Shack Bitchin and Deer Chili

Friday is a busy day around the Acre. It's my official shack bitch day. I bleach all the towels, wash our bed sheets and comforter and steam mop the floors. I added to my duties (I said 'duty') today and whipped up a batch of deer chili. It's a howling wind blowing rain kind of day, and comfort food seemed to be in order.
In light of the recent poll I posted last month, more than not who responded to the poll wanted to see some recipes. Please keep in mind that today is a "man meal" so measurements are flying by the seat of my pants and most things are added until they look about right, so try and follow along.
First, kill a deer. With a bow.
Speedy took a real nice and tender one a few weeks back, and I smoked one of the legs. I also kept the back strap for this occasion, so I chopped up two strips of backstrap and diced the leftover deer leg meat.

I also had about a pound of leftover smoked brisket, and a good three pounds of smoked turkey we picked off the bone and kept for today. On a side note, the turkey we smoked weighed in at 10.08 pounds, I saw that and knew it was destined to be a smoked turkey. (my badge number).
This is one exception to the cast iron cooking rule for two reasons. First, my chili is tomato based, and second, as much as I make at one time, the cast iron pot would have to be big enough to cook Hansel and Getel in. Hansel? Hannnsell? (inside joke, Rhulenbarb will get it)
So I started out with Cupcake's large water bath canning pot, and added eight pints of tomatoes we put up. Then I chopped six large white onions and a large bowl full of blue peppers and banana peppers we picked from the garden last week, stragglers. Then I added three cans of black eye peas and three cans of black beans, all drained. Two extra large cans of canned mushrooms (I prefer fresh mushrooms, but they a little pricy this time of year, canned was on the cheap).
Then it came time for the meat. I started out with two packs of Johnsonville Brats, spicy. I pull the meat out of the casing and make little sausage balls, drop them in the pot. Then I added the chopped deer backstrap, the brisket and the chopped turkey.

Smoked turkey

Smoked deer leg

Now I add backstrap molasses to cut down on the acid of the tomatoes, this is 'to taste' so you have to taste as you go, stop when you get it right. One jar of horseradish, about half a bottle of brown mustard, one 15 ounce bottle of A-1, about half a bottle of Crystal hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce until it looks like you have enough and a few dashes of Tabasco. Then it's add about five large spoonfuls of minced garlic, some paprika and a little shot of "Slap ya Mamma"  Cupcake really likes the name of that. I used fresh Oregano and fresh Basil from the herb garden we brought inside to save for fresh fixing this winter.

All this made about three gallons, and what we dont eat tonight we will pressure cook tomorrow for off the shelf winter meals. I put the pot on the lowest setting and will slow cook it all day. I will also make a skillet full of from scratch corn bread, I'm afraid I have ruined Cupcake on the Jiffy brand. Sorry Kim.   

I know not everyone has a smoker, and not everyone has this kind of smoked meat on hand, but you can substitute any kind of meat you like, even the kind you dont have to kill yourself.
Happy November y'all!!
K&K

Halloween and stuff

Things are slowing down in the land of blogs here at Arlee's Acre, but we had a couple things to share, this day of all hallows eve. On the holiday note, we made jack-o-lanterns the other night. The kids picked out their pumpkins and each took a turn at carving their own.
Kattie Grace opted for the surprised look...

While Speedy went with a fire fighter themed Maltese Cross...

And bless her heart, Cupcake got into the geek spirit of things and bought me this to make a Star Wars theme with....

Winter time coming on leads to lots of baking, and we have banana bread and applesauce bread in the works this weekend. We added to our cast iron collection this week to kick baking off right...

And the winter project of the week goes to the birds. Chickens to be exact.  Our egg production dropped off to only a dozen eggs per week. We thought our free rangers had found a spot in the woods and were laying away from the coop. Research specialist Cupcake read up on this and we learned that keeping the birds cooped up for a week or two will bring them back to laying in the nest but our coop is kinda small for keeping a dozen birds in for a week, so I broke out the fence building toys and made a temporary run.  25x5 gives them a little roaming around room.

The girls didn't like being caged the first day, but they have settled down and stopped trying to escape, and egg production is already back up to four or five eggs a day. We have eleven hens, so a few more are expected.
We also speculate the birds know a bad winter is on the way, and this is their way of letting us know it's on the way. "Prepare yourselves, winter is coming"
K&K

Smoker Meat II

This past week was a bit of a battery recharge week. Both Cupcake and I had a touch of a bug that has been going around, so we took it easy in our off time. I did manage to grab a basket full of collar greens from the garden before it rained one day, and canned four more quarts for winter. We now have every quart jar in the house full of something. We either have to stop canning or buy more jars. I see more jars in our future...

While I was taking it easy this week, I spent a bit of time in a couple of Facebook groups I had joined a while back, both were MP related groups. The members were posting their pictures from back in the day which got me motivated to share some of mine. While I was rummaging through my old photo albums, I came across several of me and what they call today my "battle buddy".
I did a FB search, and low and behold, I found him living up in Boston. We reconnected and even had a chance to chat each other up this weekend. I've not yet told him he needs a nickname for blog mentions, so an old pic will have to do for now. KM, if you see this, let a brother know if you have a nickname you use or wanna use.

Since "Speedy" killed his first deer of the season, I took a leg and used a meat pokie thingy to tenderize the leg, then soaked it in buttermilk for five days to break down the meat a bit.

After five days in the buttermilk, I washed it off and gave it a nice rubdown in dry rub, then back into the fridge over the weekend.

This morning I took it out and wrapped it in bacon, and fired up Oklahoma Joe. Fraidy Mutt loves her some smoker time, and since we had our first frost this morning I'm sure she enjoyed having a fire even more than usual.

After a few hours, I brought the internal temp to *145 and took the leg off the smoker, foiled it and wrapped it until dinner. I'm whipping up a cast iron skillet full of roasted potatoes and carrots and a cherry cobbler made from our cherry tree out back to go along with it tonight. That's all the news that is new and improved from Arlee's Acre.
K&K

Halloween Par-Tay

Last weekend, Kattie Grace had a Halloween party. Nothing like seven giggly girls in the house to keep ya busy. After everyone got to the house, the festivities began.

No party is complete without a caldron of witches brew...

Kattie Grace overseeing the wrapping

Mummy Wrapping

Bobbing for apples

Front of the house decorated in home made glow ghosts

And Fraidy Mutt, who refused to dress for the occasion 

After the old folks wound down, the girls retired to the basement where they kept the party going until around 3 AM. We figured they would be asleep all day Sunday, but they were up and going early. May have something to do with the smell of home made biscuits baking and deer tenderloin gravy? All the girls had deer gravy, gotta love country girls.
K&K

Smoker Meat

Much as mountain men did in the past, we began storing deer meat for the winter. When I say we, I mean Jacob, or as he shall be called from now on, "Speedy".

Since my retirement, my knees have kept me close to home, but I always manage to kill at least one deer, usually to make jerky or to can. This year I'm not so sure I will keep that streak alive, but Speedy has stepped up to fill in. We have seven deer (had anyway) that would come out in the yard every evening. They have wrecked Pop's garden and shrubbery and need to be thinned out. I told Speedy I would like to have a couple young ones for tender hams to smoke. Last night he started.

For the non-geek types who read our blog, Speedy is the teenage protege of the Green Arrow. GA taught him how to shoot a bow, and after some time, the teenager could shoot an arrow faster than GA could, hence the name "Speedy".
This is the fourth bow season since I taught JB how to use a bow. I can honestly say the lad is a far better shot than I am, and has turned out to be quite the hunter/stalker. Last night also marked the first time Speedy has processed a deer, from dropping to skinning and butchering. I seriously doubt Green Arrow could be any prouder of his protege than I was last night.
The whole family is looking forward to tenderloin gravy Sunday morning, and I'm sure the smoked deer hams will make an appearance here very soon. Stay tuned
K&K  

Spring preperations

As fall sets in and the garden goes quiet, we have started preparing for next years planting. It seems that all year is geared toward preparing for winter, and we are OK with that. We like to follow in the older generation footsteps when it comes to gardens. It was normal to save seeds from the fall harvest, dry them and replant. One of our neighbors gave us a bag of October beans she said has been in her family for 80+ years. Next year we will keep that tradition alive. Our sweet corn cross bred with our indian corn this year, giving us half silverqueen half blue ears when we picked them. We saved a couple ears and plan on planting the blue ones just to see what we get next year.

Every year since we started a garden we have saved the green bean seeds. We hit on a bean that is very tender and sweet, and has no strings. It's a bush bean, so they dont run. We like that they stay in their rows, which makes tilling and weeding easier. We also save at least one head from our giant sunflower plants, and replant them. Cupcake starts them with wet paper towels, and they do much better than planting the seed out right.

Other seeds we save are pumpkins and gourds, but we do not dry them and store them, we just leave this years pumpkin or gourds in the spot we want them next year and let them rot. We did that last year and were overwhelmed with plants this year.
We also had tomato plants come up volunteer in several places around The Acre, but it was thanks to chicken poop. Our birds love tomatoes, and they ate the low hanging ones right off the vine. One unseen perk was they spread seeds all over the place. Cupcake says if we could teach them to poop in rows we could make a million dollars. Something to work on in the future.
Our last seed plan was jalapeno peppers. This year was a bounty crop of jalapeno jelly, and every time we made a batch, I tossed the seeds out into a flower bed by the garage. We figure you cant eat flowers, but you can eat peppers, so with any luck we will have a big section of peppers near the house for easy pickings.
Like they say, it's never too soon to plan. That is a little insight in to our spring plans.
K&K

Cast Iron Cooking

Cooking is a big thing around The Acre, and we have pretty much completely switched all out pots and pans over to cast iron. I grew up with my grandmother cooking with at least two skillets, now my father uses them. Cupcake and I had one small skillet we used for cornbread at first. When she moved in we went out and bought a complete set of Paula Deene cookware, and it was junk. Junk Deere Junk. The pots faded, warped, the lids do not fit snug and all the Teflon is coming off the surface of the pans. 

This was NOT caused by a dishwasher. We have one, but Cupcake is old school when it comes to washing dishes, she's a strict "by hand" kind of chick. So since the pots and pans started to give out on us, we added to our collection of cast iron.
Myths are that cast iron is bad for food to stick, hard to clean and heavy. Well, it is heavy but that's about the only thing we can agree to. Cupcake is the research specialist, and she read up on cooking and care for cast iron. We learned that pre seasoned pots and pans do just fine as long as you dont use soap to wash them. We use coarse sea salt for grit, and a clean scrubber sponge. Anything left in the pan scrubs right out. We place the pan on a stove eye, heat on low until the pan dries, then add a quick shot of cooking spray, then store the pot for next time. Cupcake brought an old hog rack that she has had for years, and we cut the rack to fit on the wall in the kitchen. This made a perfect cast iron display rack that we think really works with the log home look.

Our pans are so well used now, most times a quick spray from the faucet rinses the pan clean. We also have a small pot for beans or sauces, two griddles for bacon, and a large pot for bigger meals.

Over the weekend we saved our first half dozen eggs from one of our second generation of chickens. We fried them up for Sunday breakfast along with a few fresh green onions.

 And one night we were in the mood for something quick and light, so I made us a couple "combat" Ruben sandwiches with canned corn beef and habanero cheese instead of traditional Swiss, baked in one of our smaller cast iron skillets.

The only exception we make for cast iron cooking is tomato based things, such as soups. It just so happens that today is a chilly, rainy day, and we have a big chunk of pot roast left over from Saturday night dinner. Preparing for just such an emergency, we have a cast iron pot coated in porcelain. The acid in tomatoes will strip the seasoning from a black iron pot (I've seen me do it) so we use this gem for tomato things, like tonight's vegetable beef soup we have slow cooking while I type this.

Every time we cook a meal we ask each other "why isn't everyone cooking with cast iron?" So we thought we would share our findings with the world, and hope that we could convince at least one person to give it a try. We promise you will never go back to non stick junk, and any pot or pan you buy will last generations to come. Start a tradition.
Any brand will do you a good service. We have all Redstone brand, but our good friend "Rhulenbarb" has some Griswold pots handed down that he gets his cook on with. We did see a brand from China that got poor reviews as being cheaply made and the iron was brittle and cracked easily, so stick with American made. China owns enough of our county now anyway.
K&K