Getting Chance-y

As I had a couple of reasonable days (and have managed to not burst into tears despite a Prednisolone taper) I decided to get daring and try some venison.

I love venison. Let me correct that. I LOVE venison! I have half a freezer full of it at the moment. If I had a bigger freezer, I would probably negotiate with my butcher to just take half a deer every season. Britain has a deer over-population problem at the moment, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21688447 and as a newly affirmed British Citizen, I feel it is my duty to help out my adopted country with this “problem”.

As it is ridiculously lean and very high in protein and iron (and conveniently free-range and organic), I hoped it would be a “safe” food and would mix things up a bit from chicken and turkey. As certain cooking methods can make it quite tough, I figured best to use the slow cooker.

Everyone needs a good, back to basics cookbook, and this one is mine.

Used so much it's beginning to fall apart

It’s the cookbook that gets referred to the most in my house, as it has the good basic information on how to cook X vegetable or how to I substitute for self-raising flour and such. There aren’t a lot of venison recipes in here, but there are a few, so I used one of them.

The one I used is for doing braised venison pot roast, but as don’t have that cut at the moment, I modified to a casserole as I have loads of diced venison. Here’s what I did -

1 lb of diced venison shoulder
About ½ tbsp of flour
1 onion - peeled and added to the slow cooker whole, but then I didn’t eat it (the boyfriend did)
1 large carrot - peeled and cut into small pieces and put on the bottom of the slow cooker
2/3 cup of tomato juice
½ beef stock cube, dissolved in the tomato juice
2/3 cup of water (the pot needed more liquid as I wasn’t using the same cut or volume of meat as the recipe called for)

Browning Bambi

I browned the meat in a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan, then tossed in the flour just before putting it in the slow cooker on top of the carrots and onion. I poured the liquid over top and left it on high for about 6 hours.

Tasty Bambi!

It was gorgeous! The meat was fork tender and fell apart with no effort and was very soft. I made some rice to go with it and it made a very lovely New Year’s Eve dinner.

I also decided to do some baking as well. In my search for something different, and trying to find things without too much fat in them (as things high in fat are not going down overly well at the moment), I came across this cake on the BBC website http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/749638/little-toffee-apple-cake

I adjusted it a bit. I don’t have any toffees, and I’m not going to buy a whole pack to just get three, so I left them out and added ½ tsp of cinnamon. It was rather tasty, and dead simple. However, their call for a 1lb loaf pan?

I really should have used one of my mini loan pans instead! Either way, this one is a keeper, so I’ll do it again in a smaller pan.

Then I got really daring. Lacking much in the way “snack food” at the moment, I had a go at making guacamole. Avocado is on the “go” list, so I figured, why not? Most store bought guacamole is full of dairy or mayo (god knows why, there is no need!), so home-made is the way to go. However, the whole time making it, all I could think of was my friend’s Mexican-born mother giving me “the look” she used to give us when we misbehaved as teenagers as I put onion granules in it rather than onions . . .

I used this recipe http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Best-Guacamole-Allrecipes?columns=4&position=10%2F62

I substituted onion granules for the onions. I also pureed the Avocado with the hand-blender. I decided it needed something, so I added a dash of paprika, which certainly made it much more interesting. It was tasty with bread sticks and gave me something to snack on for New Year’s Eve while we watched movies and Jools Holland.

Alas, something in this New Year’s Eve experiment did not go well with my stomach. About 11:30 my stomach really distended with wicked trapped wind and horrible cramps and I went to bed about 12:30 with a heat pack stuck to my tummy and did not re-emerge from bed until about 3:00 the next day, and only got as far as getting back to my own bed from my boyfriend’s place where I stayed for the rest of the night curled up with Crohnie Bear. I’m not sure what was the trigger (really hoping it wasn't the venison!), but I’m still paying for it.

Note to self. Only introduce one new food a day . . . .