December 19, 2024 • 62 mins
This week on the show we're joined by Danielle Prewett to discuss holiday wild game cooking ideas, recipes for the rest of the winter, and other techniques to help you cook your venison and other wild game better than ever before.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Welcome to the.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on the show, I'm
joined by Danielle Pruitt to discuss her top wild game
meal ideas for the holidays and the winter season, as
well as techniques for cooking better venison. All right, welcome
(00:40):
back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
by First Light and the Camo for Conservation Initiative, and
today we're talking food. It is edging here towards the
end of December, winter is upon us. For most folks
across the country. The holidays are knocking on the door steps.
So what better time to take a step back from
(01:02):
hunting and start discussing the fruits of our labor, hopefully
a whole pile of venison or wild turkey or waterfowl
or whatever it is you've been chasing this year. Now's
a great time to eat it, share with family and friends,
and really enjoy that stuff. So who better to join
us to discuss all that than Danielle Pruitt, Meat Eaters
(01:23):
leading food contributor and the author of the brand new
Wild and Whole cookbook Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious cook.
This is her incredible new cookbook just released this fall,
full of great venison ideas as well as other things
to cook with wild game, and so we are talking
through all things wild game today. We discuss her best
(01:48):
recommendations and ideas for new recipes and meals for the holidays.
Some good stuff to cook around Christmas for appetizers, main courses,
everything from roast ideas, things to do with your backstraps,
things to do with wild turkey, brast legs, goose duck.
(02:09):
We discuss a number of winter recipes, so things maybe
that aren't just for the holidays, but also something you
can cook up in those cold months of the year.
Talk through some techniques, some different things that you can
add to your venison repertoire no matter the time of year.
If you want to cook your venison or other wild
game better, if you want to enjoy more satisfying and
(02:30):
impressive meals, our conversation today is for you, and I
can't recommend Daniel's cookbook enough The Wild and Whole cookbook
can be found wherever you find your books. Definitely check
that out. Definitely give this one a listen. And since
this is the last, I think the last podcast we're
going to have before Christmas, this will also be me
(02:50):
sending you all off towards what's hopefully the very merry
Christmas and holiday season. So we're not going to belabor
the point anymore. I want to get to the conversation,
get you some food ideas, get your cooking and enjoying
yourself and hopefully putting some incredible meals on the table
here in just a matter of days. So without further
ado my conversation. But Danielle Pruitt, all right with me?
(03:19):
Now on the line is Danielle pruit Welcome back to
the show.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Danielle, Hey, Mark, how are you.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'm great. I'm excited to be here chatting. I appreciate
you making the time at a busy time of year,
so thanks for being here.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's always busy, though, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That is true. I do get that people like, ah, well,
you know, is this slow down when the hunting season
winds down? And for me, like the travel does. But
then that's also a time when a lot of the
content creation that the other half of the content, Oh
the world kicks off and gets crazy. So yeah, the editing, Yeah,
there's no easy slow part of the year, but the
(03:57):
holidays are a little bit unique in that. And you
have just kind of finished, maybe not finished, but you've
been on a roller coaster over the last couple of
years working on a massive project which you got to
see come to life this fall, and I'm sure you're
still kind of riding that wave right now into the
(04:18):
end of the year with the book, The Incredible Cookbook,
which is for those watching, Oh you got it, It's beautiful,
wild and whole. Danielle, congratulations first and foremost on bringing
that thing into this world.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Thank you. I mean, gosh, it is such a labor
of love.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean, I feel like everybody says that had a
book about a book, because it really is.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
But that book.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
You know, I never thought that I was going to
be able to have the opportunity to write a book.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
And then when we had a.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Handful of people come and ask me if I would
write a book, and then we got an agent, I realized,
oh my gosh, this is real, and so I knew
kind of what I I wanted the book to be
in the like I had like an end vision, but
like the journey to get there was long.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know how the journey to
get a book is long in stressful times and all
that kind of stuff. I can only imagine that with
this kind of book. That's not only since he had
to write, but then also the photography and figuring out
these recipes and all that. I can't imagine what all
that was like.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
So yeah, well it's well, there's like the writing of
the well there's I mean, I don't know if it's
the same for I mean, you've written a book, and
I don't know if it's the same for like a novel.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But the proposal process alone.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Is kind of intimidating, and like getting a book deal
is intimidating. And then of course the actual process of
writing it is for me, was just like the most
fun thing I've ever done. Like if I could do
anything over and over again, it would be right cook
writing cookbooks. Now everything that happens after it's written is
(06:07):
less fun, Like the marketing side of it is like
not as fun, but the actual meat and potatoes of
the project was really cool this book is it's seasonally
based because I wanted people to like have this well,
I guess what people were most excited about publish, like
(06:31):
the publishers, what they were most excited about was that
this was more of a lifestyle based cookbook. And I
think most people will be surprised when you go through
it to find that. And so in order to like
to capture that, I felt like I needed to share
the stories behind where all the food comes from, because
(06:53):
that's a really big part of this, especially you know
as a hunter, Like that's like a big part to
the story. Like that's what we get excited about when
we sit at the dinner table to eat a meal,
is like this animal had there was something about that hunt,
however long you watched that deer or whatever, And so
I wanted to be able to capture that. And so
(07:14):
it's organized by the season so that people could like
get really excited about whatever is happening at any given
point throughout the year, because there's always something outdoors to
get really excited about, and so I wanted people to
kind of like live in that moment through the recipes.
And that's why the book took so long is because
I wrote the book through each season as I was
(07:37):
living in it and as I was actually inquire acquiring
the ingredients for that, so that the ingredients were inspiring
the recipes and not you know, the other the other
way around. Like you know, I feel like sometimes people
write a recipe just to kind of write a recipe,
and I felt like I needed to find the ingredients
(07:58):
first outside to sort of of dictate what I was
going to do, which is why the book took so
long to write.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's incredible. So this idea of it being seasonal, I
love that idea, and I love that I can kind
of filter the book by the time of year and
what's right for that time of year kind of kind
of aims what you should be going for, which fits
perfectly into why I now seem the right time for
us to talk because we're shifting into from fall into winter,
(08:31):
and then there's also this micro season, which is like
the holiday season right smack dad, between fall and winter.
So I guess I wanted to talk practical practically to start,
which would be for people tuning in right now, We've
got like a week give or take until Christmas and
(08:51):
then you had New Years, You've got all these different
family get togethers and all these kinds of things. So
when you when you just think about cooking in the
holidays and wild game as a part of that, where
does your head go, Like, what are the what are
the pillars of your thinking when it comes to cooking
wild game for this time of year.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
That's a good question as far as like how you
approach it. I always kind of start with, like, what
is it that I'm doing, you know, like how much
of it that am I doing with family? And how
much am I doing it alone? Travis and I. I mean,
up until now, it's just always been the two of us,
(09:34):
and so I always cook a meal just for the
two of us, and it's kind of fun to sort
of like have a celebratory meal in that way. Now
I've got Hank, my five month old, who's thrown in
the mix, which we can eat yet he's so close.
But and then there's like kind of the other end
of the spectrum where you've got you know, like my
(09:56):
dad was just in town and that's probably the only
time I'm going to be able to see my dad
for the holidays, and so thinking about what it is
that I want to cook for them. The first thing
I do with like other people friends or families, ask
him like what do you want to eat? Because I
think people are always intrigued by like what I actually
have in the freezer, and so that's really the first
(10:17):
thing that's like what.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Do you want to eat?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Like my dad, I asked, is like I've got venison, pheasant.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Duck.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
It was like, what do you want to eat me?
He said venison. So that's kind of the first thing
I think about. And then of course I dig through
the freezer and try to figure out what exactly I
have to cook.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And then that's like the first step.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So is that how you approach most your meals? Like
you you look at what I currently have or do
you say so yes, think through like Okay, I want
to do this specific thing, and then you've got to
go out and go go find it or fill the
pantry from the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
It's a little bit of both. It's a little bit
of both, but I would say mostly it's about what
I have, And I think that comes from so like
I spent probably eight or nine years of eating only
wild game, and I had to find ways to make
that meat stretch. But I definitely like hunted year round,
Like we were hunting rabbits and ducks in the winter
(11:18):
and turkeys in the spring, and so like we were
throughout the year. We had different ingredients, and like you
run out of things fast, Like I only I'm lucky
if I get one turkey a year, or a couple
of hogs a year, a couple of handful of ducks
or geese a year. And so I kind of just
sort of take that inventory and say, like what do
(11:40):
I have, because that's kind of the beauty of like,
you know, hunting for your own food is that these
ingredients are not something you can just go to the
store and get whenever you want. There's there is a
finite source of that. And so I kind of that's
(12:01):
what I do, is I take inventory and look at
what I have, and I always try to make the
most of it, you know, things like venison. You know,
it's we have two deer in the freezer now, and
I'm hoping maybe to get one more. But you know,
that's one thing that like I always have a lot of,
but I only have like so many hearts, so many
(12:25):
you know, like of each tenderloins you know, there's not
a lot of those on a deer unfortunately, but but yeah,
that's kind of the way.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I approach it.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Okay, So if I am well, I'm not going to
be hypothetical, Well, I'm just gonna explain to my situation.
So I've got to plan our menu for our upcoming
Christmas evening celebration, and I oftentimes like to incorporate wild game,
and well not even or incorporate, I substitute wild game
(12:58):
often in for your more traditional meats. Right, So, for
someone listening who's in a similar situation where they want
to have a wild game centerpiece to their holiday dinner upcoming,
do you have any suggestions for ways to do that,
whether it's venison or something else. Do you have a
handful of ways that you could kind of substitute in
(13:20):
wild game for some classic holiday Yep.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
My favorite one and the one that I actually did
with my dad, is.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Roast venison.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So like instead of like roast beef or like a
prime rib, it's sort of like the closest equivalency that
you could do with venison. Albeit there's not a lot
of fat to it, so it's a little different in
that regard. But basically taking a big roast that's really tender,
and there's really only two muscles on a deer that
I would suggest for this, but taking like something that's
(13:55):
like relatively thick in size, like the surloin tip or
the top round or also called the inside round. Those.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Sorry to jump in, but I want to make sure
we pick the right ones from what they look like.
One of those is the one that looks like a football, right.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Uh huh, that's like on the that would be like
the equivalent of a quadricep above the kneecap, above the kneecap.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And then the other ones the kind of one that
looks a little bit like a mini backstrap tucked into
that conch. Right, No, that's.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
The top round or inside round. Well, I mean, I
don't know if you would call it a mini backstrap.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It's like a rectangle, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Maybe we are talking about the same one. I'm pulling up.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
This is what I did in my book. I have
this little butcher charte, and so that's the hind quarter.
This is the inside of that hind quarter, so you
can see like the femur and then the muscle that
goes up over the hip bone. It's this one right here.
It's that big rectangle one. It's got a long line,
(15:01):
super tender, so that one and then this surloin tip
above the kneecap. Those two are the most tender, like
large sized roast, so that you could feed a bunch
of people. And so basically what I do, and like
this is like the simplest way to explain it is
give it a really hot sea or on the stovetop,
(15:24):
stick an oven proof thermometer in it, and throw it
in the oven until it reaches one hundred and twenty
eight and then take it out.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
It's like that's a.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, I mean, that's like the simple version of explaining it.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
So there's a recipe in my book.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Is it the Venison arjous one.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, So it's.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You know, you start writing this recipe out and like
the editors want like the most detailed explanation. So you
look at the recipe and you're like, good god, it's
so long. But it's really not. Like I just told
you the recipe. You see it and you stick it
in the oven, and it's foolproof. And that's why I
like it so much, is it's absolutely fool proof. So
if you're somebody who's like very intimidated to cook like
(16:09):
steak for a handful of people, and like one guy
wants it medium rare, and the other one wants it
medium and the other one wants it rare, and you're like, gosh,
I got like eight sticks to cook. It's intimidating even
for me.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And so.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
This is like one way.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
This is a picture ye looks really good.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So basically it's just this one big roast. And what
makes this kind of like if you want to elevate
it a little bit, I have a recipe for a
mushroom rub. So basically you see it and then you
season it with this mushroom rub, which is just dehydrated
mushrooms that have been blitzed with a little bit of rosemary,
salt and pepper.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
That's all it is. But it adds a ton of flavor.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
And so you use that rub and then you put
it in the oven, and then the thermometer is off
key because you have no idea. Without that, you have
no idea how fast or how slow that thing is cooking,
and so you want to take it out about eight
degrees before it reaches final temperature that that you want it,
(17:15):
but that way, like when you do it, you're cooking
for a lot of people. You can start with the seer,
but you don't have to put it in the oven
right away. You can get all your side dishes ready,
put it in the oven, and then sit there and
drink your beer a glass of wine, shoot the shit
with people, and you're not like frantically like in the
kitchen trying to figure out how am I going to
(17:36):
get everything finished at the exact same time, because I
think that's what a lot of people struggle with. So
this is why I like that recipe. It's very hands off,
and I think that's kind of what you want to
do in the holidays, is you don't want to be like,
you want a great meal, but you also don't want
to be slaving away and stressing out about it either,
like you should. You should enjoy your.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Time with people. And so once yeah, and so.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
When thatmmeter hits the temperature, you just take it out,
let it rest, and serve it. This recipe also comes
with an ausu, so basically, like if you've got homemade
venison stock or beef stock, you just reduce that down
with a little red wine and some herbs and garlic,
and so that's just kind of a nice little little
(18:22):
meaty sauce that you can serve, serve with it, and
you know whatever sides that you typically like mashed potatoes,
something green however you like it. But that one's like
really great as it is like in like thick slices
with that juice. But I'll also like say, do a
(18:42):
couple extra roasts and then have it cooled down, chilled,
and once it's cold, slice it really thin and you'll
get like really great sandwich meat for like the next day.
So it's kind of like a you know, if you're
going to go through the trouble of like making a
(19:03):
big meal, you want to have leftovers, right, especially if
there's like a lot of people in the house, a
lot of lot of hungry people, like just kind of
help yourself to some meat. It's kind of a nice
one to have on hand.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I love it. That sounds really good. So you said
bigger slices and let it rest for five ten minutes
before you do that.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Probably, yeah, a good ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay. As far as like the venison main dishes, that's
your go to. Is there any other venison approach? For
the holidays that you would recommend backstraps or anything I've done,
like a smoked backstrap. Is there any better way to
utilize that one?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I mean I think backstrap. I feel like everyone that's
such a touchy subject. I feel like people have like
can be really set in their ways when it comes
to backstrap. Whether it's I'm not gonna say anything, but
like my father in law man, the only way he'll
eat it is to butterfly it open, and that's the
(20:09):
way he likes it. To me, it's like I just
don't like it so thin because it overcooks really easily.
That's a personal choice. I think it's also like a very,
you know, just a thing that just gets passed down
from each generation and like it's and it becomes nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So I think that's why people get touchy with it.
Let's see.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
But yeah, backstrap, I mean smoking it's good and it's
it's kind of like the same concept of like you
can take the whole loin And what I really like
to do is almost kind of like a reverse seer
where it starts on the smoker at a low temperature
and at the very end seir it or vice versa.
You can start by giving it a really hard sear
(21:00):
in like a cast iron, but keep it still like
raw in the metal, and then put it on the
smoker until it hits you know, that medium rare one
twenty eight to one thirty, and take it off.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
But that's the same kind of concept where you.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Have like a whole honk of meat and then you
can just slice it for everyone to just kind of
grab it as much as they want.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, I want to make sure I got something there.
Do you always take meat off about eight degrees ahead
of the final temperature? Is that like your standby?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So? I mean no, it depends on the size of
the meat. The bigger it is, the more residual heat
it will continue to carry or the residual Yeah, the
residual heat will continue to cook it for even longer,
so that makes sense. And also how hot it is.
(21:54):
The hotter, like say the oven, the faster it'll that
temperature will keep rising. But if you're using like a
lower temperature oven that's more gentle, the slower that climbs,
so when you take it out of the ove, and
that residual heat will just go a little bit slower,
so it just depends. And the same thing with like
a smoker. You're generally going to have that smoker at
(22:17):
like what two hundred and so it's not going to
climb as high as if you had that smoker at
three hundred.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
And fifty degrees.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
When you take that off, it's going to keep climb
and climb and climb and climbing. So it's really a
factor of the size of the meat and also how
the temperature of which you're cooking. Okay, I'm sure there's
a scientific term for that.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I like your explanation. So back to like classic holiday
dish substitutions. So that was a very good idea for
like the prime but with venison. Do you have any
(23:03):
recommendations when it comes to like a poultry or a waterfowl?
Do you do you ever try to incorporate duck or
wild turkey or pheasant or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Eat well, I do.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Thanksgiving, our tradition was always a whole roasted pheasant. But
like with us, especially at Thanksgiving, like I pretty much
eat a whole pheasant to myself because I'm like a
total glutton. I mean I could get by with half
a pheasant, but like to be honest, I'd rather eat
the whole thing because I just want a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
So that's a hard one. Depends on how.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Many people you have in your family, how many how
many mouths you.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Got to feed.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
But a lot of times with birds, I like to
sort of cook them in parts. The legs are generally
tougher and so like this is not really a crispsy
holiday recipe, but one of my favorite things to do
with like a whole pile of goose legs is to
cut feed them and then I'll like season it with
(24:07):
barbecue rub before before I cook it, and then when
it's done being cooked, then you slap it on the
grill and it's it's kind of my my way of
having like barbecue duck legs or goose legs. Yeah, it's
not like a Christmas e recipe by any means, but
it's winner is usually the time when we shoot the
(24:30):
most waterfoul.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That's the whole roast goose in the middle of your
table like the No.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
I know, it's like it's like you want to do
it because it's like part of for show. Yeah, but
you've either you're either going to get the breast cooked
perfectly or the legs cooked right, and then the other
the other half is not as good, and so it's
you know, it sucks, but it's just better cooked in parts,
(25:02):
if you know. And then of course, if you took
the time to pluck the skin, you really want to
make that skin really nice and crispy. There's nothing I
like more than a crispy seared duck breast with the
skin on, and I like doing that for a bunch
of people my cookbook, there's a recipe. I think the
recipe is also on the Meat Eater website. It's called
(25:23):
Boozy duck Alla Orange, and it's duck all orange is
like just a famous French recipe for duck. But I've
always found it to be like a little sweet for
my taste, so I kind of altered it to add
some bourbon in there, lush sugar. It's just a more savory,
bourbon y kind of a sauce. Basically imagine an old
(25:45):
fashion in a pan sauce.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That sounds pretty good. I feel like duck. I feel
like duck breast is something that feels like a pretty
good Christmas alternative. What's the trick to making a good
duck breast? Because I feel like, duck can be so good,
but some people have this idea that it's you know,
tough or kind of weird. What's the right way to
(26:09):
do it?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
First, have the right duck, choose a dabbler. That's the
first and foremost. I think that's probably the biggest misconception
when I hear about people not liking duck, it has
everything to do with their diet and what they're eating
is going to tell you what they're going to taste like.
And I mean, I could talk a long time about that,
(26:31):
but I'm not I'm not going to. But as far
as like the actual like way to make duck skin
crispy without overcooking the meat, pluck the skin, pad it
really really really really dry with paper towel, and don't
salt it or anything. Score the skin through the skin
(26:54):
and the fat, but not cutting through the meat into
little hashmarks, like through through across the breast. And then
you want to make sure that you bring it at
like pull it from the refrigerator, like at least thirty
minutes up to an hour before you actually cook. And
the reason is that cold meat hitting a hot pan
(27:17):
will create condensation, and so that condensation moisture is the
enemy of crispiness, just to put it that way, So
you want to pull it out of the refrigerator early,
and then you want to put its skin side down
in the pan while.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's still cold.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
So you don't want to start the pan on high
heat and then add at it.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
You want a.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Cold pan, then turn the heat onto medium high, and
then I put some sort of like a weight, like
a meat press weight on it, or you can use
a spatula and hold it down and let it sort
of start sizzling. And so what that's doing is letting
the fat render out. The fat underneath that renders and
(28:02):
the moisture escapes, and that's how you get the skin crispy,
because if you just do it out over high heat,
you're not rendering out that fat. So it's kind of
the same idea of if you've ever had like a
ribis steak or like you know, a piece of meat
pork chop that's got a lot of fat on it,
(28:23):
but like the fat hasn't been rendered and you're just
kind of chewing on it. That's exactly the same thing
that's underneath the duck breast and order to get the
skin crispy, you have to get the fat out because
it's not gonna be soft like like you would think
it would be. And so once that fat renders and
(28:44):
that skin is crispy after like three or four minutes,
then you'll flip it and then cook it a few
more minutes on the other side. And just like checking
a steak, you can kind of like fuel the density
to know when it's done and then take it off
the heat and that's it. And normally I just like
salt and pepper, so I don't salt salt the skin
(29:05):
side down because it'll draw moisture out from the skin.
I salt it on the meat side after I put
it in the pan, and then after I flip it,
once it's already crispy, then I'll put salt and pepper
on it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Okay, this kind of gives me an idea of running
through the main ideas here. So we talked duck breast,
We talked of a roast from a deer, and another
big one for Christmas or the holidays would be a turkey.
Do you have a turkey breast? A wild turkey breast idea, So.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's almost the same concept as that the roast. Pan
roasting is my absolute favorite way to cook a turkey breast,
and that's the same thing. Start on the stovetop, basically
searing it, and the only purpose of doing that is
to develop the brown flavors, like that golden color flavor,
(30:00):
the smell, all the things you associate with something that
makes you drool. And then you put it in the
oven with the thermometer and it's the exact same concept.
You just put it in until it's with the turkey.
You don't do eight to ten minutes. You'll pull it like,
I what is it? I think I pull it at
(30:22):
like one forty five?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
No, what was that?
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Right?
Speaker 4 (30:28):
I still have mom brain. I'm also not sleeping anymore.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I did not, even though I wasn't the mom and
the deal. I remember being around and it's difficult at
that phase five months. It's much easier when they're four
and six, I can tell you that much, Thank God.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
I keep asking people when it gets easier, and they're like,
it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm like, no, no, you've got much better, much better
nights of sleep ahead of you. But while you're thinking
on that, another question. Fifty one okay, yeah, not one
sixty five? Okay, one, it's so one of the things
as curious as you were saying that when I I've
always thought you have to brine a wild turkey breast
(31:09):
to really get it to be moist. In this situation,
are you are you doing this roast without a Brian
first or do you also brain?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
This good question And Brian's definitely make it taste better.
But I because of the way that I cook it
as being a dry cooking in order to get like
a really nice brown exterior, I actually prefer to just salt.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
It like like like you would season it before cooking it,
you know, maybe like a little extra salt, and then
keep it covered in the refrigerator for like a day.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Do you that?
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Like a whole day in advance.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
And that does like the same thing as brining it,
except you don't have to have a big pot of
water and salt, you know all that stuff. There's a
time and a place where that traditional brine, Like if
you're smoking meat, you definitely want to do that. But
for like for this recipe, I just basically season it
twenty four hours in advance, and you'll you'll notice some difference.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Okay, So I'm going to assault at twenty four hours advance,
keep it covered in the fridge for the day. On
the day of the holiday, I'm gonna take it out.
Do I need Do I put it in cold or
let it get to room temperature?
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Yeah, room temperature, same thing, Like pull it out thirty
forty five minutes before you're gonna cook it. And then yeah,
sear it in a pan. And in some recipes, like
you can sear it in the pan on one side,
flip it and then transfer it to the oven. And
that's like a real easy way. I've kind of gotten
away from doing that. I'll sear it on both sides
(32:44):
over really high heat, put it on like a sheet
metal sheet tray, and then put it in the oven.
And then that way, the pan that I just seared
the meat in is free to make like cook that
to cook either make a pan sauce or like cooking vegetables,
which is kind of a really like it's a thing
that you don't see a lot of people talk about.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
But since I've.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Had a baby and I'm trying to minimize cooking as
much as I can, and like amount of pots and pans,
it's like one way to like minimize having use an
extra pants pan to cook. Like, say, and I have
a side sauteed veggie, I'll cook it in the same
pan with that turkey, and you end up getting all
the flavors from the turkey that actually.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Add a lot of flavors to the vegetable.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
I used to reserve that for making pant sauces, but
I haven't made a pant sauce in a while, And
so it's as simple as just like adding like gosh, say,
like with turkey, you could just add like lemon juice
or white wine and a button some butter and it's
in a little stock and make a sauce if you
want it, or just cook your vegetables in that same
(33:54):
pan and you'll you'll you'll be able to kind of
get the same effect of getting the fond from the
bottom of the fan the pan into the veggies.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That sounds great, Uh okay, So turkey, duck venison. Is
there any world in which there is a ham replacement?
Like could you do a wild yeah hog?
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that a handful of times.
We get some smaller hogs. Mostly all most of our
hogs that we get come from the family ranch where like,
oh they just come and go those treat they're tricky,
tricky little it use a cuss word, but I won't.
(34:40):
They kind of like when there's a heavy rain, there's
like a big ravine that runs through the ranch, and
when that rain comes, everything kind of floods up, and
these just packs of hogs come out into the fields
and just tear all the pastures up. So there's like
certain times of the year that we'll set a trap,
and when we set the trap, sometimes we'll get a
(35:02):
nice fat sal A lot of times it's just a
bunch of smaller pigs, which is really kind of ideal
for making ham. So I'll just debut, take a whole
hind quarter, debone the femur, and then brine it in
like a traditional brine with salt and sugar. And I
(35:23):
don't really get crazy with like, oh, add this spice
and onion, because you really don't get that much flavor
from a brine. It's it's the salt and the sugar.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Sugar.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Sugar will definitely kind of get in there. But yeah,
and then and then trust it, like kind of take
some twine and like sort of trust it into like
the ham shape. Let it dry out in the refrigerator
so that the skin is dry and tacky so that
the smoke can actually absorb into it, and then I'll
smoke it, put it on the smoker at like two
(35:58):
hundred degrees for till it reaches like a well with
wild hog tile, it reaches an internal of one to
sixty five. To make sure you don't get trygnosis.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, I'll avoid them. So do do you ever incorporate
wild game into a side dish or an appetizer or
do you have any ideas for a good wild game
appetizer or something like that? If I'm trying to make
an entire wild game meal every single course. Uh, I
(36:29):
don't know if that might be overkill, but if I
were to try to do that, yeah, ideas.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
So like I'll take you know, like that roast where
I was saying, slice it thin, I'll do that. If
you've got like a bunch of people and you want
to do like a Christine, you can do some sort
of soft cheese on, like a borson type of like
garlic cheese spread, and then just a slice of that
(36:56):
meat and you can add like bisolmac vinegar, like a
like a glaze to it. But you can make some
sort of steak Christini really easily with that, and people
will just eat a million of them, and then for
something kind of different, it's a little bit more time consuming,
but everybody loves it. Our little croquettes, which is basically
(37:18):
a fancy term for like a ball of fried cheese
and potatoes and meat.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I'm in on that description.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, it's walk me through that one.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
This Yeah, I make this one, Travis says. Travis's side
of the family has a Christmas party every year and there's.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Like, gosh, forty people.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
The family's gotten huge, and so everybody brings. It's like
a potluck style, And so I'll like do this whole
thing ahead of time so much that like you can
even freeze it and put it in your freezer. That's
how far ahead you can do it. And then the
day you go in, you can pop it in the oven.
But base you've got ground venison or not just ground venison.
(38:05):
If you could do like sausage, like breakfast sausage is
really the best. So I mix breakfast sausage leftover mashed
potatoes and pimento cheese, and you just like mix it
all together, chill it and then roll it into a ball,
like a meatball sized ball, and then like dip it
(38:25):
in an egg and then roll it in panco and
then like do it to all of them and then
at that point you can like flash freeze it like that,
but it's not as good. I think what it's best
is like go ahead, set the fryer up deep fry
(38:47):
all of those things and and they're I mean, they're
obviously best right out of the fryer when they're super hot,
and like the inside is just soft like cheese and meat.
It's like it's like you can eat a thousand of them.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
But but like that's like one of those things is
like if you're doing it at your own home and
you're just like down to just sit there and like
fry as you go, that's great. But if you got
to take a dish to somebody's house, it doesn't really work.
So what I'll do fry all of them and you
can keep it in the refrigerator for like the day,
(39:26):
and then when you get to that person's house, like
throw it in a really hot oven to reheat and
that works. Or if you're like you don't have time
to do it right before, but you can do it
like a cup few weeks in advance, after you fry it,
flash freeze it, and never freezer.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
It's like one of those.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
It's like a frozen meal, like you just pop it
out of the freezer and put it in the oven
and eat It's it's pretty pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Sounds great this. You know, you brought up something that
my wife asked me to ask you about, which was
now that you have a child, any thoughts or ideas
maybe similar to what you just described there having kind
of freezer type meals ready to go. But has having
(40:14):
a child changed how you cook or what you choose
to cook, And do you have any ideas for you know,
cooking wild game well but not well well done, but
doing it in a high quality fashion with a family, right,
Because like I've my wife and I have got two
young boys, and we want to cook good meals and
we want to have great food. But life's chaotic. Every
(40:37):
night you get the kids home from school and you're
cleaning and you're fixing stuff up righty for the next day,
and you're finishing up work and you're trying to do
something around the house, and you're trying to deal with
the kids and it has has becoming a mother brought
anything new to you as far as ideas for blending
cooking good food along with making it somewhat convenient given
the chaos of life.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yes, I still think.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
I mean I before I had him, I made a
ton of freezer meals, and some of them were hits
and some were misses, and some of them, like there's
a few that I'm like, I need to just make
a bunch of this and freeze it. What I found
that I've done a lot more than I never did
before was just meal prep just for like lunches and things,
(41:23):
because I'm I'm still breastfeeding and I'm like starving all
the time, and i just want something to eat, and
I don't I don't want to go out to eat
or do any any of that kind of or eat unhealthy.
So I do a lot more meal preps. But and
I kind of have like a formula for like what
I'm making of like a protein of vegetable starch kind
(41:45):
of kind of thing. But I think I'm still at
the stage where he's young enough that like he's he's
going to bed at like seven thirty to eight, and
I will have already prepped certain parts of dinner. Either,
like after work, there's like a period of time like
(42:06):
a like a small window where I kind of keep
him in the kitchen and I just like prep a
few ingredients and then I get them ready for bed
and then and after that, that's kind of when I
go in the kitchen and I just like sear the
meat and like throw.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
It all together.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
So I think what I've taken away is like I
love food so much that I don't really want to
compromise that much. Like it's still like the thing that
at the end of the day makes me feel like
human and who I am, because I feel like you're
just at this stage.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
I'm still so.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
In the trenches, and it's like I think about him
all day every day, So at the end of the day,
when he's finally asleep, it's sort of like my piece
of time to remember like who I am as a
human adult and have an adult conversation. So like, I
really try to treasure that meal. But what I've found.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
Is that it's easier for me not to do it
all at once, Like don't try to cook your whole
dinner in that one little hour of time that you have.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Find ways to.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Prep little ingreat prep pieces of food, Like if I
want quene wall, like, I will find time at a
different point in the day or the day before, have
keenwall made. Have like your like, have like the starch
or whatever. Like I'll boil a whole bunch of baby
potatoes and keep it in the fridge, and then later on,
like for dinner, all I have to do is just
(43:35):
like smash it and throw it in a frying pan.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Until it gets crispy.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
So I think that's the biggest takeaway, is like avoiding
having to cook everything all at once and finding ways
to to do little bits of it throughout the day
and or you know, days ahead of time. I don't
know if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Yeah, no, it does. It does make sense. And I've
found that we have done that of thing like forward
planning has helped a lot. Like my my wife's really great,
Like she plans the whole week of meals out on
Sunday evening and then we'll start making some of these
things days ahead of time. If she's got a window,
well maybe Sunday afternoon we're home, then the two of
(44:17):
us might work on something that we won't be eating
till Wednesday, but we know we have a little bit
of time now, but yeah, Monday and Tuesday night we
won't be able to or whatever it is. Yeah, that
seems to help.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Yeah, I mean I would have never thought I would
have been like a meal prepper, but it really is
kind of the only way to just because sometimes you
just need to eat, and it's great to have good
food that's already cooked and when you're so tired.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
But yeah, now here's another one. So if kids make
cooking difficult. Another thing thing that has maybe become a
challenge for some people with eating, you know, high quality
(45:05):
foods and meals has been costs, especially you know, in
recent years, inflation has definitely been something that everyone's feeling,
and I know that's happened on food especially. Two questions
you can take either version of this question or both.
Do you generally have any any ideas for cooking well
(45:26):
on a budget? That's question number one? Or question number
two is if you could pick a couple things to
skimp on, so a couple things with the kitchen that
you would buy cheap, and a couple of things you
would not buy cheap, but absolutely like pay for the
higher quality ingredient what would those be so I can
I handle thank god, or I can't believe it's not butter,
(45:49):
but I should really buy the expensive U truffle or
whatever it is. Are there some things that we can
go okay on budget but should spend extra money.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
On things you can go budget like ingredient wise, grains, beans,
those things you can get a lot of it for
really an expensive and go to a place that sells
it in bulk, and that's definitely the cheapest route instead
(46:18):
of like quenwall I hate so much Quenoall go go
buy it from the bulk section and not like little
bags every time at the grocery store. You're gonna like
save a lot more money doing it that way. But
all those kind of grains and things are significantly cheaper.
But as far as like, I mean, I primarily eat
(46:40):
wild game, so that automatically cuts the grocery bill in
half because I'm not buying meat and it's granted you're
paying for it. Yeah, there's other costs associated with it,
so it's not I'm not going to say that it
is the most economical because it can certainly not be.
But in terms of grocery bill at the moment, that's
(47:03):
not really where my money is spent. I pretty much
just buy a whole bunch of vegetables, like other than that,
you know, you know, stocking up, you know, whenever, like
you find all the winter squash, I grab a handful
of them because they stay on the counter for a
long time without going bad. Because I think that's another
(47:26):
big thing associated with cost is food waste. I think
people waste a lot of food without even realizing it.
So I make sure to empty out my refrigerator at.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
The end at the end of the week.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
And like it's surprising how often I'll look in there
and be like, I have green onions, parsley, what am
I gonna make? Like while I'm going to go into
the pantry and having a well stocked pantry, like, okay,
I have some grains, Okay, I have like I have.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Like I'll keep like jars of.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Roasted bell peppers and things like that, and like you
can you can find a way to scrap a meal
together at like using whatever you have. And that's probably
the biggest takeaway to minimizing food budget is to stop
cooking every meal from a recipe that requires you to
(48:23):
go to the grocery store to get those ingredients and
instead find a way to make a meal using whatever
you have. And I think that's a really hard one
because some people are just not wired to think that
way or just can't that That can be a real challenge.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
But I think it takes a certain amount of confidence
in your ability and understanding like what goes together and
what wouldn't, And.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Well, I think it takes less.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
I feel like most people if you can, I think
most people in terms of flavor and what goes together.
I think that's the easy part because there are so
many restaurants we go out to eat so much these days,
Like you can easily off the top of your head
go think about like if you were to if you
were to go to a Free Words or Chipotle, like
you already know what your order is gonna be because
(49:12):
you know what ingredients you like to put together. It's
the same concept at home. You can just literally put
what you like together and based off like things that
you go out to eat all the time already. I
think what people have challenges with is like timing it
all all right, Like how like how do I put
(49:32):
cook all these separate things to make it go together
without spending forever in the kitchen, and that's where like
some of the food prepping comes in hand.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
But there's there's a lot.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Of times where Okay, tonight for dinner, I want something
really easy. I have a redfish fillet, I have some spinach,
and I have lemon. That's all I have to make
a meal. And so but I got well, I have
rice in the pantry, I mean, like like the fresh ingredients.
(50:04):
So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take
like a big pan that like a skill it with
a lid. I'm gonna saw tete some onion, garlic, saw it,
add the spinach, add rice, and add the same amount
of liquid that you would normally cook the rice, and
then add the fish on top, cover it with the lid,
and cook it the same length of time that you
(50:25):
would normally cook the rice. And in one pan you
have steamed fish with spinach and rice and it's like
a handful of ingredients and it doesn't take long but
pretty good. But that's like one of those scenarios where
I only have a few things and I can find
something in my pantry to make a meal. But the
trouble is that it's hard for somebody to know, like
(50:47):
how do you combine all those things into one?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Like what are the steps that you take? I wish I.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Could give you a quick, easy answer without having to
give a cooking like lecture on how to do it,
but that takes practice.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
What's your best resource for someone who wants to better
understand how to do that? Is there any resource that
gives you a little more of the how? I mean,
your book has got a lot of great recipe ideas
and instructions for the specifics. But it's like I remember
thinking myself, I should read that book salt, acid, fat
(51:28):
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
That's fantastic resource?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Is that because I kind of thought that that maybe
gives you the hows of how those four kind of
foundational things work. Is that a good resource?
Speaker 4 (51:37):
That's a fantastic resource. I mean, so the basis of
that book is what makes food taste good. It's salt, fat, acid,
and then heat. Like all those elements are what combined
to make a dish really good. And so she breaks
down like sort of the science behind how salt works,
(51:58):
how fat works, and fat in different forms outside of
what you would typically think of instead of just like
be fat, Like there's fat and also avocados or whatever,
and so she like kind of breaks it out and
then she like explains cooking techniques and so basically it
just sets you up for a foundation of knowledge so
that you can take that information and basically apply it
(52:21):
to whatever you have on hand.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
That's a great resource.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
All right. That's that's what I thought. That'd be a
good one for me. And uh, now you've confirmed it. Okay,
rapid fire a couple more thoughts or a couple more
ideas I'm looking forward from you. Number One, soups or
stews for the how like the winter time period, I
guess more generally the next few months. Chili is the
old standby. We all do our venice and chili. Is
(52:49):
there any other soup or stew or potted kind of
meal like that that you would throw into our idea
list for the next few months other than chili?
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, you know, I just did want.
Speaker 4 (53:00):
Well, I'm gonna give you two. I hate to give
recipe keep saying my cookbook, but whatever. So there's one
that's just venison and red pepper soup. Really easy. I
came up with that one. I came up with that
during COVID because it was the same concept of like
I only have a few things and I gotta cook
out of my pantry, like and so that's a good
(53:21):
one because it's ground ground meat, which everyone's always trying
to figure out what to do with ground meat besides
spaghetti or tacos or burgers.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Or telling it.
Speaker 4 (53:32):
But it's a it's a really good one, so simple
it's to go to. Yet another one I just did
was stew me. I actually just posted a recipe today
is with mustard.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
So like you.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
Carrots, venison, a bunch of dijon mustard, onion, and then
you like let that slow cook on the stovetop and
then you know, separate pan. I put mushrooms on a
sheet tray and roasted it and you add it at
the very end. You can add it all in one
pot at the beginning, but the mushrooms tend to get
(54:09):
kind of rungey, yeah, rubbery when you cook it for
I mean, it's fine, it's not a big deal. But
the texture and the flavor of it roasted separately and
added at the very end is really good. And then
I take like some good whole grain mustard and then
dollop it on top at the end that's like a
(54:32):
really good one that's like very different than most stews
you would typically make.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
Sounds very good pot roast. That's another one that I
feel like everyone's making the winter. At least I grew
up on a good pot roast. I know you've got
one in the book. Any thoughts on making a good
pot roast during the winter.
Speaker 4 (54:54):
Oh gosh, Use a low temperature in the oven, use
the right cut. I feel like people the biggest mistake
is using something that's like got no silver skin, because
I think silver skin is like the devil. But the
best cut for me is the neck, like it's deep.
(55:14):
The neck makes the best pot roast.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
Or the shank? Which is it?
Speaker 4 (55:20):
Is it really pot roast if you're using a shank?
I'm not sure, But it's all the same concept of
braising a tough cut of meat with this handful of
vegetables and a broth.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
It's all the same concept.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
But yeah, I think that's like the best tip I
can give is to use something with all that silver
skin on it, to let it break down and in
a tenderize and it's you'll get something better than like
just a plain hunk of meat with absolutely no silver
skin it. It tends to magically get dry even though
(55:53):
it's sitting in a pot of liquid.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Right, I've had that happen. Yeah. So so by using
the silver sk I think I have been guilty of
removing the silver skin from something before pot roast. Yeah,
so by keeping all of it on on the right
kind of cut, is that? Is that what gets you
kind of almost like a silky texture. Yeah, that's what
I thought.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:14):
Yeah, it's yeah, save a lot of time, don't waste,
don't sit there.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
And trim it all off.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah jeez.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:21):
The longer I'm doing this, like, the more I realize,
like I've wasted so much time doing unnecessary cleaning and
trimming and all sorts of stuff, It's like, yeah, keep
it simple, just throw it in there.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah, all right, final thoughts here, give me a pitch.
Pitch me and my listeners on the idea of conscious
eating eating consciously, which is kind of the theme of
your book, which I think a lot of us naturally
find value in. But maybe help us understand really quick
(56:56):
what you are referred to when you talk about eating
consciously and why that's or how that's something we could
all incorporate into our lives a little more.
Speaker 4 (57:05):
So I think about that in basically, what are the
what's the story behind the food on your plate?
Speaker 3 (57:13):
And the more you.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Really peel back the layers of that onion, the more
you start to begin to see and understand conservation, sustainability
and how precious our resources are, and so conscious eating
for me is just taking the time to think about
all the ingredients on my plate, where they came from,
(57:36):
what it took to get there, whether you're eating wild
game or if you're eating beef chicken, report learning about
those farming practices. And you know, an interesting thing about
my book is I did include some recipes for beef
chicken and port because even though I went a long
time not buying meat from a grocery store, the more
(57:57):
I began to hunt and like sort of become connected
to that animal and the habitat and learn about conservation,
the more I understood how important it was to support
farmers who share the same common goal as I do
in bettering our environment and our habitat. I think we
(58:21):
tend to like look at these and two separate like
lights like hunting and farming, but there should be like
a more symbiotic relationship because agriculture plays such a huge
role in habitat and environment, and so to me, conscious
eating is sort of like looking under the microscope of
(58:42):
all the things that had to happen to get this food.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
On your plate.
Speaker 4 (58:45):
And if you hunt, then you understand where you hunted,
you know, if you hunted on a farmer's land, like
what he did, the farming practices, like there's just a
lot of layers that go into it, and so like
you can scratch the surface or you could dig really deep.
But the more you do that, the more connected you
become to your food, and the more meaningful your meals
(59:08):
will become.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Well, I can certainly speak to how that has come
to fruish and just as a hunter, I can tell
you like every time when I eat something that I harvested,
killed on my own, I don't think there's any time
that I don't like say out loud to the kids, like, Hey,
this is that Sam and the daddy caught Alaska, Or Hey,
(59:31):
this is that buck that dad got last year in Wisconsin,
or hey, this is that deer that you and me
got together Everett and you just it becomes like a
story around the meal that makes the meal richer, and
I swear it tastes different because of.
Speaker 4 (59:45):
My husband always said his redfish tastes better because it
was caught.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
With a fly rod.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
I believe it. Well. I appreciate you taking the time
to talk with us about all this, Daniel. I appreciate
you putting together this book. Lots and lots and lots
of ideas. We've already tried a number of these here
at the Kenyan household, most recently, I think the pumpkin
the Venison pumpkin Student. Yeah, yes, we didn't talk about
but that was a really good one too. Oh good,
(01:00:12):
which speaking of silky, I would describe that one. It's
kind of a silky flavor to that one. Yeah, But
real quick. For folks that want to pick this up
as a last minute Christmas gift or a belated Christmas
gift or a New Year's Day gift to themselves for
a better you're cooking, where's the best place for them
to buy it? Where do you want them to buy it.
Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
From the meat eater dot com. We have it for
sale on our website, and then, oh gosh, you know,
I say wherever books are sold. Someone once got very
offended that I said that because they thought it was
a lazy response, but it is true. You can pick
it up at Barnes and Noble. My local bookstore has it.
(01:00:53):
I don't know you know which small independent stores have
carry it or don't carry it. And then of course
there's always Amazon if you're very last minute shopper.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Perfect, All right, Danielle, we'll congrats on the book. Thank
you amazing work, and thanks for taking time to do this.
Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Yeah, thanks thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
All right, folks, Hope you guys enjoyed that one. Be
sure to check out the Wild and Whole Cookbook over
on the Meat Eater website or Amazon or your local bookseller,
whatever it might be. Enjoy the upcoming days and celebrations
with your friends, with your family. Hope you get to
get outside, maybe fill another deer tag or two if
(01:01:38):
you are definitely, please tag a dough we need to
manage those dope populations as we will discuss in future episodes,
and have a great time out there. I appreciate you
all being with me this year, being with me this fall.
I hope it's been a fruitful and enjoyable hunting season,
and I hope you get a little time to sit back, relax,
reflect on the past few months, and hopefully a lot
(01:02:01):
of great memories. So thanks again for being here, and
until next time, stay wired to Hunt.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Welcome to the.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on the show, I'm
joined by Danielle Pruitt to discuss her top wild game
meal ideas for the holidays and the winter season, as
well as techniques for cooking better venison. All right, welcome
(00:40):
back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you
by First Light and the Camo for Conservation Initiative, and
today we're talking food. It is edging here towards the
end of December, winter is upon us. For most folks
across the country. The holidays are knocking on the door steps.
So what better time to take a step back from
(01:02):
hunting and start discussing the fruits of our labor, hopefully
a whole pile of venison or wild turkey or waterfowl
or whatever it is you've been chasing this year. Now's
a great time to eat it, share with family and friends,
and really enjoy that stuff. So who better to join
us to discuss all that than Danielle Pruitt, Meat Eaters
(01:23):
leading food contributor and the author of the brand new
Wild and Whole cookbook Seasonal Recipes for the Conscious cook.
This is her incredible new cookbook just released this fall,
full of great venison ideas as well as other things
to cook with wild game, and so we are talking
through all things wild game today. We discuss her best
(01:48):
recommendations and ideas for new recipes and meals for the holidays.
Some good stuff to cook around Christmas for appetizers, main courses,
everything from roast ideas, things to do with your backstraps,
things to do with wild turkey, brast legs, goose duck.
(02:09):
We discuss a number of winter recipes, so things maybe
that aren't just for the holidays, but also something you
can cook up in those cold months of the year.
Talk through some techniques, some different things that you can
add to your venison repertoire no matter the time of year.
If you want to cook your venison or other wild
game better, if you want to enjoy more satisfying and
(02:30):
impressive meals, our conversation today is for you, and I
can't recommend Daniel's cookbook enough The Wild and Whole cookbook
can be found wherever you find your books. Definitely check
that out. Definitely give this one a listen. And since
this is the last, I think the last podcast we're
going to have before Christmas, this will also be me
(02:50):
sending you all off towards what's hopefully the very merry
Christmas and holiday season. So we're not going to belabor
the point anymore. I want to get to the conversation,
get you some food ideas, get your cooking and enjoying
yourself and hopefully putting some incredible meals on the table
here in just a matter of days. So without further
ado my conversation. But Danielle Pruitt, all right with me?
(03:19):
Now on the line is Danielle pruit Welcome back to
the show.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Danielle, Hey, Mark, how are you.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I'm great. I'm excited to be here chatting. I appreciate
you making the time at a busy time of year,
so thanks for being here.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's always busy, though, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That is true. I do get that people like, ah, well,
you know, is this slow down when the hunting season
winds down? And for me, like the travel does. But
then that's also a time when a lot of the
content creation that the other half of the content, Oh
the world kicks off and gets crazy. So yeah, the editing, Yeah,
there's no easy slow part of the year, but the
(03:57):
holidays are a little bit unique in that. And you
have just kind of finished, maybe not finished, but you've
been on a roller coaster over the last couple of
years working on a massive project which you got to
see come to life this fall, and I'm sure you're
still kind of riding that wave right now into the
(04:18):
end of the year with the book, The Incredible Cookbook,
which is for those watching, Oh you got it, It's beautiful,
wild and whole. Danielle, congratulations first and foremost on bringing
that thing into this world.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Thank you. I mean, gosh, it is such a labor
of love.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean, I feel like everybody says that had a
book about a book, because it really is.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
But that book.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
You know, I never thought that I was going to
be able to have the opportunity to write a book.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
And then when we had a.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Handful of people come and ask me if I would
write a book, and then we got an agent, I realized,
oh my gosh, this is real, and so I knew
kind of what I I wanted the book to be
in the like I had like an end vision, but
like the journey to get there was long.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know how the journey to
get a book is long in stressful times and all
that kind of stuff. I can only imagine that with
this kind of book. That's not only since he had
to write, but then also the photography and figuring out
these recipes and all that. I can't imagine what all
that was like.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
So yeah, well it's well, there's like the writing of
the well there's I mean, I don't know if it's
the same for I mean, you've written a book, and
I don't know if it's the same for like a novel.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But the proposal process alone.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Is kind of intimidating, and like getting a book deal
is intimidating. And then of course the actual process of
writing it is for me, was just like the most
fun thing I've ever done. Like if I could do
anything over and over again, it would be right cook
writing cookbooks. Now everything that happens after it's written is
(06:07):
less fun, Like the marketing side of it is like
not as fun, but the actual meat and potatoes of
the project was really cool this book is it's seasonally
based because I wanted people to like have this well,
I guess what people were most excited about publish, like
(06:31):
the publishers, what they were most excited about was that
this was more of a lifestyle based cookbook. And I
think most people will be surprised when you go through
it to find that. And so in order to like
to capture that, I felt like I needed to share
the stories behind where all the food comes from, because
(06:53):
that's a really big part of this, especially you know
as a hunter, Like that's like a big part to
the story. Like that's what we get excited about when
we sit at the dinner table to eat a meal,
is like this animal had there was something about that hunt,
however long you watched that deer or whatever, And so
I wanted to be able to capture that. And so
(07:14):
it's organized by the season so that people could like
get really excited about whatever is happening at any given
point throughout the year, because there's always something outdoors to
get really excited about, and so I wanted people to
kind of like live in that moment through the recipes.
And that's why the book took so long is because
I wrote the book through each season as I was
(07:37):
living in it and as I was actually inquire acquiring
the ingredients for that, so that the ingredients were inspiring
the recipes and not you know, the other the other
way around. Like you know, I feel like sometimes people
write a recipe just to kind of write a recipe,
and I felt like I needed to find the ingredients
(07:58):
first outside to sort of of dictate what I was
going to do, which is why the book took so
long to write.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That's incredible. So this idea of it being seasonal, I
love that idea, and I love that I can kind
of filter the book by the time of year and
what's right for that time of year kind of kind
of aims what you should be going for, which fits
perfectly into why I now seem the right time for
us to talk because we're shifting into from fall into winter,
(08:31):
and then there's also this micro season, which is like
the holiday season right smack dad, between fall and winter.
So I guess I wanted to talk practical practically to start,
which would be for people tuning in right now, We've
got like a week give or take until Christmas and
(08:51):
then you had New Years, You've got all these different
family get togethers and all these kinds of things. So
when you when you just think about cooking in the
holidays and wild game as a part of that, where
does your head go, Like, what are the what are
the pillars of your thinking when it comes to cooking
wild game for this time of year.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
That's a good question as far as like how you
approach it. I always kind of start with, like, what
is it that I'm doing, you know, like how much
of it that am I doing with family? And how
much am I doing it alone? Travis and I. I mean,
up until now, it's just always been the two of us,
(09:34):
and so I always cook a meal just for the
two of us, and it's kind of fun to sort
of like have a celebratory meal in that way. Now
I've got Hank, my five month old, who's thrown in
the mix, which we can eat yet he's so close.
But and then there's like kind of the other end
of the spectrum where you've got you know, like my
(09:56):
dad was just in town and that's probably the only
time I'm going to be able to see my dad
for the holidays, and so thinking about what it is
that I want to cook for them. The first thing
I do with like other people friends or families, ask
him like what do you want to eat? Because I
think people are always intrigued by like what I actually
have in the freezer, and so that's really the first
(10:17):
thing that's like what.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Do you want to eat?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Like my dad, I asked, is like I've got venison, pheasant.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Duck.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
It was like, what do you want to eat me?
He said venison. So that's kind of the first thing
I think about. And then of course I dig through
the freezer and try to figure out what exactly I
have to cook.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
And then that's like the first step.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
So is that how you approach most your meals? Like
you you look at what I currently have or do
you say so yes, think through like Okay, I want
to do this specific thing, and then you've got to
go out and go go find it or fill the
pantry from the grocery store.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
It's a little bit of both. It's a little bit
of both, but I would say mostly it's about what
I have, And I think that comes from so like
I spent probably eight or nine years of eating only
wild game, and I had to find ways to make
that meat stretch. But I definitely like hunted year round,
Like we were hunting rabbits and ducks in the winter
(11:18):
and turkeys in the spring, and so like we were
throughout the year. We had different ingredients, and like you
run out of things fast, Like I only I'm lucky
if I get one turkey a year, or a couple
of hogs a year, a couple of handful of ducks
or geese a year. And so I kind of just
sort of take that inventory and say, like what do
(11:40):
I have, because that's kind of the beauty of like,
you know, hunting for your own food is that these
ingredients are not something you can just go to the
store and get whenever you want. There's there is a
finite source of that. And so I kind of that's
(12:01):
what I do, is I take inventory and look at
what I have, and I always try to make the
most of it, you know, things like venison. You know,
it's we have two deer in the freezer now, and
I'm hoping maybe to get one more. But you know,
that's one thing that like I always have a lot of,
but I only have like so many hearts, so many
(12:25):
you know, like of each tenderloins you know, there's not
a lot of those on a deer unfortunately, but but yeah,
that's kind of the way.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I approach it.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Okay, So if I am well, I'm not going to
be hypothetical, Well, I'm just gonna explain to my situation.
So I've got to plan our menu for our upcoming
Christmas evening celebration, and I oftentimes like to incorporate wild game,
and well not even or incorporate, I substitute wild game
(12:58):
often in for your more traditional meats. Right, So, for
someone listening who's in a similar situation where they want
to have a wild game centerpiece to their holiday dinner upcoming,
do you have any suggestions for ways to do that,
whether it's venison or something else. Do you have a
handful of ways that you could kind of substitute in
(13:20):
wild game for some classic holiday Yep.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
My favorite one and the one that I actually did
with my dad, is.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Roast venison.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So like instead of like roast beef or like a
prime rib, it's sort of like the closest equivalency that
you could do with venison. Albeit there's not a lot
of fat to it, so it's a little different in
that regard. But basically taking a big roast that's really tender,
and there's really only two muscles on a deer that
I would suggest for this, but taking like something that's
(13:55):
like relatively thick in size, like the surloin tip or
the top round or also called the inside round. Those.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Sorry to jump in, but I want to make sure
we pick the right ones from what they look like.
One of those is the one that looks like a football, right.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Uh huh, that's like on the that would be like
the equivalent of a quadricep above the kneecap, above the kneecap.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And then the other ones the kind of one that
looks a little bit like a mini backstrap tucked into
that conch. Right, No, that's.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
The top round or inside round. Well, I mean, I
don't know if you would call it a mini backstrap.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
It's like a rectangle, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Maybe we are talking about the same one. I'm pulling up.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
This is what I did in my book. I have
this little butcher charte, and so that's the hind quarter.
This is the inside of that hind quarter, so you
can see like the femur and then the muscle that
goes up over the hip bone. It's this one right here.
It's that big rectangle one. It's got a long line,
(15:01):
super tender, so that one and then this surloin tip
above the kneecap. Those two are the most tender, like
large sized roast, so that you could feed a bunch
of people. And so basically what I do, and like
this is like the simplest way to explain it is
give it a really hot sea or on the stovetop,
(15:24):
stick an oven proof thermometer in it, and throw it
in the oven until it reaches one hundred and twenty
eight and then take it out.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
It's like that's a.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, I mean, that's like the simple version of explaining it.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
So there's a recipe in my book.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Is it the Venison arjous one.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, So it's.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
You know, you start writing this recipe out and like
the editors want like the most detailed explanation. So you
look at the recipe and you're like, good god, it's
so long. But it's really not. Like I just told
you the recipe. You see it and you stick it
in the oven, and it's foolproof. And that's why I
like it so much, is it's absolutely fool proof. So
if you're somebody who's like very intimidated to cook like
(16:09):
steak for a handful of people, and like one guy
wants it medium rare, and the other one wants it
medium and the other one wants it rare, and you're like, gosh,
I got like eight sticks to cook. It's intimidating even
for me.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And so.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
This is like one way.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
This is a picture ye looks really good.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So basically it's just this one big roast. And what
makes this kind of like if you want to elevate
it a little bit, I have a recipe for a
mushroom rub. So basically you see it and then you
season it with this mushroom rub, which is just dehydrated
mushrooms that have been blitzed with a little bit of rosemary,
salt and pepper.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
That's all it is. But it adds a ton of flavor.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
And so you use that rub and then you put
it in the oven, and then the thermometer is off
key because you have no idea. Without that, you have
no idea how fast or how slow that thing is cooking,
and so you want to take it out about eight
degrees before it reaches final temperature that that you want it,
(17:15):
but that way, like when you do it, you're cooking
for a lot of people. You can start with the seer,
but you don't have to put it in the oven
right away. You can get all your side dishes ready,
put it in the oven, and then sit there and
drink your beer a glass of wine, shoot the shit
with people, and you're not like frantically like in the
kitchen trying to figure out how am I going to
(17:36):
get everything finished at the exact same time, because I
think that's what a lot of people struggle with. So
this is why I like that recipe. It's very hands off,
and I think that's kind of what you want to
do in the holidays, is you don't want to be like,
you want a great meal, but you also don't want
to be slaving away and stressing out about it either,
like you should. You should enjoy your.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Time with people. And so once yeah, and so.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
When thatmmeter hits the temperature, you just take it out,
let it rest, and serve it. This recipe also comes
with an ausu, so basically, like if you've got homemade
venison stock or beef stock, you just reduce that down
with a little red wine and some herbs and garlic,
and so that's just kind of a nice little little
(18:22):
meaty sauce that you can serve, serve with it, and
you know whatever sides that you typically like mashed potatoes,
something green however you like it. But that one's like
really great as it is like in like thick slices
with that juice. But I'll also like say, do a
(18:42):
couple extra roasts and then have it cooled down, chilled,
and once it's cold, slice it really thin and you'll
get like really great sandwich meat for like the next day.
So it's kind of like a you know, if you're
going to go through the trouble of like making a
(19:03):
big meal, you want to have leftovers, right, especially if
there's like a lot of people in the house, a
lot of lot of hungry people, like just kind of
help yourself to some meat. It's kind of a nice
one to have on hand.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
I love it. That sounds really good. So you said
bigger slices and let it rest for five ten minutes
before you do that.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Probably, yeah, a good ten minutes.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay. As far as like the venison main dishes, that's
your go to. Is there any other venison approach? For
the holidays that you would recommend backstraps or anything I've done,
like a smoked backstrap. Is there any better way to
utilize that one?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:49):
I mean I think backstrap. I feel like everyone that's
such a touchy subject. I feel like people have like
can be really set in their ways when it comes
to backstrap. Whether it's I'm not gonna say anything, but
like my father in law man, the only way he'll
eat it is to butterfly it open, and that's the
(20:09):
way he likes it. To me, it's like I just
don't like it so thin because it overcooks really easily.
That's a personal choice. I think it's also like a very,
you know, just a thing that just gets passed down
from each generation and like it's and it becomes nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So I think that's why people get touchy with it.
Let's see.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
But yeah, backstrap, I mean smoking it's good and it's
it's kind of like the same concept of like you
can take the whole loin And what I really like
to do is almost kind of like a reverse seer
where it starts on the smoker at a low temperature
and at the very end seir it or vice versa.
You can start by giving it a really hard sear
(21:00):
in like a cast iron, but keep it still like
raw in the metal, and then put it on the
smoker until it hits you know, that medium rare one
twenty eight to one thirty, and take it off.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
But that's the same kind of concept where you.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Have like a whole honk of meat and then you
can just slice it for everyone to just kind of
grab it as much as they want.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, I want to make sure I got something there.
Do you always take meat off about eight degrees ahead
of the final temperature? Is that like your standby?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So? I mean no, it depends on the size of
the meat. The bigger it is, the more residual heat
it will continue to carry or the residual Yeah, the
residual heat will continue to cook it for even longer,
so that makes sense. And also how hot it is.
(21:54):
The hotter, like say the oven, the faster it'll that
temperature will keep rising. But if you're using like a
lower temperature oven that's more gentle, the slower that climbs,
so when you take it out of the ove, and
that residual heat will just go a little bit slower,
so it just depends. And the same thing with like
a smoker. You're generally going to have that smoker at
(22:17):
like what two hundred and so it's not going to
climb as high as if you had that smoker at
three hundred.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
And fifty degrees.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
When you take that off, it's going to keep climb
and climb and climb and climbing. So it's really a
factor of the size of the meat and also how
the temperature of which you're cooking. Okay, I'm sure there's
a scientific term for that.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I like your explanation. So back to like classic holiday
dish substitutions. So that was a very good idea for
like the prime but with venison. Do you have any
(23:03):
recommendations when it comes to like a poultry or a waterfowl?
Do you do you ever try to incorporate duck or
wild turkey or pheasant or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Eat well, I do.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Thanksgiving, our tradition was always a whole roasted pheasant. But
like with us, especially at Thanksgiving, like I pretty much
eat a whole pheasant to myself because I'm like a
total glutton. I mean I could get by with half
a pheasant, but like to be honest, I'd rather eat
the whole thing because I just want a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
So that's a hard one. Depends on how.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Many people you have in your family, how many how
many mouths you.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Got to feed.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
But a lot of times with birds, I like to
sort of cook them in parts. The legs are generally
tougher and so like this is not really a crispsy
holiday recipe, but one of my favorite things to do
with like a whole pile of goose legs is to
cut feed them and then I'll like season it with
(24:07):
barbecue rub before before I cook it, and then when
it's done being cooked, then you slap it on the
grill and it's it's kind of my my way of
having like barbecue duck legs or goose legs. Yeah, it's
not like a Christmas e recipe by any means, but
it's winner is usually the time when we shoot the
(24:30):
most waterfoul.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That's the whole roast goose in the middle of your
table like the No.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
I know, it's like it's like you want to do
it because it's like part of for show. Yeah, but
you've either you're either going to get the breast cooked
perfectly or the legs cooked right, and then the other
the other half is not as good, and so it's
you know, it sucks, but it's just better cooked in parts,
(25:02):
if you know. And then of course, if you took
the time to pluck the skin, you really want to
make that skin really nice and crispy. There's nothing I
like more than a crispy seared duck breast with the
skin on, and I like doing that for a bunch
of people my cookbook, there's a recipe. I think the
recipe is also on the Meat Eater website. It's called
(25:23):
Boozy duck Alla Orange, and it's duck all orange is
like just a famous French recipe for duck. But I've
always found it to be like a little sweet for
my taste, so I kind of altered it to add
some bourbon in there, lush sugar. It's just a more savory,
bourbon y kind of a sauce. Basically imagine an old
(25:45):
fashion in a pan sauce.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That sounds pretty good. I feel like duck. I feel
like duck breast is something that feels like a pretty
good Christmas alternative. What's the trick to making a good
duck breast? Because I feel like, duck can be so good,
but some people have this idea that it's you know,
tough or kind of weird. What's the right way to
(26:09):
do it?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
First, have the right duck, choose a dabbler. That's the
first and foremost. I think that's probably the biggest misconception
when I hear about people not liking duck, it has
everything to do with their diet and what they're eating
is going to tell you what they're going to taste like.
And I mean, I could talk a long time about that,
(26:31):
but I'm not I'm not going to. But as far
as like the actual like way to make duck skin
crispy without overcooking the meat, pluck the skin, pad it
really really really really dry with paper towel, and don't
salt it or anything. Score the skin through the skin
(26:54):
and the fat, but not cutting through the meat into
little hashmarks, like through through across the breast. And then
you want to make sure that you bring it at
like pull it from the refrigerator, like at least thirty
minutes up to an hour before you actually cook. And
the reason is that cold meat hitting a hot pan
(27:17):
will create condensation, and so that condensation moisture is the
enemy of crispiness, just to put it that way, So
you want to pull it out of the refrigerator early,
and then you want to put its skin side down
in the pan while.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
It's still cold.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
So you don't want to start the pan on high
heat and then add at it.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
You want a.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Cold pan, then turn the heat onto medium high, and
then I put some sort of like a weight, like
a meat press weight on it, or you can use
a spatula and hold it down and let it sort
of start sizzling. And so what that's doing is letting
the fat render out. The fat underneath that renders and
(28:02):
the moisture escapes, and that's how you get the skin crispy,
because if you just do it out over high heat,
you're not rendering out that fat. So it's kind of
the same idea of if you've ever had like a
ribis steak or like you know, a piece of meat
pork chop that's got a lot of fat on it,
(28:23):
but like the fat hasn't been rendered and you're just
kind of chewing on it. That's exactly the same thing
that's underneath the duck breast and order to get the
skin crispy, you have to get the fat out because
it's not gonna be soft like like you would think
it would be. And so once that fat renders and
(28:44):
that skin is crispy after like three or four minutes,
then you'll flip it and then cook it a few
more minutes on the other side. And just like checking
a steak, you can kind of like fuel the density
to know when it's done and then take it off
the heat and that's it. And normally I just like
salt and pepper, so I don't salt salt the skin
(29:05):
side down because it'll draw moisture out from the skin.
I salt it on the meat side after I put
it in the pan, and then after I flip it,
once it's already crispy, then I'll put salt and pepper
on it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Okay, this kind of gives me an idea of running
through the main ideas here. So we talked duck breast,
We talked of a roast from a deer, and another
big one for Christmas or the holidays would be a turkey.
Do you have a turkey breast? A wild turkey breast idea, So.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
It's almost the same concept as that the roast. Pan
roasting is my absolute favorite way to cook a turkey breast,
and that's the same thing. Start on the stovetop, basically
searing it, and the only purpose of doing that is
to develop the brown flavors, like that golden color flavor,
(30:00):
the smell, all the things you associate with something that
makes you drool. And then you put it in the
oven with the thermometer and it's the exact same concept.
You just put it in until it's with the turkey.
You don't do eight to ten minutes. You'll pull it like,
I what is it? I think I pull it at
(30:22):
like one forty five?
Speaker 1 (30:26):
No, what was that?
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Right?
Speaker 4 (30:28):
I still have mom brain. I'm also not sleeping anymore.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I did not, even though I wasn't the mom and
the deal. I remember being around and it's difficult at
that phase five months. It's much easier when they're four
and six, I can tell you that much, Thank God.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
I keep asking people when it gets easier, and they're like,
it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm like, no, no, you've got much better, much better
nights of sleep ahead of you. But while you're thinking
on that, another question. Fifty one okay, yeah, not one
sixty five? Okay, one, it's so one of the things
as curious as you were saying that when I I've
always thought you have to brine a wild turkey breast
(31:09):
to really get it to be moist. In this situation,
are you are you doing this roast without a Brian
first or do you also brain?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
This good question And Brian's definitely make it taste better.
But I because of the way that I cook it
as being a dry cooking in order to get like
a really nice brown exterior, I actually prefer to just salt.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
It like like like you would season it before cooking it,
you know, maybe like a little extra salt, and then
keep it covered in the refrigerator for like a day.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Do you that?
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Like a whole day in advance.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
And that does like the same thing as brining it,
except you don't have to have a big pot of
water and salt, you know all that stuff. There's a
time and a place where that traditional brine, Like if
you're smoking meat, you definitely want to do that. But
for like for this recipe, I just basically season it
twenty four hours in advance, and you'll you'll notice some difference.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Okay, So I'm going to assault at twenty four hours advance,
keep it covered in the fridge for the day. On
the day of the holiday, I'm gonna take it out.
Do I need Do I put it in cold or
let it get to room temperature?
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Yeah, room temperature, same thing, Like pull it out thirty
forty five minutes before you're gonna cook it. And then yeah,
sear it in a pan. And in some recipes, like
you can sear it in the pan on one side,
flip it and then transfer it to the oven. And
that's like a real easy way. I've kind of gotten
away from doing that. I'll sear it on both sides
(32:44):
over really high heat, put it on like a sheet
metal sheet tray, and then put it in the oven.
And then that way, the pan that I just seared
the meat in is free to make like cook that
to cook either make a pan sauce or like cooking vegetables,
which is kind of a really like it's a thing
that you don't see a lot of people talk about.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
But since I've.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Had a baby and I'm trying to minimize cooking as
much as I can, and like amount of pots and pans,
it's like one way to like minimize having use an
extra pants pan to cook. Like, say, and I have
a side sauteed veggie, I'll cook it in the same
pan with that turkey, and you end up getting all
the flavors from the turkey that actually.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Add a lot of flavors to the vegetable.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
I used to reserve that for making pant sauces, but
I haven't made a pant sauce in a while, And
so it's as simple as just like adding like gosh, say,
like with turkey, you could just add like lemon juice
or white wine and a button some butter and it's
in a little stock and make a sauce if you
want it, or just cook your vegetables in that same
(33:54):
pan and you'll you'll you'll be able to kind of
get the same effect of getting the fond from the
bottom of the fan the pan into the veggies.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That sounds great, Uh okay, So turkey, duck venison. Is
there any world in which there is a ham replacement?
Like could you do a wild yeah hog?
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that a handful of times.
We get some smaller hogs. Mostly all most of our
hogs that we get come from the family ranch where like,
oh they just come and go those treat they're tricky,
tricky little it use a cuss word, but I won't.
(34:40):
They kind of like when there's a heavy rain, there's
like a big ravine that runs through the ranch, and
when that rain comes, everything kind of floods up, and
these just packs of hogs come out into the fields
and just tear all the pastures up. So there's like
certain times of the year that we'll set a trap,
and when we set the trap, sometimes we'll get a
(35:02):
nice fat sal A lot of times it's just a
bunch of smaller pigs, which is really kind of ideal
for making ham. So I'll just debut, take a whole
hind quarter, debone the femur, and then brine it in
like a traditional brine with salt and sugar. And I
(35:23):
don't really get crazy with like, oh, add this spice
and onion, because you really don't get that much flavor
from a brine. It's it's the salt and the sugar.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Sugar.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Sugar will definitely kind of get in there. But yeah,
and then and then trust it, like kind of take
some twine and like sort of trust it into like
the ham shape. Let it dry out in the refrigerator
so that the skin is dry and tacky so that
the smoke can actually absorb into it, and then I'll
smoke it, put it on the smoker at like two
(35:58):
hundred degrees for till it reaches like a well with
wild hog tile, it reaches an internal of one to
sixty five. To make sure you don't get trygnosis.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, I'll avoid them. So do do you ever incorporate
wild game into a side dish or an appetizer or
do you have any ideas for a good wild game
appetizer or something like that? If I'm trying to make
an entire wild game meal every single course. Uh, I
(36:29):
don't know if that might be overkill, but if I
were to try to do that, yeah, ideas.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
So like I'll take you know, like that roast where
I was saying, slice it thin, I'll do that. If
you've got like a bunch of people and you want
to do like a Christine, you can do some sort
of soft cheese on, like a borson type of like
garlic cheese spread, and then just a slice of that
(36:56):
meat and you can add like bisolmac vinegar, like a
like a glaze to it. But you can make some
sort of steak Christini really easily with that, and people
will just eat a million of them, and then for
something kind of different, it's a little bit more time consuming,
but everybody loves it. Our little croquettes, which is basically
(37:18):
a fancy term for like a ball of fried cheese
and potatoes and meat.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I'm in on that description.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, it's walk me through that one.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
This Yeah, I make this one, Travis says. Travis's side
of the family has a Christmas party every year and there's.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Like, gosh, forty people.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
The family's gotten huge, and so everybody brings. It's like
a potluck style, And so I'll like do this whole
thing ahead of time so much that like you can
even freeze it and put it in your freezer. That's
how far ahead you can do it. And then the
day you go in, you can pop it in the oven.
But base you've got ground venison or not just ground venison.
(38:05):
If you could do like sausage, like breakfast sausage is
really the best. So I mix breakfast sausage leftover mashed
potatoes and pimento cheese, and you just like mix it
all together, chill it and then roll it into a ball,
like a meatball sized ball, and then like dip it
(38:25):
in an egg and then roll it in panco and
then like do it to all of them and then
at that point you can like flash freeze it like that,
but it's not as good. I think what it's best
is like go ahead, set the fryer up deep fry
(38:47):
all of those things and and they're I mean, they're
obviously best right out of the fryer when they're super hot,
and like the inside is just soft like cheese and meat.
It's like it's like you can eat a thousand of them.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
But but like that's like one of those things is
like if you're doing it at your own home and
you're just like down to just sit there and like
fry as you go, that's great. But if you got
to take a dish to somebody's house, it doesn't really work.
So what I'll do fry all of them and you
can keep it in the refrigerator for like the day,
(39:26):
and then when you get to that person's house, like
throw it in a really hot oven to reheat and
that works. Or if you're like you don't have time
to do it right before, but you can do it
like a cup few weeks in advance, after you fry it,
flash freeze it, and never freezer.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
It's like one of those.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
It's like a frozen meal, like you just pop it
out of the freezer and put it in the oven
and eat It's it's pretty pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Sounds great this. You know, you brought up something that
my wife asked me to ask you about, which was
now that you have a child, any thoughts or ideas
maybe similar to what you just described there having kind
of freezer type meals ready to go. But has having
(40:14):
a child changed how you cook or what you choose
to cook, And do you have any ideas for you know,
cooking wild game well but not well well done, but
doing it in a high quality fashion with a family, right,
Because like I've my wife and I have got two
young boys, and we want to cook good meals and
we want to have great food. But life's chaotic. Every
(40:37):
night you get the kids home from school and you're
cleaning and you're fixing stuff up righty for the next day,
and you're finishing up work and you're trying to do
something around the house, and you're trying to deal with
the kids and it has has becoming a mother brought
anything new to you as far as ideas for blending
cooking good food along with making it somewhat convenient given
the chaos of life.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yes, I still think.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
I mean I before I had him, I made a
ton of freezer meals, and some of them were hits
and some were misses, and some of them, like there's
a few that I'm like, I need to just make
a bunch of this and freeze it. What I found
that I've done a lot more than I never did
before was just meal prep just for like lunches and things,
(41:23):
because I'm I'm still breastfeeding and I'm like starving all
the time, and i just want something to eat, and
I don't I don't want to go out to eat
or do any any of that kind of or eat unhealthy.
So I do a lot more meal preps. But and
I kind of have like a formula for like what
I'm making of like a protein of vegetable starch kind
(41:45):
of kind of thing. But I think I'm still at
the stage where he's young enough that like he's he's
going to bed at like seven thirty to eight, and
I will have already prepped certain parts of dinner. Either,
like after work, there's like a period of time like
(42:06):
a like a small window where I kind of keep
him in the kitchen and I just like prep a
few ingredients and then I get them ready for bed
and then and after that, that's kind of when I
go in the kitchen and I just like sear the
meat and like throw.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
It all together.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
So I think what I've taken away is like I
love food so much that I don't really want to
compromise that much. Like it's still like the thing that
at the end of the day makes me feel like
human and who I am, because I feel like you're
just at this stage.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
I'm still so.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
In the trenches, and it's like I think about him
all day every day, So at the end of the day,
when he's finally asleep, it's sort of like my piece
of time to remember like who I am as a
human adult and have an adult conversation. So like, I
really try to treasure that meal. But what I've found.
Speaker 6 (43:00):
Is that it's easier for me not to do it
all at once, Like don't try to cook your whole
dinner in that one little hour of time that you have.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Find ways to.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Prep little ingreat prep pieces of food, Like if I
want quene wall, like, I will find time at a
different point in the day or the day before, have
keenwall made. Have like your like, have like the starch
or whatever. Like I'll boil a whole bunch of baby
potatoes and keep it in the fridge, and then later on,
like for dinner, all I have to do is just
(43:35):
like smash it and throw it in a frying pan.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Until it gets crispy.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
So I think that's the biggest takeaway, is like avoiding
having to cook everything all at once and finding ways
to to do little bits of it throughout the day
and or you know, days ahead of time. I don't
know if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Yeah, no, it does. It does make sense. And I've
found that we have done that of thing like forward
planning has helped a lot. Like my my wife's really great,
Like she plans the whole week of meals out on
Sunday evening and then we'll start making some of these
things days ahead of time. If she's got a window,
well maybe Sunday afternoon we're home, then the two of
(44:17):
us might work on something that we won't be eating
till Wednesday, but we know we have a little bit
of time now, but yeah, Monday and Tuesday night we
won't be able to or whatever it is. Yeah, that
seems to help.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
Yeah, I mean I would have never thought I would
have been like a meal prepper, but it really is
kind of the only way to just because sometimes you
just need to eat, and it's great to have good
food that's already cooked and when you're so tired.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
But yeah, now here's another one. So if kids make
cooking difficult. Another thing thing that has maybe become a
challenge for some people with eating, you know, high quality
(45:05):
foods and meals has been costs, especially you know, in
recent years, inflation has definitely been something that everyone's feeling,
and I know that's happened on food especially. Two questions
you can take either version of this question or both.
Do you generally have any any ideas for cooking well
(45:26):
on a budget? That's question number one? Or question number
two is if you could pick a couple things to
skimp on, so a couple things with the kitchen that
you would buy cheap, and a couple of things you
would not buy cheap, but absolutely like pay for the
higher quality ingredient what would those be so I can
I handle thank god, or I can't believe it's not butter,
(45:49):
but I should really buy the expensive U truffle or
whatever it is. Are there some things that we can
go okay on budget but should spend extra money.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
On things you can go budget like ingredient wise, grains, beans,
those things you can get a lot of it for
really an expensive and go to a place that sells
it in bulk, and that's definitely the cheapest route instead
(46:18):
of like quenwall I hate so much Quenoall go go
buy it from the bulk section and not like little
bags every time at the grocery store. You're gonna like
save a lot more money doing it that way. But
all those kind of grains and things are significantly cheaper.
But as far as like, I mean, I primarily eat
(46:40):
wild game, so that automatically cuts the grocery bill in
half because I'm not buying meat and it's granted you're
paying for it. Yeah, there's other costs associated with it,
so it's not I'm not going to say that it
is the most economical because it can certainly not be.
But in terms of grocery bill at the moment, that's
(47:03):
not really where my money is spent. I pretty much
just buy a whole bunch of vegetables, like other than that,
you know, you know, stocking up, you know, whenever, like
you find all the winter squash, I grab a handful
of them because they stay on the counter for a
long time without going bad. Because I think that's another
(47:26):
big thing associated with cost is food waste. I think
people waste a lot of food without even realizing it.
So I make sure to empty out my refrigerator at.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
The end at the end of the week.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
And like it's surprising how often I'll look in there
and be like, I have green onions, parsley, what am
I gonna make? Like while I'm going to go into
the pantry and having a well stocked pantry, like, okay,
I have some grains, Okay, I have like I have.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Like I'll keep like jars of.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Roasted bell peppers and things like that, and like you
can you can find a way to scrap a meal
together at like using whatever you have. And that's probably
the biggest takeaway to minimizing food budget is to stop
cooking every meal from a recipe that requires you to
(48:23):
go to the grocery store to get those ingredients and
instead find a way to make a meal using whatever
you have. And I think that's a really hard one
because some people are just not wired to think that
way or just can't that That can be a real challenge.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
But I think it takes a certain amount of confidence
in your ability and understanding like what goes together and
what wouldn't, And.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Well, I think it takes less.
Speaker 4 (48:50):
I feel like most people if you can, I think
most people in terms of flavor and what goes together.
I think that's the easy part because there are so
many restaurants we go out to eat so much these days,
Like you can easily off the top of your head
go think about like if you were to if you
were to go to a Free Words or Chipotle, like
you already know what your order is gonna be because
(49:12):
you know what ingredients you like to put together. It's
the same concept at home. You can just literally put
what you like together and based off like things that
you go out to eat all the time already. I
think what people have challenges with is like timing it
all all right, Like how like how do I put
(49:32):
cook all these separate things to make it go together
without spending forever in the kitchen, and that's where like
some of the food prepping comes in hand.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
But there's there's a lot.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Of times where Okay, tonight for dinner, I want something
really easy. I have a redfish fillet, I have some spinach,
and I have lemon. That's all I have to make
a meal. And so but I got well, I have
rice in the pantry, I mean, like like the fresh ingredients.
(50:04):
So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take
like a big pan that like a skill it with
a lid. I'm gonna saw tete some onion, garlic, saw it,
add the spinach, add rice, and add the same amount
of liquid that you would normally cook the rice, and
then add the fish on top, cover it with the lid,
and cook it the same length of time that you
(50:25):
would normally cook the rice. And in one pan you
have steamed fish with spinach and rice and it's like
a handful of ingredients and it doesn't take long but
pretty good. But that's like one of those scenarios where
I only have a few things and I can find
something in my pantry to make a meal. But the
trouble is that it's hard for somebody to know, like
(50:47):
how do you combine all those things into one?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Like what are the steps that you take? I wish I.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Could give you a quick, easy answer without having to
give a cooking like lecture on how to do it,
but that takes practice.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
What's your best resource for someone who wants to better
understand how to do that? Is there any resource that
gives you a little more of the how? I mean,
your book has got a lot of great recipe ideas
and instructions for the specifics. But it's like I remember
thinking myself, I should read that book salt, acid, fat
(51:28):
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
That's fantastic resource?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Is that because I kind of thought that that maybe
gives you the hows of how those four kind of
foundational things work. Is that a good resource?
Speaker 4 (51:37):
That's a fantastic resource. I mean, so the basis of
that book is what makes food taste good. It's salt, fat, acid,
and then heat. Like all those elements are what combined
to make a dish really good. And so she breaks
down like sort of the science behind how salt works,
(51:58):
how fat works, and fat in different forms outside of
what you would typically think of instead of just like
be fat, Like there's fat and also avocados or whatever,
and so she like kind of breaks it out and
then she like explains cooking techniques and so basically it
just sets you up for a foundation of knowledge so
that you can take that information and basically apply it
(52:21):
to whatever you have on hand.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
That's a great resource.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
All right. That's that's what I thought. That'd be a
good one for me. And uh, now you've confirmed it. Okay,
rapid fire a couple more thoughts or a couple more
ideas I'm looking forward from you. Number One, soups or
stews for the how like the winter time period, I
guess more generally the next few months. Chili is the
old standby. We all do our venice and chili. Is
(52:49):
there any other soup or stew or potted kind of
meal like that that you would throw into our idea
list for the next few months other than chili?
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, you know, I just did want.
Speaker 4 (53:00):
Well, I'm gonna give you two. I hate to give
recipe keep saying my cookbook, but whatever. So there's one
that's just venison and red pepper soup. Really easy. I
came up with that one. I came up with that
during COVID because it was the same concept of like
I only have a few things and I gotta cook
out of my pantry, like and so that's a good
(53:21):
one because it's ground ground meat, which everyone's always trying
to figure out what to do with ground meat besides
spaghetti or tacos or burgers.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Or telling it.
Speaker 4 (53:32):
But it's a it's a really good one, so simple
it's to go to. Yet another one I just did
was stew me. I actually just posted a recipe today
is with mustard.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
So like you.
Speaker 4 (53:48):
Carrots, venison, a bunch of dijon mustard, onion, and then
you like let that slow cook on the stovetop and
then you know, separate pan. I put mushrooms on a
sheet tray and roasted it and you add it at
the very end. You can add it all in one
pot at the beginning, but the mushrooms tend to get
(54:09):
kind of rungey, yeah, rubbery when you cook it for
I mean, it's fine, it's not a big deal. But
the texture and the flavor of it roasted separately and
added at the very end is really good. And then
I take like some good whole grain mustard and then
dollop it on top at the end that's like a
(54:32):
really good one that's like very different than most stews
you would typically make.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
Sounds very good pot roast. That's another one that I
feel like everyone's making the winter. At least I grew
up on a good pot roast. I know you've got
one in the book. Any thoughts on making a good
pot roast during the winter.
Speaker 4 (54:54):
Oh gosh, Use a low temperature in the oven, use
the right cut. I feel like people the biggest mistake
is using something that's like got no silver skin, because
I think silver skin is like the devil. But the
best cut for me is the neck, like it's deep.
(55:14):
The neck makes the best pot roast.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
Or the shank? Which is it?
Speaker 4 (55:20):
Is it really pot roast if you're using a shank?
I'm not sure, But it's all the same concept of
braising a tough cut of meat with this handful of
vegetables and a broth.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
It's all the same concept.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
But yeah, I think that's like the best tip I
can give is to use something with all that silver
skin on it, to let it break down and in
a tenderize and it's you'll get something better than like
just a plain hunk of meat with absolutely no silver
skin it. It tends to magically get dry even though
(55:53):
it's sitting in a pot of liquid.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Right, I've had that happen. Yeah. So so by using
the silver sk I think I have been guilty of
removing the silver skin from something before pot roast. Yeah,
so by keeping all of it on on the right
kind of cut, is that? Is that what gets you
kind of almost like a silky texture. Yeah, that's what
I thought.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:14):
Yeah, it's yeah, save a lot of time, don't waste,
don't sit there.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
And trim it all off.
Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah jeez.
Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:21):
The longer I'm doing this, like, the more I realize,
like I've wasted so much time doing unnecessary cleaning and
trimming and all sorts of stuff, It's like, yeah, keep
it simple, just throw it in there.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah, all right, final thoughts here, give me a pitch.
Pitch me and my listeners on the idea of conscious
eating eating consciously, which is kind of the theme of
your book, which I think a lot of us naturally
find value in. But maybe help us understand really quick
(56:56):
what you are referred to when you talk about eating
consciously and why that's or how that's something we could
all incorporate into our lives a little more.
Speaker 4 (57:05):
So I think about that in basically, what are the
what's the story behind the food on your plate?
Speaker 3 (57:13):
And the more you.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
Really peel back the layers of that onion, the more
you start to begin to see and understand conservation, sustainability
and how precious our resources are, and so conscious eating
for me is just taking the time to think about
all the ingredients on my plate, where they came from,
(57:36):
what it took to get there, whether you're eating wild
game or if you're eating beef chicken, report learning about
those farming practices. And you know, an interesting thing about
my book is I did include some recipes for beef
chicken and port because even though I went a long
time not buying meat from a grocery store, the more
(57:57):
I began to hunt and like sort of become connected
to that animal and the habitat and learn about conservation,
the more I understood how important it was to support
farmers who share the same common goal as I do
in bettering our environment and our habitat. I think we
(58:21):
tend to like look at these and two separate like
lights like hunting and farming, but there should be like
a more symbiotic relationship because agriculture plays such a huge
role in habitat and environment, and so to me, conscious
eating is sort of like looking under the microscope of
(58:42):
all the things that had to happen to get this food.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
On your plate.
Speaker 4 (58:45):
And if you hunt, then you understand where you hunted,
you know, if you hunted on a farmer's land, like
what he did, the farming practices, like there's just a
lot of layers that go into it, and so like
you can scratch the surface or you could dig really deep.
But the more you do that, the more connected you
become to your food, and the more meaningful your meals
(59:08):
will become.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Well, I can certainly speak to how that has come
to fruish and just as a hunter, I can tell
you like every time when I eat something that I harvested,
killed on my own, I don't think there's any time
that I don't like say out loud to the kids, like, Hey,
this is that Sam and the daddy caught Alaska, Or Hey,
(59:31):
this is that buck that dad got last year in Wisconsin,
or hey, this is that deer that you and me
got together Everett and you just it becomes like a
story around the meal that makes the meal richer, and
I swear it tastes different because of.
Speaker 4 (59:45):
My husband always said his redfish tastes better because it
was caught.
Speaker 3 (59:48):
With a fly rod.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
I believe it. Well. I appreciate you taking the time
to talk with us about all this, Daniel. I appreciate
you putting together this book. Lots and lots and lots
of ideas. We've already tried a number of these here
at the Kenyan household, most recently, I think the pumpkin
the Venison pumpkin Student. Yeah, yes, we didn't talk about
but that was a really good one too. Oh good,
(01:00:12):
which speaking of silky, I would describe that one. It's
kind of a silky flavor to that one. Yeah, But
real quick. For folks that want to pick this up
as a last minute Christmas gift or a belated Christmas
gift or a New Year's Day gift to themselves for
a better you're cooking, where's the best place for them
to buy it? Where do you want them to buy it.
Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
From the meat eater dot com. We have it for
sale on our website, and then, oh gosh, you know,
I say wherever books are sold. Someone once got very
offended that I said that because they thought it was
a lazy response, but it is true. You can pick
it up at Barnes and Noble. My local bookstore has it.
(01:00:53):
I don't know you know which small independent stores have
carry it or don't carry it. And then of course
there's always Amazon if you're very last minute shopper.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Perfect, All right, Danielle, we'll congrats on the book. Thank
you amazing work, and thanks for taking time to do this.
Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Yeah, thanks thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
All right, folks, Hope you guys enjoyed that one. Be
sure to check out the Wild and Whole Cookbook over
on the Meat Eater website or Amazon or your local bookseller,
whatever it might be. Enjoy the upcoming days and celebrations
with your friends, with your family. Hope you get to
get outside, maybe fill another deer tag or two if
(01:01:38):
you are definitely, please tag a dough we need to
manage those dope populations as we will discuss in future episodes,
and have a great time out there. I appreciate you
all being with me this year, being with me this fall.
I hope it's been a fruitful and enjoyable hunting season,
and I hope you get a little time to sit back, relax,
reflect on the past few months, and hopefully a lot
(01:02:01):
of great memories. So thanks again for being here, and
until next time, stay wired to Hunt.
Host
Mark Kenyon
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