Hello again. Last night, I made minute steaks with peppers and onions. I used left over peppers and onions from the sausages that I made on Sunday, but you can of course, cut new or open a new bag of frozen.
For this recipe I used venison, but if you have beef or chicken minute steaks you can use them. You can also add some different flavors to the mix by adding some Worcestershire sauce, ginger, or pepper rub to your steaks.
My minute steaks were made by cutting steaks to be about 1/5 inch thick on my in-law’s slicer, but you can also cut them thinner/thicker as you desire.
Heat your frying pan over medium heat and add some oil. Once it is hot cook your minute steaks (about 2 cups, or 12 slices) until cooked, only about a minute each side.
Remove your steaks and add your chopped peppers (2 cups) and onion (1 cup). Add more oil if it’s dry.
Once veggies are cooked, add the steaks and juices, stir. Heat for only a minute, remove from heat and add to buns/bread, or serve over rice.
One thing that happened this weekend was our shower stopped working. When we first moved in, the shower was already not working correctly. The hot water knob would slip and make it very difficult to turn on and off the water, as well as hard to close it enough to prevent a leak. In September or October, Josh pulled apart the hot water knob, and was able to tighten a clamp on the cartridge. But, Sunday morning when I was about to shower, the clamp finally gave again, so Josh pulled apart the mechanism and broke the old clamp, but it needed to be actually fixed this time anyway. We turned off the water, took out the cartridge, and took it to ACE hardware to find replacement cartridges. We found two, so we could also replace the cold water too, and we also bought new handles that attach directly to the splines on the cartridge. We returned home late, but we still fixed it and with that we finally have water again. What do you think of the new knobs? Have you ever had problems with your shower handles?
Packing our Freezer (Venison)
We are not vegan or vegetarians, but my husband and I are fervently against animal cruelty. We also understand that our meals come from animals. We understand that some are against hunting, however hundreds of deer die every winter from starvation and car accidents in our area, and if hunting will prevent animal suffering and if hunting can provide food for someone, we feel hunting is worth it. We don’t enjoy the action of hunting, but our ecosystem is cruel. We also use as much of the meat as possible, and find that the meat is often healthier than normal grass/corn fed beef, and has a fat content of less than most beefs. Deer usually has a fat content of less that 5%. With that understood, Josh went hunting this weekend and managed to get a button buck. I had gone hunting with him earlier this year, but this weekend we were fortunate enough to get a small buck. We then took Sunday to process the deer and get it cut and packaged for meals. We are grateful that now we will have 36 meals covered as a result, and it is a blessing that we won’t have to spend as much on groceries in these winter months as a result. What does this mean? It means I’m going to be making a lot of recipes in the next few months using a mixture of my normal beef, pork, chicken, but now also venison. This will be my first year cooking venison, so bear with me as I try new recipes and give you alternates to Venison if you want to try the same recipe. As you can see my freezer is now mostly meat and frozen meals, so please consider subscribing or following if you want to keep up with everything to come!
There are a lot of opinions when it comes to Sausage & Peppers sandwiches. The main controversy is if they should have marinara sauce or not. I have had both and though I don’t have a strong opinion and I will eat the sandwich either way, I like to make my sandwiches without marinara sauce. My main reasoning is that less ingredients is better. If I use a jar of marinara sauce, that means I will have one less meal of spaghetti or if I make meatballs, I may be lacking in sauce (because we all know meatballs taste so much better in sauce). I’m not going to write out a huge recipe on this since I don’t season it other than adding oil. I also just use mild Italian sausage, though if you like hot, that’s also popular. The only thing that’s kind of weird is that I like to cut my sausage in half lengthwise. I also try to remove the casing at this point because it can cook up kind of chewy. I cook the flat side down for a few minutes until it’s mostly cooked through, then I’ll flip them and place them along the outer edge of my pan to cook the whole curved surface. Once they are cooked, I’ll add either my fresh cut peppers & onions and a bit more oil, or just add a frozen bag of peppers & onions. Then, I serve each half on hotdog buns. I usually plan 2 sandwiches per person, and serve other dishes on the side like a veggie and a pasta.
Shepherd’s Pie is a great way to use up any mashed potatoes or any other Thanksgiving leftovers you have left. I used 1 can of sweet peas and 1 can of sliced carrots, and I added what little corn I had left from Thanksgiving. I used up my leftover veggies, my thanksgiving mashed potatoes, and the remaining turkey that hadn’t been frozen yet. I also used a mixture of light and dark meat. As always, my recipe is very forgiving and versatile, and making it your own is encouraged!
Chop a medium onion (1 cup) and cook in butter/oil (5 Tbsp) until translucent.
Once that is cooked, you can add any uncooked veggies you desire (corn, peas, carrots), cook until soft, then add any other veggies you have left or desire.
Dice up any turkey you have left maxing at about 3 cups for a hearty meal, then add to the veggies. Add 1 Tbsp of ground thyme and dried sage (or any other variety of the 2 herbs).
Add 4 cups of turkey or chicken stock cook until hot, then slowly add flour while stirring to reduce clumping. Add flour until the mixture begins to form thick coating on your spoon (about 5 Tbsp).
Transfer mixture to a casserole dish and top with mashed potatoes and optional grated cheese.
Bake at 400 F for 15 minutes or until hot and bubbling. Wait for it to cool about 35 minutes to serve.
To see the other recipes I cooked this year, head back to my Thanksgiving: Overview post!
After several days of thanksgiving dinners, we needed a break from the standard thanksgiving flavor, so I decided I would take my usual Chicken stir fry recipe and just substitute in some cooked turkey. If you don’t have Worcestershire sauce, you can use soy sauce and add garlic and onion (powder or minced). Sorry no photos this time! I’m still trying to remember to take some whenever I cook.
1 1/2 cup of cubed turkey
some oil
Worcestershire sauce
Ground ginger
Frozen stir fry veggies
Cooked rice (for serving)
Start by placing 2 Tbsp of oil into a wok or dutch oven and heat to medium-high.
Carefully add the Turkey and cook till you begin to see color
Add the frozen veggies and any ice in the bag. Add 4 Tbsps of Worcestershire sauce, and 1 Tsp of ground ginger. Coat everything in the sauce and cook until veggies are hot.
Serve over rice!
To see the other recipes I cooked this year, head back to my Thanksgiving: Overview post!
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