Wild Game Wednesday - Stewed Pheasant with Sage Dumpings

Here we are, Wild Game Wednesday's, presidential election edition.  I'm looking forward to us making this soon.  I reckon I need to get out pheasant hunting.  It's been a couple of years since I chased pheasants, but I love hunting them.

Stewed Pheasants With Sage Dumpings

Pheasants
2 large pheasants, cut up as for frying	1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 carrots, thinly sliced	1/2 tsp. pepper
2 medium onions, thinly sliced	1/2 tsp. mace
1 rib celery with leaves, chopped	2 tsp. mushroom catsup or Worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. savory	1/2 cup white wine
1/2 tsp. marjoram
Dumplings
2 cups flour	1 tsp. rubbed sage
3 tsp. baking powder	2 eggs
1 tsp. salt	2/3 cup milk

1. Place pheasant pieces and the remaining pheasant ingredients in a casserole and add just enough boiling water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1-1 1/2 hours.
2. When pheasant pieces are tender, remove them but keep warm in a pot with a little sauce. Make the dumplings while the broth continues to bubble. Thicken broth, if you have decided it needs thickening, with flour and cold water paste.
3. Stir the flour, baking powder, salt, then stir in the sage, being sure to distribute it evenly.
4. Beat the eggs with the milk and stir into the flour mixture. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the boiling broth. Cover and cook gently for 15 minutes. Do not lift lid to peek.
5. Arrange pheasant pieces on a platter, surround with the dumplings, pour over some of the sauce, and serve remainder in a sauceboat.

Inheriting Ducks

We just got asked last night if we would like to keep the 4 ducks that are currently living on the pond at our new property.  After thinking about it for a while, we decided that we would.  Some quick research showed that they are good at eating bugs like mosquito larvae.  The previous owner said they don't require any housing either, which I find amazing considering the pond will freeze in the winter and it gets awfully cold in western PA.  So we'll see how it works out.  I have to find out what kind of ducks they are.  I'm guessing Pekin at this point, but don't know for sure.

There is something pleasant about seeing a farm with ducks on the pond.  I had thought about buying ducks for the last couple of years at our old house, but didn't know how they would do in the creek.  Hopefully we can get some nice duck eggs to supplement our current eggs.

Speaking of eggs, we can no longer keep up with demand.  If I delivered 1 dozen eggs to everyone that wanted them, just at my office, we'd have to buy another 6-12 birds.  We're talking about going from our current 7 birds to 12-18 birds in the spring.  I'm leaning toward 18 since the 7 we have now would be 2 1/2 years old next summer when the new ones start producing, and from our experience with Rhode Island Reds, they will be about at the end of their quality egg production cycle.  It is great hearing the feedback from people on our eggs.

"They are so much bigger than store eggs."
"Your eggs taste so good."
"The yolks are so much brighter."

Maybe we'll see a similar demand for duck eggs.

Wild Game Wednesday - Fennel and Tarragon Stuffing

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I thought I would share a stuffing recipe that we tried one year.  Despite the amount of fennel seed and tarragon, there is only light faintest aroma of licorice and no taste of licorice.  When we first tried this recipe at Thanksgiving, my mom and wife bought a box of Stove Top stuffing, just in case it didn't turn out.  To their surprise is was really good and started the trend of "never doubt the L.L. Bean Cookbook".  To stuff our Thanksgiving turkey, I quadrupled the recipe below to make 6 cups of stuffing.

This recipe comes from The L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook by Angus Cameron and Judith Jones, printed in 1983.  We happened to find a copy at our local Barnes and Noble about 10 years ago and have used it extensively.

Fennel Seend and Tarragon Stuffing

A subtle stuffing with a faint licorice aroma that's particularly compatible with delicate birds like quail. Also good for fish.  Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Ingredients
1/2 tsp fennel seed
2 Tb. chopped fresh tarragon or 1 tsp dried
6 Tb. butter, melted
about 1 1/2 cups roughly torn fresh bread crumbs
1 Tb. chopped parsley
salt and black pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together, tossing lightly.

Squirrel Pot Pie Recipe

The last post was about hunting, which I'm sure brings big game into most people's minds; visions of deer or elk hunting.  A lot of people started out hunting with small game, quickly moved on to big game, and maybe never went back to hunting small game.  Sure there are guys that love rabbit hunting or bird hunting, but I think they like working with their dogs more than the game. How many guys love to go squirrel hunting?  Probably a lot less. I think it comes from the idea that it takes so many squirrels to feed a family. Personally, I really enjoy squirrel hunting and absolutely love the meat.  The meat is sweet and nutty, given their diet, it's not a big surprise.

So here is a recipe that will feed a family of 4-6 with as little as 2 or 3 squirrels and have enough for leftovers.  We also make this with game birds.

Game Pot Pie

Ingredient List
Broth	Pie
2-3 squirrels (or 1 pheasant)	2 carrots, sliced
1/2 water, 1/2 white wine to cover	1 rib celery, sliced
1 small onion	4 Tb butter
1 rib of celery with leaves, sliced	3 Tb flour
8 peppercorns	3 cups broth
1 tsp salt	1/2 Tb Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp thyme	3 medium potatoes, cubed
1 bay leaf	1 medium onion diced
	cream
	pie crust or biscuit dough

1. Simmer the bird or squirrels in a kettle in wine-water to cover, along with onion, celery with leaves, peppercorns, salt, thyme, and bay leave until tender (1-2 hours). Remove the game to cool.
2. Cook the potatoes in the same stock until they are tender (you can put the potatoes in for the last 20 minutes of step 1 or you can cook them separately).
3. Retain 3 cups of the stock.
4. Bone and dice the squirrels or bird.
5. Prepare the dough for the crust
6. Saute onion, carrots, and celery in the butter until carrot is soft. Stir in the flour, cook a minute or so, and then off heat stir in the broth and sauce. Return to heat and simmer this gravy for 3-4 minutes, correcting for thickness with cream.
7. Put diced pheasant, potatoes, and other vegetables in the sauce in a casserole dish, cover with crust, and bake in a 500 degree over for about 15 minutes or until crust is brown.

I tweak this recipe every time I make this.  Sometimes putting in some sage, sometimes using a roll of croissants for the crust, maybe adding some peas.  Try it out and adjust it to make it your own.  This is a go to recipe for us and I look forward to it every time.

Enjoy!

Hunting, Fishing, Homesteading

As a homesteader, and yes, I'm slowly embracing the term (even though I don't agree with being labeled a homesteader), there is one thing that I take for granted, and that is food.  Our freezer always has venison, rabbit, squirrel, wild boar, elk, bear, pheasant, grouse, or goose in it.  It also has a variety of fish usually with walleye, perch, trout, and salmon.  Our pantry and other freezer always has vegetables from our garden.

I grew up with wild game and wild fish being a part of dinner on a regular basis.  Wild game wasn't a part of every meal when I was a child, but it wasn't unusual to have venison 2 nights a week and wild fish 1-2 nights a week.  It was just normal and when I turned 12, I got a gun and went hunting with my dad.  With my own family now, if we eat meat for a meal, it was something that I shot, caught, or grew.  We just don't buy meat from the store.  We aren't raising livestock yet, which is why wild game is a such a big part of our meals, but even after we get our cows and goats, I don't see hunting going away.

When most people think of homesteading or self sufficiency, they envision gardens, chickens laying eggs, goat milk, maybe a dairy cow.  Some may envision raising meat animals, chicken, pigs, meat goats, lambs, or a beef cow.  But I don't think that most people, when thinking about homesteading, dreaming about making a change of lifestyle think about hunting and fishing.  One good day of fishing or small game hunting, can lead to a week worth of meals.  One good day of big game hunting can lead to months or even a years worth of meals for your family.

I would like to make a stand though between hunting for food and hunting for a wall trophy.  I do have a deer head on my living room wall.  I hunted whitetail deer for 20 years and a couple of years ago had the opportunity to take a big, mature buck with a nice rack.  That one deer fed us for 6 months.  His head is on my wall so that I can remember the hunt, the smells, what it's like to be in the woods in the fall.  I can look at that deer and remember all of the deer I've taken, I can remember meals around the table with my family and friends.

When I enter the woods with a gun, my objective is to put meat in my freezer.  It is not to take the biggest animal that would make the best mount.  When my freezer is full, I stop hunting.  We have a deep connection with our food.  When we hunt and take an animal, we give thanks for the meat.

I guess my point is that you may be against hunting and/or fishing, but you should know that most hunters and fishermen are not just after trophies for on their walls; most hunters and fishermen are just trying to fill their freezers with healthy, organic, hormone free, antibiotic free, free-range meat. The same meat that most homesteaders are trying to raise.

New Homestead on the Horizon

It's been a heck of a year.  We threw out most of our garlic last year due to the wet conditions we had. Almost all of it was either rotten or just so wet that when it dried, there was nothing left of it.  That was pretty rough.  So we went into the fall thinking we would plant corn in 2016.  Then, I got a new job in December.  It required me to drive to the city at least 2-3 days a week, and sometimes more.  We immediately decided that it was time to upgrade our homestead and move closer to the city, closer to my wife's family, and closer to our old friends.

We almost bought a 30 acre farm that was already set up for beef cattle, with plenty of woods to heat the house and hunt on, but that didn't work out.  Next up was a house on 17 acres, but it failed the inspections pretty poorly.  Finally, after almost a year of searching, we found a house that we both really like, with a barn, fencing, a pond, and 8.5 acres of land.  There is currently long horn cattle on the property.  We are now looking forward to moving to our new farm in 4 weeks.

And with that new farm comes a lot of new things to learn.  We need to get the pond stocked with fish and make sure that we have a good habitat for them to breed, with a goal of harvesting a good portion of the fish that we eat from the pond.  We want to get cattle and possibly some goats, and learn how to get a small grass fed beef/goat operation going.  We've had so much demand for our eggs just from my colleagues that we need to expand our flock.  And where we are moving to, we could probably sell 2-3 dozen eggs per day.  We need to get a wood heating source for the new house, get it installed, and get a stock of wood as we are moving in right before winter.

There is a lot of stuff to do and a lot new learnings to share.  We're hoping to at least do weekly updates as we learn how to take care of cattle, goats, and aquaculture.