Cooking With Frank - Venison Tenderloin

Venison stock currently on the simmer

Here's what...we're exhausted.
Aside from errands today we cleaned half the deer (the one we wrote about yesterday), prepped bits for grinding, bits for stewing, started some venison stock with the ribs, with one front leg and shoulder blade of the doe - we didn't mention yesterday, but it was a "lady" (doe) deer - and we'll make more stock tomorrow, to put in the freezer for winter. We wanted to take a crack at some venison headcheese...but our deer arrived with no head.

Chunks of deer for grinding
and stewing

Tomorrow we have to take the hind quarters and finish prepping it for more grinding, more stewing AND some jerky (we LOVE jerky).

Also, from that pretty little deer came two delicate tenderloins (those are the big strips of meat that are each side of the spine)...





This is what we made with the tenderloins:

• Roasted Venison Tenderloin with a Brandy Sauce Reduction
• Mushroom Wild Rice Stuffing with Cranberries and Apricots
• Pan Seared Zucchini Batonettes
• Baked Butternut Squash

We used to own a catering company...which will be mentioned on some upcoming stories to finish off our history. One of the things our catering company focused on was seasonal and local foods. Why? Seasonal and local are by far the best tasting foods...it has nothing to do with the transportation/environmental impact of using local foods...often times buying local can mean more fuel costs, and equal environmental impact - but we can write more on that later. 

So why local and seasonal as a catering concept, or as an eating practice? Well...local means less manufacturing, purer food, possibly less chemicals, and it means seasonal...which is the best tasting fruits, vegetables and meats you will ever experience. Local and seasonal doesn't have to be some hippy, tree hugging crap...it can be purely selfish; why eat unless it tastes like the best thing you can put in your mouth?! So, our menu tonight was crammed with seasonal items: wild rice (technically) venison, squash, zucchini...all seasonal, all local...even dessert was seasonal tonight.

So, what to say? We don't have recipes for this...which means we have too much of the wild rice stuffing...and Angry Brother, who sent the deer over to us for "processing", which is the skinning, and cleaning of excess fat, and silverskin (white/silvery colored connective tissue attached to various pieces of meat that make it tougher to chew after being cooked), after he scored it at hunting camp this week (he didn't shoot it himself) will get a nice plate of leftovers brought to work tomorrow.

If you are ever wondering what to do with leftover stuffing (whether it be wild rice or bread stuffing), here's what we're going to do; tomorrow morning we'll add an egg to some of it, and some panko crumbs, and fry a little stuffing patty, and on the side, sunny side up eggs and maybe some yogurt. Waste not want, want not...it's all about the evolution of leftovers.why waste food when you can use it to be creative? 

Another example, from tonight:

"What can I do with these raisins? They're too damn dry to eat?", The Mother said, as she was digging through one of her cupboards...

Our suggestion was to soak them in brandy, then make a bread pudding out of them. Yum. Now I wish we'd made bread pudding for dessert tonight...

Dessert is about done now though. We won't post the picture here, we'll be posting it on Facebook (maybe), you know...where food pictures belong...

We made a brandy-caramel apple crumble with whipped topping..

Oh, and that video of us processing the deer from the start, that we mentioned in yesterday's post ( http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/11/skin-off-deers-back.html)? The Boyfriend, James, will have it done by tomorrow's post...where we'll do another entry about wild game. 'Tis the season.

~Frank et al