messy too. 

It was only my mise en place that kept my bacon out of the fire (pun intended).

All I gotta say is the YouTube tutorials made this look a great deal easier than it was.

I may have won the battle; but until I repeat this with the outdoor fryer the outcome of the war is uncertain.....

 

Friday Fish Fry

‘Tis the Lenten Season. Yet, just because it is Lent is not to imply starvation. 

It is Friday. And in the Roman Catholic tradition of the Christian faith there is a fish fry.  Wild-caught pickerel (walleye) from our friendly neighbors north of the border. 

The secret is a light brining of the fillets, a dusting of seasoned Wondra flour, dip in egg wash and Panko crumbs.

Fry in hot canola oil, turn only once. 

Pretty good chow if you can get it.

By the way. See how light it is at quarter of 6?  Daylight savings is only a little more than a week away.

Eat More Deer

Before sunset today this was the view east from the bedroom window.

I refer to this image as the solution to solving hunger in northeast Wisconsin.

I stopped counting at twenty.

In our household the culinary goal is a weekly venison dish; minimum. 

Lasagna tonight with fresh spinach on the side. 

Next time I’m gonna just incorporate the spinach in the lasagna and be done with it.

Pretty good chow if you can get it.

Eat more deer!

 

Halftime

It is Super Bowl Sunday and naturally, halftime fare around here is highly likely to feature venison brats. 

Pan-seared much like they’re done on a flattop in the Fatherland.  Slowly finished in white wine and imported, barrel-cured kraut. 

Kaiser roll and chips.

Pretty good chow if you can get it….

Winner, Winner...

...Salmon Dinner!

Cold weather and the over abundance of noise that passes for news nowadays has lately opened my world to a welcome retreat to the kitchen.

After group and the running of Friday errands I fed my sourdough starter children and made a third batch for a possible experimental bake over the weekend.

There was a dozen of my signature blueberry muffins to bake followed by our weekly imported salmon; pan-seared with rice pilaf and sautéed spinach.  Remind me to extol sometime about the virtues of browned butter sauté. 

A word about the muffins.

Growing-up, blueberries were a rare seasonal item and rarer still in our household. Likely a consequence of scarcity-induced pricing. 

In case you missed it, blueberries nowadays are available year-round as a result of advances in Peruvian agriculture. And these blueberries grown at altitude in the Andes are mutant things of fruity deliciousness..

Anyway, raising a toast to global supply chains and 2-3 extra minutes of daylight delivered with every sunrise. 

 

Eat More Venison

I was running on fumes. 

Tuesday, Following an evening interrupted by three checks of the Northern Lights (or absence thereof), there followed multiple errands and a routine visit to DC Medical Center.   By 3PM I was starving.

Inasmuch as you are what you eat there was this. 

 
From 12 o’clock:  loaded baked tater, backyard venison, sautéed shrooms and one broccoli floret.  Pretty good chow in a hurry.

I’m gonna allow myself one glass of Merlot in front of the TV before I fall asleep.

Fingers-crossed for the possibility of more overnight dancing lights action. 

And don’t forget to wear your foil hat when chasing the elusive Aurora Borealis.

All those agitated electrons and excited photons are electromagnetic radiation you know……

Let There Be Soup

If you’re looking for a hearty wintertime soup this is a winner.  

 

This recipe brings just enough heat from the smoked Spanish paprika and chili powder tempered by heavy cream at the finish. I exercised restraint at a single cup of dairy; I added more to leftovers the next day.  The truth of the matter is next time I'll add the entire pint of cream with the first round.  Seeing as about half of the soup is pureed with an immersion stick blender that cream simply disappears into the rich goodness of it all.

 

Top with shredded sharp cheddar, bacon bits from the front-end prep and diced scallion tops. Toasted, salad croutons work too.

 

Recipe from the NYT Cooking section. Link is below and there's no paywall because if you’re reading this you’re a friend who appreciates homemade soup. 

 

Serve with crusty sourdough bread or sliced baguette for sopping-up and dipping.  Go ahead.  Do it!

 

Pretty good chow if you can get it…..

 

Recipe link here:  Potato Soup by Naz Deravian 

 

Between you and me I wouldn't mess with this recipe by much; if at all.  If you want to amp this-up with some added protein I'd consider something neutral like shrimp or chicken.  If you're inclined to incorporate smoked sausage like a kielbasa, andouille, or something similar you may want to ditch the smoked paprika and chili powder.  

 

For what it's worth I am told that Aldi carries Alabama Conecuh smoked sausage on a seasonal basis.  Hubba Hubba!  I'll have to check next time I'm in Green Bay.

2025

On this last day of the year it seem appropriate to share some highlights of those brief, fleeting, moments associated with family, travel, food, community and more.

Google Photo periodically furnishes unsolicited photo vignettes using their AI platform

Happy New Year and thank you for reading, following and sharing.  See you next year on the flip side....

Winner, Winner...

....Christmas Chicken Dinner!  

One of our all-time fave repasts.

Scored a five pound Amish chicken, humanely-raised and hormone-free.  

Stuffed with homemade dressing made last evening.  Popped it into the oven on the Convection Roast setting at 12:30 PM.  Another bonus crock of additional dressing and a humongous yam anointed in bacon drippings went in 45 minutes later.

Finished everything by 3 PM, including pan dripping gravy and whole kernel sweet corn from the garden.   

Dished-up by 3:30 PM.

Pretty good chow if you can get it.

Merry Christmas! 

Whata Treat

Likely I haven’t enjoyed this since traveling somewhere. It’s been awhile. 

 
Clockwise from 6 o’clock:  Salade César, baked tater (butter, sour cream & scallions) and locally-sourced lamb. Medium to medium rare.

A special treat.

Cheers!

Repurpose

If you are on the receiving end of several inches of overnight snow and have a leftover stale baguette laying around; here's a tip for a snow day breakfast.  

 

Cut your baguette in half inch slices and soak in a batter of two beaten eggs, a splash of milk, and a couple dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg.

 

Fry in butter to make miniature French toasts.

 

 

I like mine with a drizzle of maple syrup and it occurred to me I should have added a dash of vanilla extract.  A FB friend suggested almond extract.  

 

If I hadn't done this that baguette might have gone to the birds. 

 

Either way it was repurposed..... 

Game Day Pizza

 

After feeding my sourdough starters a couple days ago it occurred to me to me to make pizza dough - four 320g balls.

Froze two (an experiment) and proofed the other two for a halftime pie and one more for snacking this week.

At 15F and falling the outdoor brick oven is a non starter.  Nevertheless, the bottom convection oven on the new GE range will get up to 550F and bake a pie on the pizza stone in 10 minutes, give or take.

From bottom up: homemade hand-tossed sourdough crust, Rao’s imported Italian pizza sauce, locally-sourced whole milk mozz, topped with Becco’s Italian sausage, fresh shrooms, black olives, fresh basil from Columbia and a drizzle of EVO.

Behold the CSMO - aka the Milwaukee Special.

Nixon for the DAGGER.

The Bears still suck...
 

Leftovers

 

We’ve been dining on what remains of a half wild turkey breast since our Thanksgiving feast.  All four pounds of it. 

Today I froze the remainder for a future day but not until I reserved some for fried rice this evening. 

Finished it with the last fresh egg in the fridge, scallions and imported Thai fish sauce.   (Smells like sweaty feet but adds incredible umami). 

That spring gobbler is the gift that keeps on giving. 

Pretty good chow if you can get it…..

The Feast

This evening’s dinner is brought to you courtesy of a half breast (all four pounds) of my spring turkey kill. We split a big yam and served it up with homemade dressing and gravy overall. 

 

Thankful

I don't harbor any large grievances.  I have a few minor issues but they're basically trivial in the grand scheme of things.

I have a great deal to be thankful-for.  My family, my friends, a comfortable retirement, a terrific community and the great outdoors.  I am in reasonably good health (for an old man), I still have my marbles and a seemingly unlimited supply of firewood.

S'all good, man.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Thirtieth Anniversary

This year’s Deer Camp is the 30th Anniversary Edition.  That’s not nearly as long as my neighbors multi-generational traditions but as a latecomer to big game hunting it’s fine by me.

Brandy from the land of my birth

Anyway, another tradition is the food. I’m going to overlook something I’m sure; but over four days I dined on something on the order of five varieties of sardines, two kinds of liver pate and two iterations of homemade smoked Hungarian sausage (old family recipe). 

 

Bobby’s homemade smoked Hungarian sausage

This was followed by venison chili dogs and Lawyer's gourmet venison bolognese.  

 

My infamous homemade navy bean soup built upon a foundation of Marchant’s smoked pork hocks.

Jägermeister. Ja!

Raw beef and onions on marble rye and a half a dozen kinds of cheese, sourdough bread, French baguettes and washed it down with adult beverages from the peninsula stretching all the way to Europe.  

The humble hard boiled egg is the perfect deer stand snack you can fit in the pocket of your parka.

Thanks guys for another hunt in the record books…..

Winner, Winner, Venison Dinner

Dining like royalty recently.

Baked Russet Tater (butter, sour cream, chives), Salade César and pan-seared Venison - rare to medium rare.

Fresh-cracked pepper and sea salt as needed.

Pretty good chow if you can get it… 

Pheasant Hunt

It was only a couple of weeks ago I was in eastern South Dakota chasing pheasants; Friday is a reunion of sorts as several of the usual suspects from that trip will find their way here for the gun deer opener this coming Saturday.  I figure smoked pheasant will find its way into our diet next weekend.

Anyway some photos from the the pheasant hunt...

Queuing-up to push some grass

 

  

And some post hunt images back at the outfitter's barn...

$2 Beers and $3 Hi Balls

 

And at our rental house.  For ten guys a terrific set-up with a couple of bathrooms, a bunch of bedrooms, bunks and kitchen.