Tormented Kitchen

What do you do with leftover roasts?  Savory pies are a great way to use leftovers. We eat plenty of French dip sandwiches and salads topped with sliced steak, but I rarely make pot pie. I think with the cold weather coming in, we needed a comfort food meal and a pot pie is definitely comfort food! I had an open bottle of Rex Goliath cabernet, a leftover roast, and a few baked potatoes in the fridge, so no wasting! To make this pot pie a little different and more "gourmet", I added the red wine and some herbs to the gravy. It was delicious! Dear hubby and his brother requested a deer version next time.  That's an awesome idea, especially since we have venison stock and plenty of meat in the freezer. Oh, yes, that plan is already forming. Cabernet and venison are so good together. Also, venison instead of beef? It's a natural substitution in our house. Ingredients about 1 1/2 lbs leftover cooked beef roast or steak, trimmed and diced 2-3 leftover baked po...

Since my dear hubby went hunting and brought home a lovely deer, we've been busy butchering it up.  Justin usually does the most basic cleaning out in the field.  He guts and skins it before it comes home.  Sometimes, he keeps the animal whole. If the weather is too warm, he quarters it and brings it home in coolers with ice. We usually cut it all down into steaks, stew, and jerky meat right away. I asked him to make some big roasts this year. I have some plans that involve making some pretty fancy British venison dishes. They mostly call for venison stock or demiglaze to complete the sauces. Here was my chance to make some stock, too. I made sure he saved me a bunch of good bones. I used the leg bones and part of the pelvis. We sawed them into pieces with the reciprocating saw, and I got busy cooking before the marrow had a chance to get weird. Now I have some beautiful stock ready for action! PS. This recipe will also work for other red meat animals if you don't...

Let me tell you, I have been making this exact schnitzel recipe for years now. Justin and I have taste-tested many iterations to come up with this particular formula. And then one day recently, we went to lunch with Justin's mom to the nearby Olive Garden. Justin ordered their Pork Milanese. We looked at it. We tasted it. We sat there slack-jawed because it was exactly *EXACTLY* (No I'm not exaggerating) the same as I make it. Crazy huh? Usually if I want to recreate a restaurant recipe, I google it on the Internet. So anyone who loves OG's breaded pork cutlet, give this a try. PS Sorry, I have not tried to clone their ravioli that comes with the pork cutlet. Ingredients 6 cutlets of lean pork or venison, about ¼" thick 2 eggs 1/2 tsp. coarse ground black pepper 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. poultry seasoning 1 ½ cups plain bread crumbs 1/3 cup flour ½ cup butter or margarine 2 lemons, cut in wedges 3 T. chopped fresh parsley Method 1. Pound meat with a malle...

I used to make stew a different way. It was the way my mom made it, which technically happens to be a vegetable beef soup. My "official" stew recipe, this one I'm posting right now, came from Justin's grandmother Rose. The technique of dredging the meat in flour, then frying, helps to thicken the liquid so it's not so soupy, and it adds complexity to the meat flavor. Simmering the meat in tomatoes also tenderizes the meat very well. It works on tough cuts of beef, which may take longer to really get tender. However, it also works well on wild game meats, which typically don't have as much fat marbling as beef, which would make them more dry. We actually made our first meal of Justin's elk as stew, the photos shown here are from that meal. I have to admit, I usually prefer deer meat to elk, but this one is especially tender and mild. This summer we had record amounts of rain and apparently, the game had plenty of tender and tasty greens to eat. I also ...