If you are looking for a recipe to knock the socks off of your guests, my chicken with mushrooms, shallots and Boursin cheese will become your new best friend!
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Venison (Deer Meat) on the BBQ
I know that living in California it is not frequent to go to a friends house for dinner and have venison. For that matter, even to go to a restaurant and find venison on a menu is not common, people don’t even talk about venison or recipes for venison out here.
I grew up around hunters and my grandmother was a farmer so we pretty much tried everything from rabbit to venison. What I do recall in eating venison as a child are the following 3 things:
- I didn’t like it
- It was gamey (I didn’t know that term back then but I knew I didn’t like it)
- If I never ate it again, it would be too soon
Going to culinary school, we had a session where we had to make venison and of course anything we made we had to eat or try…did you just read my number 1, 2 and 3??? I did prepare a recipe for venison and I tried it and immediately I claimed that I did not like it. I really didn’t have a chance to like it because of my memory from my childhood so I barely took a bite and immediately shared with the chef that it wasn’t good.
Boy have things changed for me…in the last year, I have been exposed to venison and I have to say, if prepared correctly, it is amazing! I was visiting Mississippi and Brannon (a 19 year old son of a friend) was so excited to share some of his venison sausage for me as he just had the meat processed. I was freaking out as I knew I did not like venison, so what was I going to do???? Because Brannon was so excited to prepare it for me that I knew I had to try it and guess what? I ended up LOVING it!!! He gave me a sausage link which had pepperjack cheese mixed in with the meat. So in my mind I thought “maybe the cheese disguised the meat as the meat did not taste gamey” and honestly, if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have known I was eating venison.
Recently I was in Mississippi and was fortunate enough to try the “back strap” of venison, the back strap is the most tender and desired piece of meat on the animal. I did take photos of how they prepared the meat but I have to say I was not prepared to do a post on it so the photos show you an idea of how the back strap was prepared.
The “head chef” at the camp was “Frog”. Here is Frog removing the silver muscle lining from the back strap, it’s really important to remove the silver lining on any meat. In this photo of the back strap, Frog is using the knife to remove the silver muscle lining on one of the two pieces; he had already removed the lining from the other piece as you can see from the photo
Frog then cut the meat in half and tenderized the meat, using the end of a beer bottle. I thought it was pretty creative in using the beer botter and I found that the beer bottle did a better job tenderizing the meat than any tenderizer I had ever purchased
Peyton then did a weave pattern using bacon, because venison has no fat in it the bacon adds the fat to keep the meat tender and moist
they put the venison on top of the bacon and put cream cheese in the middle
they rolled up the meat nice and tight (sorry about the blurry photo)
and put it on the BBQ…along with all kinds of other meats…Frog took care of the BBQ and gave some great tips (I’m a newbie with BBQ’ing)
He cooked it until it was cooked through
While it was cooking, I got to go on a “mud ride” and so when I returned everyone was so excited for me to try venison. I have to be honest, I was a little nervous as what if I changed my mind and I didn’t like it again and what if it was gamey, I didn’t want them to feel bad if I didn’t like it. I walked over and looked at the cooked meat, sliced a piece off and figured “no matter what just chew and swallow”. I took my first bite…OMG…it was amazing, I even ate some more of the venison as it did not taste gamey, it was moist and very flavorful.
While I am not posting an exact recipe, as the meat cuts vary, just follow the steps above and cook the meat until it’s cooked through. For those of you who are new to exploring cooking venison or a regular at cooking venison, please email me at Patty@MmGood.com and me know what you think of this recipe.
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Thank you again ~ Patty Limatola-Tanenbaum
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30 Minute Pasta with Pears and Gorgonzola Cheese
I know what you are thinking, “who puts pear with pasta and gorgonzola”…was I right? Well I never thought of putting pear with pasta until recently and let me tell you…I just loved it! I have to share how this pasta dish with pear and gorgonzola came about. I am currently teaching cooking classes at the Conejo Valley Adult School with my girlfriend Susan (you may recall her as I did her Thumbprint Cookies back in December) and together we are doing a “Fall Series” collection of recipes which included a class on “appetizers” and then last week we did “sides”.
For the sides class I was baffled as I had offered to do a “fall” pasta dish and I really wanted a recipe to knock it out of the park. I made so many different recipes including pasta, rice and quinoa and here is the thing, I had limitations as I wanted something that didn’t include squash (we already were using squash in other recipes) and I wanted a recipe that didn’t include using the oven…nothing was working for me so I knew I had to reach out to Tim. Tim was the chef who taught my culinary class, he is very creative and experienced and if you ever need a caterer, you have to try him as you will not be disappointed (click here if you’d like his information), he gave me the inspiration for this recipe. I have to say I was very grateful he did and so were the students in my class.
Because I wasn’t originally using this for my blog, my photos do not represent the recipe so use the photos as a guideline as I modified the recipe as I went along. The recipe below is the exact recipe though.
Put your water on to and cook your pasta according to the instructions on the box…in the meantime;
Put some oil in my pan and then put my nuts in the same pan and “browned” my nuts…once browned, I removed my nuts from the pan and left the oil in the pan (in my photo I used hazel nuts but for my recipe I liked the walnuts better, either nuts will work)
I then cooked my sliced shallots in that oil, I cooked the shallots until they were crispy, then I removed the shallots and placed them on the same plate as my nuts
in the same pan of the nuts and shallots, I put my pear in the pan and cooked them down
I put my cheeses in the same pan as the oil and added the shallots and pear to the sauce
I then added my milk
I stirred and let it cook together
I then added 1/2 of my chopped spinach
added my cooked pasta
I tossed my pasta with the sauce and added my now chopped nuts
I tossed it all together and served it warm
I have to say that I was amazingly surprised at how good this recipe was…and when I made it for the students of my class, they loved it too. I love that Chef Tim gave me the inspiration for pear with my pasta. Again, I did my dish with hazelnuts but walnuts work out great at well. If there is a recipe that you have tried that is different and unique and you are willing to share it with me, I’d love to experiment and blog about it.
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Thank you for visiting my site and I hope you enjoy this recipe.
I do love comments so please feel free to leave me your comment or suggestions. If you would like to be kept up to date with all my new recipes or reviews, please subscribe in the box listed on the top of the page “Subscribe Via Email”.
*** If you subscribe, you will be emailed by me with a link to confirm the subscription so be sure to click on that link.
Thank you again ~ Patty Limatola-Tanenbaum
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Pasta with Pears and Gorgonzola Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 pound Pasta
- 1 bag Spinach, chopped / fresh not frozen
- 1/3 cup Walnuts (or hazelnuts), chopped
- 2 Pear, sliced into pieces
- 1-2 Shallots, sliced thin
- 1-2 tablespoons Oil
- ½ cup Milk
- 4 ounces Gorgonzola Cheese
- 4 ounces Cream Cheese, cut into bits
- ¼ cup water, more if needed
- Salt and Pepper, to taste
- ½ cup Parmesan Cheese
Directions
- Cook your pasta according to instructions.
- In a frying pan, add your oil and your nuts, sauté for just a few minutes. Remove your nuts. To the oil, add your shallots, cook until browned, and remove from the pan. Add the pears to the pan, cook the pear until they are soft and lightly browned.
- With your pear still in the pan, add the gorgonzola cheese, the cream cheese, the milk and the water. Add the cooked shallots stir until mixed well.
- Add ½ of the fresh spinach to the cheese mixture. Mix with your pasta, add the remaining spinach, parmesan cheese and toss. Add your nuts, toss and serve.
Recipe belongs to Patty @MmGood.com, please contact me to use for personal use
Amazing Red Velvet Cake or Cupcakes Recipe
I know what you are thinking…not another Red Velvet Cake / Cupcake recipe, right? I know it’s become such a craze the whole Red Velvet Cake, Red Velvet Cheesecake, Red Velvet Brownies…and so on. I just had to make these and share these Amazing Red Velvet Cupcakes recipe with everyone as it is truly an amazing recipe.
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