Fish For Your Vegetable Garden Part 1 and Part II

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I went striper fishing last week and had fish bait left over so I froze it. In the mean time have been creating a back yard garden. I noticed that my summer squash and zucchini plant are not growing fast like my other plants. I am watering them so what’s going on?

before fish

Before adding fish parts

15 days after fish parts added and watered.

Some research finds that they are perhaps not getting enough nitrogen. It dawned on me that our early American bretheren learned from native Indians used fish as fertilizer. I had 4 small tinker mackerel in the freezer! I started by taking the frozen juices of the fish and creating an emulsion to pour at the base of plants but later cut the fish into chunks and buried a chunk at each root.

Some research on line says I am on the right track. We shall see! I will take a photo next week and track progress. I did feed my tomato’s and Cuke’s some fish as well.

Here is what the cuke plants look like now. Left is a tomato plant and right are cukes that have fish parts added. Soil is dry so watered daily. Cukes are flowering and growing cukes like crazy. I’d say water helped greatly but the fish caused the bush to have explosive growth. And that is no fish story.

Good Gardening with the fish I was going to throw out in the trash.

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Grey Squirrel Meat is Delicious!

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In areas that abound in grey squirrels, like southern New Hampshire, you can make a fun and challenging hunt and great tasting meal for 2 to 4 in no time. All you need is a license to hunt, follow the laws in your state and go hunting in squirrel season. Here in New Hampshire it usually starts in September but check with Fish and Game on the internet for licensing and dates.  I hunt them in full camo with a face mask and wait quietly like I was turkey hunting. If they ID your face, they are gone or chatter for hours alerting the world of your presence.

You can hunt squirrel typically with a .22 caliber such as .22 long rifle or a shotgun like a a .410 or 20 gauge. Years ago I used to hunt them with bow and arrow too. I prefer a .22 with a scope. It takes about 3 squirrels to serve 4. You can freeze pieces till you get enough to cook. With your squirrels, gutted, skinned, cleaned, cut with a sharp knife, and meat scissors and inspected for pellets(I separate the legs and cut the torso in half) coat the pieces in flour and brown them in olive oil in a large skillet for 10 minutes or so till four crusts a bit. Then toss them in your pressure cooker for 10 minutes with 1 1/2 cups beef broth , 1/2 cup red wine, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp black pepper (fresh ground is best). Or toss them and veggies into a crock-pot in the morning with veggies and cook them all day or till tender.

Squirrel Stew

Now you have very tender squirrel that can be stewed with potato, carrots, celery, onion, and a few minced cloves of garlic. You can southernize it with dumplings too. If the liquid is too thin, you can thicken with a flour/butter roux or use cornstarch ( a tablespoon cornstarch in 1/4 cup water) add slowly to your stew while bubbling to get a gravy like consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy! A fresh sliced baguette with butter helps sop up the juice, if you omit the dumplings!

Tacos too!!

Or you can pull the meat off the bones easily if pressure cooked and make fajitas, tacos with your meat sauted in a sauce and use soft shells to add lettuce tomato, onion and salza and sour cream over the meat. Another thought is to freeze the cooked pulled meat and vacuum seal it for later use. I would freeze for a week or two to maintain fresh flavors.

Squirrel Pot Pie!!

If you have enough meat you can make a delicious squirrel pot pie with a pie crust, peas and carrots in a squirrel or beef gravy piping hot. Serve with mashed potato’s.

Enjoy! Good Hunting and Good Eating!

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Creamed Venison Rumbledethump

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An easy hearty innovative wild game meal that adds a fun Scottish flair of Rumbledethump potato. I discovered Rumbledethump here in New Hampshire and served at the Highland Games in Lincoln, NH. Venison has been a staple of the Scottish Highlands for centuries as it is here in New England. Rumbledethump uses mashed potato, cabbage and turnip and topped with oven roasted cheddar cheese.

Creating creamed venison can be done by shaving a venison steak like creamed beef or made with burger of any wild game you like such as deer, moose, elk etc. This meal can be made ahead and refrigerated too for easy preparation. The secret ingredient is white vermouth!

Ingredients:

1 lb shaved or burger venison

1 white or yellow onion diced

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup all purpose flour.

1/4 cup butter

1 cup beef broth

1/4 cup white vermouth

2 to 3 cups – half and half cream.

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp thyme

1 1/2 cups cooked broccoli florets

1 cup cooked sliced carrots

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

Salt and Pepper to taste.

Cook the venison shave or burger in a large frying pan and onion in olive oil and a dash of salt and ground pepper, and 1/2 tsp thyme and 1/2 tsp garlic powder till lightly browned and the meat is just done and set aside in a dish so you can reuse the frying pan.

Cook the broccoli and carrots and set aside. (You can use already cooked peas and carrots here as a fast alternative).

Create a roux in the large warmed frying pan with all purpose flour and butter. Slowly add the 1 cup broth,2 cups ± half and half cream, 1/4 cup white vermouth bring this sauce to a slow boil. This should be creamy and thick. Now add the cooked venison, drained cooked broccoli and carrots and stir the creamed venison with the vegetables.  Salt and pepper to taste. The vermouth adds a bit of Ooo’la’la to the sauce….

I found a great recipe for Rumbledethump here. You can use mashed potatoes if you like instead to make the dish easier. https://www.thespruceeats.com/rumbledethumps-recipe-435824

Serve a scoop or square of the oven hot rumbledethump and ladel the warm creamed venison over the top.

Some sliced warm corn bread and butter would make this dish a WOW!

Enjoy!

Good Hunting! And Good Eating!

© 2020 Creamed Venison Recipe.

 

 

Venison Stew with Modern Electric Pressure Cookers

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There is nothing more inviting and satisfying than to come in from the cold outdoors and eat a warm venison stew for dinner. Pressure cooking cuts time and allows you to tenderize the meat to your satisfaction. Tender meat is the key!

Here, I am using  modern conveniences that I have access to.  But you can use a crock pot or Cast Iron Pot out on an open fire and slow cook it all day if you like till the meat is tender 

Today’s Electric Pressure Cookers are very easy to use and designed to brown meat as well as to pressure cook (high pressure) your venison such as deer, moose, elk or even bear meat.

Cuisinart ® 8-Quart Electric Pressure Cooker

All you need to feed 4 is 1.5 lbs meat cut into 1 inch or so cubes (not over 1.5 inches). 

You can brown the meat in today’s cookers by selecting the browning setting. Time for prep 15 minutes. Cook Time total 28 minutes in two steps.

Ingredients:

  • 1.5 lbs meat
  • 2 to 3 sliced raw carrots cut to 3/4 inch thick.
  • 4 medium cubed pealed potatoes (you can leave washed skins on if you like) I used mini potatoes in the photo above (12 or so should do-skin on).
  • 2 medium white onions quartered. (if you want to get fancy you can do pearl onions (12 to 15)
  • 1 or 2 turnip quartered (if you like)
  • 2 cups beef stock
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • 2 to 3  minced cloves garlic
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt ( I like kosher salt)
  • 1 tsp Black Pepper (fresh ground if possible)
  • 2  bay leaves
  • 2 to 4 slices of bacon (uncooked or cooked)
  • 1 tbsp parsley (fresh chopped is best)
  • 2 tbsp all purpose flower
  • 1 tsp thyme

Step 1- To brown,use 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Chop up 2 to 4 slices of raw bacon and add in with the oil. When you hear the oil and bacon sizzle then add the cubed venison. Begin the browning and add 2 tbsp flower in with meat and mix with the meat while browning, no more than 10 minutes or so to brown. Then add 2 cups water and 1/2 cup wine and all the spices and fold together for 30 seconds. Now select High Pressure on your Electric Pressure Cooker to cook the meat first for 20 minutes following the instructions on your cooker. More time may be needed for tougher cuts of meat. 

When your cooker shuts off you can often release steam with the weighted device that holds the steam on my cooker, but to be safe follow the directions on your pressure cooker.

Step 2- Once you can open your cooker you can test for tenderness of meat. If you approve of the tenderness then add the vegetables to the meat and cook for 8 minutes more. Your stew can then be folded or tossed to mix meat and veggies. If liquid is needed add remaining water or more beef broth. To thicken you can make a roux by mixing 1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp butter and saute in a frying pan till mixed. Add 1/2 cup warm water or the stew broth to the roux and mix till absorbed and add to the stew with 1 tbsp fresh or dried parsley. The stew broth should not be thin but have some body and some thickness. 

Salt and Pepper and Herb to taste.

You can put your cooker on warm and serve with bread and butter. A french baguette sliced with butter works for me along with a beer or a glass of your favorite red wine such as a Cabernet or Merlot.

Enjoy! You will go back for seconds for sure! It is even better on the second day if you keep it refrigerated overnight. 

 

© Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved.

Meat Scare translates to Hunting With Your Family

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I have lots of wild meat in my freezer, but even I felt the domestic meat shortage in my gut at a recent visit to the supermarket. It is not really a shortage as it is workers who have contracted COVID-19 and shut meat plants down. It is that sense of loss though that gets families thinking of hunting for their own meat/protein in the wild. I grew up in a hunting family because my mom and dad lived and grew up in the depression era where meat was scarce.  My dad in his 20’s was skinny as a rail as was his father. Baked beans was the protein supplement with whatever meat you could get. We are in fact omnivores but require protein for part of our diet.  Meat provides the bulk of that protein. 

The easiest game to learn to hunt, cook and eat is the Squirrel, particularly the grey squirrel. Hunting them with shotgun or .22. I prefer to hunt them with a .22 Long Rifle cartridge. Later you can hunt deer, moose, bear, ducks, geese etc.  as many do and get lots of delicious meat for the table.

I was at the supermarket yesterday amid shopping during the Pandemic and the pork section 20 yards of meat was totally empty, and beef was picky. Woke yet! Those that are woke, are looking to get Hunter Education Certified so they can hunt and harvest for meat.

The whitetail deer, is the animal most sought for food here in America and there are families who consume it as nearly 100% of their meat diet. 

Processing a Deer for food? From the hunt to the table, read below.

Do it Yourself Processing New Hampshire Deer at Home

© Copyright 2020

 

ANNOUNCEMENT: NH Fish and Game: Start Your Online Hunter Education Class Today

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A few years ago I was hunting in another state, they required a hunter education certification number. I had used old licences for years since I stopped instructing NH Hunter and Bowhunter Ed years ago. Thus I was re-certified and took the Online Hunter Education class which required a training meeting at the end. See below for details and click on the words “Continue reading” below.

It is a thorough program for Hunting, firearms and  most importantly safe handling practices in the field.

Start Your Online Hunter Education Class Today

Bored? Make Some Moose Cabbage Lasagna

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I was banging away on my keyboard this morning 4/19 and at the same time watching the news about COVID and how China lied to the world and continues today. Ok don’t get me going! But I was bored!

On my computer, I ran across an interesting delicious foodie immune supporting anti-oxidant ideas for moose dinner for me and Mrs. , but alas, I had to go to the store and get some ingredients in order to be creative. It uses giant size savoy green cabbage leaves.

Wirsingkohl.jpg

Courtesy Wikipedia.

Red Bell Pepper for color, two carrots, Onion, Garlic, (got to have garlic) rice and ground meat, in this case Moose burger, cheese and one egg.

We are making Moose Cabbage Lasagna! It has more anti-oxidants and anti-viral minerals such as Zinc that you can shake a stick at. And it tastes delicious!

You can never go wrong with garlic and tomato sauce either.

Mask on, and undaunted, wiping down my shopping cart to kill the bas..well, the little creepy viruses.  I endeavored to purchase a large green savoy cabbage, the kind with all the visible branches in each leaf. I chose the green savoy cabbage because it has dozens of minerals and anti-oxidant supporting Vitamins like A,B1,2,3,4,5,6, C, K, E, and immune support minerals galore.

I grabbed a pound of Moose burger, a venison that has little fat, so lots of Protein, B12, B6 and selenium, Zinc(anti virus).

Sitting in a house for a month can make you b-ass fat, so good for the great protein with lots of flavor and far less fat and little carbohydrate compared to real lasagna

The Recipe.

Ok blanch 8 to 10  whole green cabbage leaves so they wilt a bit but keep their color. Put aside. Then fry up the pound of venison in a little EVO Oil put aside in a bowl. Also cook a cup or so of rice. I like Basmati rice.

Yes this takes a bit of multi-task monitoring but remember, your bored!

Dice 2 carrots, (watch your fingers the carrots being round are not easy to dice), dice one medium onion, one medium red, yellow or green pepper(your choice) and two cloves of garlic minced. Saute for 5 to 10 minutes in oil add some salt and pepper.

Add the sauted veggies and 12 oz. of cooked rice, 12 oz of tomato sauce, ( I used a  marinara sauce) a half cup grated Parmesan cheese (I had flakes) and 1/2 cup mozzarella grated), a pinch of herbs ( your choice like fresh basil- very aromatic) and a raw egg to the burger to help bind the ingredients. Mix it together.

Now to make the lasagna out of the cabbage leaves. Find an 8 to 10 inch oven proof pan with at least 4 to 6 inch inch sides. We are now going to add a few drops of oil to the pan and spread 2 to 3 large wilted pretty green cabbage leaves on the bottom. Now add a thin layer of the mixture and another large leaf, and so on till the pan is full or near full. Cover with another blanched cabbage leaf or two to seal.

Cover and Bake at 300 F for 45 minutes. Let it cool for 10 or 15 minutes and turn the pan over onto a plate. It looks like a green cake. Drizzle with the tomato sauce add ground parmesan cheese. OMG Good! You can slice it like a cake in wedges and it stays together. Wow! This is my first one! Will make more!

If you want some pasta as a side dish go for it. I had this for breakfast the next morning with eggs. You could make a delicious rich Benedict sauce to it but that is adding lots of fat and calories. Maybe later…

Good Eating! Try it! Thia cake like lasagna added some fun to this dinner and my wife went crazy for it!

 

 

 

 

Excalibur Matrix Grizzly Crossbow; Muzzy Broadheads and Lumenoks on Wild Boar

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My recent hunt in Maine was the first opportunity to hunt and harvest wild boar with the Excalibur Matrix Grizzly Crossbow.  Broadheads used in the hunt were razor sharp Muzzy fixed 100 grain 3 blade heads with trocar cut-on-contact tips.

The combination performed flawlessly.  The Grizzly crossbow  is a 200 pound, 305 fps recurve crossbow. It is an older but proven model and easy to load and unload.

 

It is priced to sell right now at around $499.00. I purchased a later kit to make the bow a bit quieter.

I began the hunt with my flintlock which turned out to be finicky to fire. My backup was this crossbow and it did a marvelous job at 20 yards providing full penetration and exit with an immediate blood trail.

The scope was set with the main crosshair at 20 yards but had triangle yardage marks on the vertical scope line out to 50 yards. I think that 30 yards would be my personal max without a very steady rest and a rangefinder.

The Muzzy broadheads come in a pack of 6 and also come with practice blades for $31 bucks. Proving in these broadheads for flight was an easy proposition with the, easy to pull out, practice inserts.

MUZZY-3-Blade-100-Gr-1-3-16-034-Cut-Broadhead-6-Pk-225-Free-Practice-Blades

I tried other compound crossbows that were much faster but so much harder to load and cost way more.  As an older and smarter hunter, I knew that 300 fps is fast enough for the whitetails and boar I was after (excellent delivered energy) and that I could load it faster and easier.

A feature of this crossbow is to  also unload it easily in the field after a hunt. Here in New Hampshire you can’t have a cocked crossbow in a moving vehicle. Most other compound crossbows require you to shoot the bow into a target butt you keep in your vehicle. A pain the butt, pun intended.

The knocks on my arrow/bolts are Lumenoks and they work well to see them as they follow the lighted knock to your game hit and are easy to locate after. A word to the wise, if you want Lumenoks then purchase them installed on your arrow/ bolts already from  the factory. I had a difficult time removing old knocks that were epoxied in.

All in all the wild boar never knew what hit them.

Good Hunting!

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