Venison Breakfast Sausage

Now that the regular hunting season has ended a great way to savor the hunt is to do some game processing. I didn't have much time to grind and process my deer while butchering this Fall, so last night I decided to grind up some venison for breakfast sausage. I also decided to try out the meat grinding attachment that is available for Kitchen Aid mixers. While I do own a grinder from Northern Tool, I was given this Kitchen Aid attachment and had never used it.

























I selected a recipe from "The Venison Sausage Cookbook", put out by Lyons Press. I picked this book up a few years ago and I think it is great. It is loaded with great sausage recipes, as well as step by step directions, and recipes for your already made sausage. I had four pounds of venison and added a little less than two pounds of pork, add to that a nice assortment of spices and your ready to grind.



















The first grind looked pretty good.

The Kitchen Aid mixer did pretty good. I wouldn't want to have this as my primary grinder, but I think it would suffice for someone who wanted to make small batches of burger or sausage every now and then. I don't think that it would handle the rigors of grinding 20 pounds of venison into burger or sausage, in one shot. Clean up was pretty easy, but I did feel the plastic parts didn't clean up as easily as the metal parts on my other grinder.

The second grind is when things started coming together.

The real moment of truth came this morning when it came time to throw a few patties in the frying pan.

It turns out that I will be savoring this hunting for many mornings to come.

New Year's Eve Venison Pasties

For New Year's Eve I decided to test out a recipe I found in a copy of the my local Rod and Gun Club's, newsletter. Pasty are of Irish, Cornish and Welsh decent ( don't quote me on that). They are popular throughout Western Montana, especially in Butte. Recently in the local paper there has been some heated debate about the traditional filling for these and whether they should be topped with gravy. I view gravy, like bacon, why not add some to anything you are eating. The filling is a mix of venison potatoes and onions and a little salt and pepper. This recipe is more like pasties found currently for sale around Montana, and I slathered

them in gravy.

They turned out pretty aside from the goof in the crust recipe thanks to me. I will be making them again in the future.

December 18th, Venison Scalapini

After a successful hunting season it is nice to savor the fruits of the harvest. I picked this recipe out of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's cook book entitled " The New Elk Hunter's Cookbook and Meat Care Guide" . Not only does it have great recipes but a good section on taking care of your meat.

The finished product, venison scalapini, with a side of broccoli and mashed potatoes with cheese sauce.