I've been having a good season so far, putting in a lot of time and putting on a lot of miles. We've trained hard, hunted hard, and generally had pretty good success. Pearl is starting to get a little ragged, including a pretty good barbed-wire gouge on one leg that needs a bit of time to heal. Not that much need for a deer this year, so given the weather today I opted to spend a little time in my Trophy Room... Yep, the kitchen!
I decided to make pheasant pot pies.
Four roosters (minus one breast from a too-close shot). Quartered, rinsed and drained.
I cut up the breasts, then cut the meat off the thighs and cut that up too.
If you've ever considered not keeping the legs of pheasants, check out how much meat came off just the thighs!
The lower legs are hard to debone because of all the little hard tendons, so I prefer to brown those in some butter, then simmer them covered with some broth until they're tender and easier to debone.
Bit of work to get good meat off the lower legs, but I got a good double-handful.
Watch out for these too!
Simmer all this raw meat for a half hour in chicken broth and water mix, tossing in the precooked lower leg meat partway through.
Add sliced carrots, peas and chopped celery and simmer another 15 minutes.
Drain and reserve the broth, and put the meat and veg mixture into the pot pie pans, with or without a bottom pie crust depending what you like. And yeah, I cheated with the pie crusts - I can't seem to make them better than the pros, so I just buy them ready to go!
Fry onions in plenty of butter. Mix in flour, celery seed, salt, pepper, add milk and the reserved broth until you have a nice thick sauce.
Spoon the sauce over the meat and veg
Pinch on the top pie crusts, cover, label, and freeze or cook (this load was for the freezer - two of them are destined to be handed out to landowners! A much nicer gift of appreciation than a bloodied rooster with I the feathers still on!). Brush the trimmed pie crust from the smaller pie with sugar, cinnamon and butter and bake as a little snack. Nutritious and delicious! ;-)
Fry up any bruised or bloodied tidbits and give them to your good buddy, who tore chunks out of her nose to put those roosters in the air for you, and scratched her belly all to hell retrieving them out of the brambles!
Label and freeze any leftover broth for future projects - doesn't get better than that stuff!
Aaaaaaand then make moose Philly cheesesteak sandwiches with home made oven-fries for supper!
Lucky it doesn't rain this hard EVERY Saturday - I'd be fat as a house! LOL
-Dave
I decided to make pheasant pot pies.
Four roosters (minus one breast from a too-close shot). Quartered, rinsed and drained.
I cut up the breasts, then cut the meat off the thighs and cut that up too.
If you've ever considered not keeping the legs of pheasants, check out how much meat came off just the thighs!
The lower legs are hard to debone because of all the little hard tendons, so I prefer to brown those in some butter, then simmer them covered with some broth until they're tender and easier to debone.
Bit of work to get good meat off the lower legs, but I got a good double-handful.
Watch out for these too!
Simmer all this raw meat for a half hour in chicken broth and water mix, tossing in the precooked lower leg meat partway through.
Add sliced carrots, peas and chopped celery and simmer another 15 minutes.
Drain and reserve the broth, and put the meat and veg mixture into the pot pie pans, with or without a bottom pie crust depending what you like. And yeah, I cheated with the pie crusts - I can't seem to make them better than the pros, so I just buy them ready to go!
Fry onions in plenty of butter. Mix in flour, celery seed, salt, pepper, add milk and the reserved broth until you have a nice thick sauce.
Spoon the sauce over the meat and veg
Pinch on the top pie crusts, cover, label, and freeze or cook (this load was for the freezer - two of them are destined to be handed out to landowners! A much nicer gift of appreciation than a bloodied rooster with I the feathers still on!). Brush the trimmed pie crust from the smaller pie with sugar, cinnamon and butter and bake as a little snack. Nutritious and delicious! ;-)
Fry up any bruised or bloodied tidbits and give them to your good buddy, who tore chunks out of her nose to put those roosters in the air for you, and scratched her belly all to hell retrieving them out of the brambles!
Label and freeze any leftover broth for future projects - doesn't get better than that stuff!
Aaaaaaand then make moose Philly cheesesteak sandwiches with home made oven-fries for supper!
Lucky it doesn't rain this hard EVERY Saturday - I'd be fat as a house! LOL
-Dave
