Swiss-Style Venison Steaks

Who needs toys when you have FOUR HUGE PILES OF RED CLAY DIRT and a Lolli who will let you get as dirty as you want?

What about that landing, huh?  Is he awesome or what?

Little boys are da bomb.

And I'll tell you what else is da bomb--this recipe. 

I had in my mind to make a smothered steak dish using deer instead of beef, so I scoured the Internet for a recipe, but after reading them, I realized that none of them were what I had in mind.  (That sounded like I read ALL of them, didn't it?  I did not.) Many of them were calling for cream of mushroom soup, and I was envisioning something tomato based, so I Googled Swiss Steak and that rang the bell in my head.  I went with Alton Brown's recipe (the Worcestershire sauce was what tipped the scale in his favor), adapting it to fit my needs, and can I tell you?  I will definitely be making this again.  The deer turned out tender and the rice soaked up all the rich gravy.  Loved. 

Here are my notes:

-I added in the part about marinating the deer in Italian dressing.  This is completely optional, but I think it enhances the flavor, as well as tenderizes.  I love to keep bottles of Italian dressing around for an all-purpose marinade.

-It's really important to tenderize the deer.  Put it between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound it until it's about 1/4-inch thick.

-I used a deer ham.  (Or maybe it's a roast?  I am not good with deer parts.)  It turned out nice and tender because it was slow cooked in the oven. 

-I served this over brown rice, but noodles or mashed potatoes would be great also.

-The pictures are not much to look at, but the flavor was great.

-I would have loved to throw some chopped, fresh parsley on each serving, but I didn't have any.

 Swiss-Style Venison Steaks

(Adapted from Alton Brown)

Printable Recipe

2 pounds venison ham, backstrap or tenderloin, sliced into 3/4 inch slices against the grain

1/2 cup bottled Italian dressing

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil

1 large onion, shopped

1 medium green bell pepper, chopped

2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon oregano

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 cups beef broth

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Tenderize the deer by pounding it flat with a meat tenderizer between 2 pieces of plastic wrap.  Place the meat in a zip lock freezer bag with Italian dressing; seal bag and marinate overnight.

Place the flour into a pie plate. Dredge the pieces of meat on both sides in the flour mixture.

Add enough oil to just cover the bottom of a 4 to 5-quart Dutch oven set over medium-high heat. Once the oil begins to shimmer, add the steaks to the pan, being careful not to overcrowd. Cook in batches until golden brown on both sides, approximately 2 minutes per side. Remove the steaks to a plate and repeat until all of the steaks have been browned.

Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and celery to the pot and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping up the brown bits from the bottom. Add the tomato paste and stir to combine. Add the tomatoes, paprika, oregano, Worcestershire sauce, beef broth, salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Return the meat to the pot, submerging it in the liquid. Cover the pot and place it in the oven on the middle rack. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.  Serve over rice or noodles.

Peanut Butter and Honey Thumbprint Cookies

You guys.

The tree above is a tree in my new yard.  It is covered in beautiful, white flowers.  And if all it did was bloom beautiful, white flowers, I would be happy.  But I think it bears fruit.  I'm not sure what kind, but this is definitely a bonus.  A big, juicy bonus.  My stepfather says it's an apricot tree.  I'm not sure.  Can someone who knows trees tell me?

This is what the  blooms look like:

This tree makes me happy.  But what doesn't make me happy is what's next to it.

 

The barn.  And although I see potential in this old, rusty structure, right now I want to bang my head against a brick wall because there is so. much. work. ahead.

And I am usually really good about jumping into an undesirable task and just getting it done, but this cleaning out the barn project has been hanging over me for a while now.  

And sometimes when I have undesirable tasks hanging over me, I totally avoid them all together and I start looking through my cookbooks to relax my mind.  Then I wind up baking something from the cookbooks.  Like I did this weekend.  I grabbed one of my cookbooks, The Better Homes and Gardens Ultimate Cookie Book, and I began to thumb through it and a recipe called Bird's Nests caught my eye.  They're basically  thumbprint cookies that call for jam, but since everyone uses jam for thumbprints, I wanted to change it up a little.  So I picked a filling from my childhood, peanut butter and honey.  My sister and I would NOT eat jam or jelly when we were kids, so my mother would mix peanut butter and honey together and spread it on bread.  Peanut butter and honey was not yucky.

These cookies are not super sweet, at least not to me.  And they do look like little bird's nests.  And I was totally going to be all creative and place the cookies in the tree branches of my fruit tree for their photo session, but it started raining, so the kitchen table had to suffice.

Here are my notes:

-The original recipe did not call for vanilla, but I added some and I was glad I did.

-I used chopped peanuts because that's what I had and I knew I wanted to fill with the peanut butter filling.  You could use any kind of chopped nut.

-When the cookies came out of the oven, the thumb indentation had puffed a little and closed up slightly, so I took the end of a wooden spoon and gently pressed it in the hole to open it up again.

-I basically eyeballed the measurements of the peanut butter and honey filling.  You want the peanut butter to be sweet, but not too runny.  I put mine in a plastic bag and piped it into each hole.

-The original recipe does call for a powdered sugar glaze, and I drizzled mine with one too, not really measuring but just adding enough milk to the powdered sugar to make it easy to drizzle.

Peanut Butter and Honey Thumbprint Cookies

(Adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Ultimate Cookie Book)

Printable Recipe

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 egg yolks

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

2 cups finely chopped peanuts

1/3 cup peanut butter

2-3 tablespoons honey

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Milk to make drizzling consistency for glaze

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a baking sheet lightly with nonstick cooking spray.  Beat butter, brown sugar, and vanilla on medium speed until creamed.  Beat in egg yolks until mixed.  Beat in as much flour as possible by mixer, then mix in the rest by hand if necessary. 

Roll dough into 1 1/4 inch balls.  Dip each ball into the egg whites, then into the chopped peanuts, coating well on all sides.  Place 1 inch apart on the baking sheet.  Make an indentation with your thumb in the middle of each cookie.  Bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown around edges. 

When cookies come out of oven, insert the end of a wooden spoon into each hole to reshape, if needed.  Let cool for 2 minutes on pan, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.  Pipe a small dollop of the peanut butter-honey mixture into the centers.  Drizzle with powdered sugar glaze.

Peanut Butter-Honey Filling:  Stir together the peanut butter and honey together, using enough honey to make it sweet but not too runny.  Place in a freezer bag with the corner cut out to pipe into each hole. 

Powdered Sugar Glaze:  Stir in just enough milk to the powdered sugar to make it drizzling consistency.

Chewy Butterscotch-Oatmeal Bars

We made a major furniture purchase last week.  We finally, and I mean FINALLY, bought a new mattress set.  It's been a long time coming and I cannot even describe to you how awful our old mattress set was.  (Okay, sleeping on our old mattress set WAS better than sleeping on the hard, cold ground, which I realize many people do in this world.  I get it. I totally get it.  I am not as shallow as this blog looks.  I am thankful to have had an old mattress set, even if there were springs poking me in the back.  But I am beyond thankful for memory foam.  I LOVE YOU, MEMORY FOAM!!!)

We've had our mattress ensemble for about four nights, but sadly, for the first three nights I suffered from insomnia.  And I know it was because I was just SO EXCITED about how every night for the rest of my life (or at least until the 20 year warranty is up) I would be sleeping the sleep of angels and newborn babies.  And as I lay there in bed waiting for this beautiful, deep rest to overtake my body and carry me off to the land of nod, my mind began thinking things like "Shouldn't you have already gone to sleep?  You should have been asleep five minutes ago.  Ten minutes ago.  Thirty minutes ago!  TWO HOURS AGO!  LISTEN, IS THAT A ROOSTER CROWING?!"  And my mind got so worked up that I couldn't sleep for all the pressure I was putting on myself about actually falling asleep.

Until last night.  Last night was the first night I really felt like I slept the sleep of angels and newborn babies and dead people.  That sleep where you wake up and say "MAN, I FEEL AWESOME!  LET ME GO ATTACK MY DAY NOW.  DO I EVEN NEED COFFEE?"

Uhm, yes, I still needed coffee this morning, but I feel great.  Which is a good thing, because I will be cleaning out a barn today.

And none of that had anything to do with this recipe, but I'm not going to take the time today to work up transition sentence.  The day.  It calls for me.

I originally got this recipe off the back of a bag of store-brand butterscotch chips.  And I know.  Butterscotch.  Again.  I promise this will be the last butterscotch recipe until the next one I post.

These bars are chewy and sweet, yet substantial and filling.  They are the perfect bar to pack into a picnic basket because they're not gooey or frosted.  I drizzled some melted butterscotch chips on the top for a little decoration, but it's not necessary.

Here are my notes:

-The original recipe calls for transferring the butterscotch-butter mixture to a large bowl.  This time I stirred every thing into the butterscotch-butter mixture in the saucepan because I didn't want to dirty another bowl.  If you do this, stir the eggs in last so they won't scramble when they hit the hot ingredients.  This method worked fine for me.

-This recipe works with any kind of nut.  I used peanuts this time, but almonds, pecans or walnuts would be great.

-The butter and butterscotch chips have a hard time totally blending together.  Just keep whisking and blend as much as possible.  They might not ever fuse together completely until the flour and other ingredients are added.  This is okay. 

Chewy Butterscotch-Oatmeal Bars

Printable Recipe

1 (12-ounce bag) butterscotch morsels

1 cup butter

1 cup packed light brown sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all–purpose flour

1 cup quick cooking oats

1 cup chopped, toasted nuts

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Heat the butterscotch morsels and the butter in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring often until smooth.  Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl.

Add the light brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla; stir until mixed.  Stir in the flour, oats, nuts, and salt, mixing well.  Pour into a 13 x 9-inch pan that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Bake 25-30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

Cool completely before cutting.