Category: cooking

Deer in a Jar

Do you have recipes that call for beef tips or ask to cut large pieces of meat into one-inch cubes? I do too!!

Ground venison! How much ground hamburger do you buy every month?

This is one reason why I can my venison in wide-mouth jars. Venison is a staple at our house and it’s better for your health. You can add so many different things to the meat when you can it.

I always add a teaspoon of salt to every quart jar of meat. Some jars have chopped onions canned with it and some I just use a teaspoon of onion powder. This deer season I added garlic to some batches, ham seasoning to some jars or a beef bouillon cube to a quart. The different tastes are amazing. I’m hoping to use some of my fresh fennel to next fall’s canning jars, too!

Cubed venison! How much cubed meat do you buy from the grocer every month?

I’ve been reading and hearing on the news where beef and pork prices are going to increase more than they already are. This will put a crunch on family food budgets. More people will be putting out gardens and hunting.

Bear or venison sausage!!! It’s awesome!

If I may, I would like to suggest that you give venison or even bear a chance. I’ve never eaten bear until the last two years and was taught by a hunter how to fix bear that would make you think you had the best cut of beef in your mouth. The big trick with bear is to cut or boil all the fat out of the bear meat and pour it out of the pot. We also think the younger bear the better. Older bears have more fat and had time to build up those “gamey” tastes. Onions is the trick for great venison. Of course, garlic never hurt any piece of meat.

Venison burger patties! Do you buy those beef burgers that have gone sky high?

I honestly believe you’ll love the protein you’ll be adding to your meals at very little price!!

New Recipes On My Cooking Page

I have been very busy the last two hours adding 24 new recipes to my “Cooking Page”. I hope you will go to the page and check out new additions to the appetizers, main dish, vegies & sides, and desserts. I’ve even added a bunch of salads and a couple miscellaneous recipes at the end of the page. Check it out and let me know what you think!!!

What To Do With a Bushel of Apples

We love apples and prepare them in many ways especially when they’re starting to deteriorate. At that time, you have to move quick. Here’s some ideas for you:

Morning Glory Muffins

Fresh Apple Cake

Applesauce

Fresh Apple Cake/Muffins

Classic Apple Pie

Baked Apples

Apple Crisp

Apple Butter

These are all my favorites and most of the recipes are found on my cooking page of this blog. Check out this link, https://hercountryways.blog/home/come-cook-with-me/ and scroll to the DESSERTS section at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

Canned Tomatoes To Pasta Sauce

Summer 2022 was not as productive in our garden as we would have liked due to late frosts and freezes and draught late. We planted about twenty different tomato plants, Mr. Stripey, San Marazano and some Virginia sweets. They didn’t produce like they normally do but I did get enough to can 15 jars of Mr. Stripey. They are normally a very large yellow with red streaks and very little acid. Neither of us can tolerate the acid in tomatoes but these do the trick. 

Canned whole Mr. Stripey tomatoes.

I don’t use a lot of canned tomatoes except in soup, but I do like to have barbecue sauce, pasta sauce and pizza sauce on hand. A few weeks ago, I brought the fifteen pints of canned tomatoes out of the cellar and made pasta sauce. 

It’s really simple to make using Mrs. Wages Pasta sauce mix. I poured all of the tomatoes in a large stainless-steel pot; added some finely diced onions and pressed garlic cloves, salt and pepper and heated to boiling. I stirred it several times to make sure the tomatoes didn’t stick. Then I ran it through my food mill into another stainless-steel pot. From here I followed the instructions on the Mrs. Wages envelope which meant pouring the package into the pot of strained juice and put it back on the stove stirring frequently and letting it cook down until it was the perfect thickness. This left me with ten perfect and delicious jars of pasta sauce.

Homemade pasta sauce can be adjusted to your taste as it’s cooking. When I make a pasta dish, I usually add some meat such as ground venison cooked thoroughly.

Cooking Journey With A Oster Air Fryer Oven

My husband bought me an Oster Air Fryer Oven for Christmas. It’s the size of a large microwave.

The Oster is a warmer, air fryer, broiler, baking oven and convection oven all in one. It uses 110 voltage and hopefully will cut back on electricity use once I learn how to use it.

It has easy to read directional knob.

It’s been a challenge learning how to cook with it. I’ve got the hang of baking biscuits in it, and it takes less time than my regular oven. I’ve baked apples in it that are delicious in less time than my microwave and oven. The one thing I haven’t found are recipes or cookbooks related to this contraption. A very small booklet came with it to show how to operate it and it contained ten recipes but nothing that caught our eyes or appetites and most called for items that we don’t normally have on hand. That’s a big no-no!!!

I’ve tried the air fryer option because those recipes and instructions are easy to find but my air fryer is not in a round contained area like most air fryers. I’ve bought three cookbooks thinking they would have recipes but those I tried didn’t turn out well. I’m at a loss and hate to use food items that wound up going to the chickens, they get enough to eat anyway!!!

These have good recipes but not exactly looking for fancy dishes. We’re country folk and most of the recipes call for cheese and my husband DOES NOT like cheese!! On pizza lightly, but that’s all!!!

I’m looking desperately for folks that have this brand and model or someone that can guide me in finding useful everyday cooking recipes or help. I love to cook but I’m a 1950’s through 1970’s kind of cook. Can you help?

I can cook two pizzas at one time but haven’t tried just one pizza yet.
I have two sets of the sheet and drain pans for the oven.

It’s a gift from my husband, I don’t want to return it, even if they would take it back. I want to learn how to use it on a daily basis.

VENISON SAUSAGE

We use a lot of venison to fill our freezers and the cellar. This year is not any different except for the fact that I usually still have some in the cellar and in 2023 every jar was gone.

The last two deer were small and perfect for making our sausage. We bagged only fifteen bags of it and now I wish we had done more.

This year we did four canners of it, made four dozen bags of venison mixed with 70% hamburger, four dozen bags of venison mixed with pork and then we did another round of mixed with pork Boston butt, all as ground meat for the freezer.

We run all of this through the grinder, just venison first, then a second time with the beef or pork. The sausage was run though with the Boston butt twice and a third time we mixed in the sausage season, 1 1/2 tablespoon per pound of ground meat. We experimented first to make sure the seasoning was right, and it was sooooooo good.

We had it for breakfast this morning with scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy and baked apples. I absolutely could live off of it. I also crumble it up, fry and make sausage gravy from it. I’ll use it on our pizzas and also just plain old sausage biscuits.

Venison is a very dry meat and several years ago we started adding the cheaper hamburger (cheap it is not) and it truly helps give the venison the perfect texture for meatloaf, burgers, casseroles, anything that you would normally use in burger recipes. Not all of the meat is ground up, we slice and tenderize all of the tenderloin (some call it back strap). Young deer are cut into roasts which make for “melt in your mouth roasts” which are tender and juicy. 

We truly do live off the land and wish that everyone had the opportunity to live as we do.

Red ChowChow

I love to preserve food and can anything that we like to eat. I had plenty of canned cabbage and sauerkraut in the cellar this past summer. One thing I was out of was Mom’s Chow Chow. It’s a relish type dish made from cabbage, peppers, onions, and carrots. I only raised six heads of green/white cabbage and planned to use it when making slaw. I also raised six heads of red cabbage and it turned out really good. I decided to use three heads of it to make the relish.

I had plenty of pint jars but just not very much to put in them for summer of 2023.
The shredded fine red cabbage was beautiful for the relish.
It turned out gorgeous and it’s so good!! I’ll probably be canning more next year if I’m lucky!

We love to eat this on pinto beans, fried potatoes, hotdogs, barbecue, and anything else that you would add relish!!!

Summer Canning Very Limited

It was a very cold spring and early summer and another cold spell and several garden seeds had to be replanted more than once.

I had plenty of jars but just not very much to put in them for summer of 2023.

Then bow season came in and then black powder season and now rifle season is here. I was completely out of venison burger and had only a few jars of venison in the cellar.

Bow season filled the cellar with three canners of chunked venison. I use this in soup, chili, made with gravy poured over rice or noodles and more than any I pour it in a pot, cover with two cups of milk, heat to boiling and then pour a roux of flour & water over it to thicken. We have this a lot for breakfast over hot biscuits and applesauce on the side. Fills us up for a long day outside working.

This is 2022 jars because I was too busy to take photos of this year’s canning’s.

We then started processing the rest for the freezer which is almost full but will always add some roast and of course, make jerky (dehydrated, unseasoned) for Sadie..

We ground half of the venison with hamburger and the other half with bacon. Venison is a very dry meat, and we add the hamburger and bacon to make it juicy.
We did 48 packages of ground meat so far. When more deer are brought in this week, I’ll do more packages. This may sound like a lot of meat, but we share all of the processing with the kids and grands.
This is our tenderizer that makes all of our meats melt in your mouth.
All of the tenderloins are sliced like this.
Then Eddie runs them through the tenderizer like this.
Then I package six pieces in each Food Saver bag, name and date it, and pop it in the freezer.
We use the same process with our trout, turkey and bear.
The trout is fileted, packaged and named & dated.

First Canning of the Year

Tenderette green beans were ready, and I was afraid as wet as it is they might rot. I pulled on my big girl boots and waded in the mud and picked enough for three canners. We knew there would be at least two more canners by the weekend.

By the time I got to complete this post the second batch was ready to pick, and we did. We pulled up the vines this time and picked them clean. I canned a total of 33 quarts and they’re lovely. There would have been 35 quarts, but two quarts did not seal in the first and the last canning. I put those in the refrigerator and we’re having them to eat with new potatoes this weekend. They’re so good and I know this because when I put them in the slow cooker this morning, I taste tested a few. Can’t wait for dinner tonight and the rest of the weekend.

Cherry Cobbler

We went to Narrows Livestock Market yesterday afternoon and on the way home we dropped in at SuperValu Market in Newport. I love their produce! On the way there I asked hubby if he would like to have a cherry cobbler and of course the answer was yes!!!

These black heart sweet cherries were huge and so sweet. I decided this morning to make the cobbler and cobblers are so easy to make.

I make a simple batter of self-rising flour, sugar, egg, milk, and vanilla/almond flavoring. The recipe will be on my “cooking” page so look it up. I beat the ingredients together until very smooth and while this is mixing I put a stick of butter in a 9×12 baking dish and melt it in the preheating oven. When butter melts, pour batter in middle of baking dish with melted butter. Then pour you stemmed and seeded cherries right in the middle and bake.

Simple and so good alone or with homemade ice cream on top!!!! Check the cooking page for the recipe for both.

Fried Apple Pies

Our favorite dessert is fried apple pies or a big fresh apple pie! Recently I made up a batch of the fried apple pies which we had for snack and breakfast.

They are very simple to make and all you need is five canned biscuits. I use the small cans for this, and they roll out just thin enough to handle easily and fill with your favorite apples.

I use the store brand mini cans of five biscuits and roll each one into a 5 inch round. I sift some bread flour on the table to make it easier to roll out the dough.
Last year I had just enough Wolf River apples to cook for these and froze them to use as I needed. I don’t cook them up like applesauce, I cook to the point of soft cubes and add some sugar to sweeten. When I want to make pies, I add a half teaspoon of vanilla and a two teaspoons of apple pie spice to a pint of apples and stir together. You DON’T want to cook them to get thin like applesauce. We like the chunky apple bits.

Roll out the dough, drop a couple spoonsful of apple mixture in the middle, fold the dough over and press edges together with a floured fork. It very easy! Get your oil hot at 375* (I have a deep fryer, but you can use a large skillet, the oil has to cover the pie to cook thoroughly.)

They will puff up and golden on both sides (you have to flip them with a fork while they’re cooking). Remove from oil onto a parchment covered sheet pan. I sprinkle mine with powdered sugar or make a icing of powdered sugar and milk and drizzle over the pies.

Let them cool and then place in an airtight container and place in cool area. Mine don’t last long enough to spoil!! They’re so good!!! For a special dessert for guest, place in a bowl and top with your favorite scoop of ice cream (mine is butter pecan). I use the same recipe for fried peach pies.

Pie Day

Yesterday was Pie Day and I didn’t know until last night. Well, I made four pies yesterday just because!!!


My favorite is lemon meringue and old-fashioned custard pie. I’ll put that recipe on the cooking page too.
It took me no time to put the recipes together and since it was too cold and windy to be outside, I cook!!!

Family Cookbook

I’m not sure what happened to all of my mother’s cookbooks when she died. There were two that I would love to have had but hope they’re still in the family. That being said I’ve spent some time trying to put my favorite, tried and true, recipes all in one spot for my two kids. They can do what they want with them but they’re all in one place in my kitchen.

Hubby made me a wonderful recipe box a couple years ago to put our favorite recipes in and it’s getting full. I’ve been going through it to pull any duplicates and some recipes are new to try so I put a check mark on the cards that are tried and true.

I gave hubby the measurements of my cards and he made the box from barnwood found on the farm.

I’ve gone through or in the process of going through all of my cookbooks and marked the recipes with a sticker that I want to try or once tried and liked, they’ll go on cards in the box, too. Some cookbooks I’ll keep forever, such as, a gift from a friend that used to live in Georgia and the other is a Virginia Farm Bureau cookbook that I was given when I worked for them several years ago.

Country Treasures is the VFB cookbook. You can tell by the edges of the book it’s used a lot.
Dianne Brown gave me this book when she lived in Georgia. Glad she’s back in Virginia.

I also have three binders full of recipes that friends have sent me or that I found on Facebook that look good. I’m always looking for new recipes since I love to cook.

These are the ones I’m cleaning out in my free time!

The other two cookbooks are one that my kids bought their dad called Redneck Grill and my, used a lot, Ball Canning Book.

My go-to book during canning time.
There aren’t a lot of recipes in the book but the ones that are in it are great!!!

My mother was a member of the Paint Bank Women’s Auxiliary and they put together two cookbooks a few years ago to raise money for the Paint Bank Fire & Rescue. They are in reprint, and I will have both of them very soon. All of the ladies in Paint Bank were awesome cooks.

These books have recipes of my Mom’s, my aunt’s, my sister my friends and even some of mine. Ladies all over Paint Bank contributed.

Canning Potatoes Again

My morning has been spent peeling more potatoes to can. The first canner is on and out of a five-gallon bucket I have twelve quarts of chunk potatoes. Here’s a pictorial of my morning:

Sterilize the wide mouth jars
Fourteen quarts ready for potatoes.
Peeled a five-gallon bucket of small to medium-sized potatoes.
Took me an hour to peel them. Eddie had already washed them for me.
Wash again after peeling and cut into chunks.
Fill the jars and season. This batch was given a teaspoon each of salt and onion powder.
Pop on the lids and add the rings tightening them as I load them in the canner.
They are in the canner under 10 pounds of pressure for 35 minutes.

I’m trying to use up as many of the last year potatoes as I can because Eddie will be buying new seed this year and not use any of the leftovers. Sometime this week I’ll do a couple more canners, but they will be diced and canned in wide mouth pint jars and should process around three to four canners.

I use the chunked potatoes in stew, soup, and baked with carrots and meat in the oven. Everything will be fully cooked, and we’ll have a meal in about 20 minutes.

Smoked sausage and chunked potatoes
Chunked potatoes, carrots, celery & onions baked in the oven.

The diced potatoes are fantastic for a quick pot of potato soup or pour a jar in a medium-sized pot and add a can of corned beef, diced fine onions, and a cup of milk, season with salt & pepper, stir and heat through. You have a great meal of corned beef hash and, of course, fresh, hot, out-of-the-oven biscuits!!

Two New Dishes for January

These recipes and a couple more can be found on the cooking page of this blog. Hope you enjoy if you try and let me know what you think. Venison tips/cubed steaks & gravy and Crockpot BBQ Chicken are two new recipes I came up with in January. One of the items on my bucket list is to try one new recipe each month.

Seasoned Flour

Our favorite flour mill closed down last fall and since then there was a huge scramble for everyone trying to get their favorites from the mill. The same was true of all the local stores that carried it. I bought their self-rising flour, biscuit mix and our favorite seasoned flour. I miss the biscuit flour and the seasoned flour the most. There all sorts of recipes on the internet for making your own but none that I’ve tried even compare.

In January, someone posted on Facebook about a seasoned flour in one of my favorite stores, Heritage Market. I went there for some cheese and bacon and got a bag of the seasoned flour.

It’s from a mill in Boonville, North Carolina and it’s as good if not better than what Big Springs Mill carried. I love it for coating all of the meat that I fry, like chicken, pork, fish but gravy for breakfast is our favorite. I’m so glad we found it. It comes in two- and five-pound bags and a five-pound bag will last me about a month and a half. I’m sure I could get some of their flours in larger quantities if I asked before their shipments come in.

First, it’s their cheese assortment, then the bacon and now the flour! Is there any wonder I don’t love Heritage Market!!! I don’t know who the owners are, but they really have it going on!!!! They’re friendly and so very helpful. They also carry a large assortment of canning products.

RASPBERRY JELLY

As I was cleaning out some ice buildup in our old chest freezer, I found this bag taking up way too much space.

It was full of blackberries, raspberries and cherries that I’ve frozen the last two years. It was mostly full of black raspberries, so I made a decision to make jelly.

First, I let the berries thaw and all of the juice went into this pot with a package of Sure Jell.

Actually, it took five cups of the juice, five cups of sugar and one package of Sure Jell. The Sure Jell was stirred/dissolved into the juice, pot put on the stove on high heat to come to a boil. The all of the sugar was poured into the boiling mixture, stirred and brought to a hard boil for one minute. Then it was poured into 1/2-pint glass jars and lids and rings put on the jars. My pressure canner was adjusted to 10 pounds of pressure, nine jars added to the canner, lid put on and tightened. We wait for the pressure to be acquired and then process for 10 minutes.

Results: After three batches we had 27 of these beautiful jars of raspberry jelly.
After adding these to the cellar, we won’t need any more jelly for the next ten years!!!

Well, maybe some peach preserves and some more apple butter!!!

I had four packages of cherries in the bag which were precisely measured and frozen for cherry pies. There were about 20 bags of blackberries and most of them were fed to the chickens for a treat. I asked hubby not to bring anymore to the house this summer of any berries and he said what he picked would be sold to anyone that wanted to pay for them. Sounds like a plan to me and he loves picking berries and cherries.

BACON, BACON, BACON

For about six years we have been going to Lexington twice a year to buy 10-pound boxes of wonderful bacon. I would bring it home and vacuum pack it with 1/2-pound layers of the finest bacon we’ve ever eaten. We don’t raise hogs but love sausage and bacon.

Just recently we found out that Heritage Market in Fincastle is carrying and it’s almost $20 cheaper than what we drove all the way to Lexington for. That trip took about an hour and 45 minutes on the interstate.

It’s a ten-pound box of smoked bacon.
Very lean.
I usually put about eight slices to a package. This shows how lean it is throughout the box.
We use the Food Saver vacuum system.
I prefer the Cabela’s brand of vacuum bags because the thicker and stronger bags.

I have twenty packages of bacon in my freezer that cost about $4.20 cents per pound. This one box will last us for about six months because we don’t have it every day but bacon and eggs, BLT’s, pancakes and bacon, waffles and bacon, are just a few of the breakfast choices we have when there’s bacon in the house. We start almost every day with a good breakfast.