bbkshop's Blog

Deer hunting season is over and you have venison to deal with. What do you do? Here is what my hunters do. The venison should be left to age for 10-14 days in temperature between 35-42 degrees without the hide before processing. If the temperature is warmer than that the meat is cut up and refrigerated, canned in jars or frozen. Some is ground up for burger. Some is made into sausage after the steaks and roasts are cut.

The tenderloin rarely makes it to the freezer as it is the easiest and quickest to cook. I slice it into 1-inch pieces, butterfly it and fry it up with onions and mushrooms. Venison burger mixed with ground pork is delicious. I never mix the two together before freezing as venison will keep longer frozen than pork. I mix them just before cooking. Sausage meat is spiced, put into casings and hung to dry overnight before smoking. The heart and liver are utilized as well, nothing is wasted.

I have been cooking venison for many years. I have tried dozens of recipes and methods. This way is one of my favorites. I put the round steaks in a pan, pour buttermilk over to completely cover and let them marinade overnight or longer in the refrigerator. The next day I drain off the buttermilk and dredge the steaks with seasoned flour. I dice a few pieces of bacon and brown it in my cast iron pan. I add a few cloves of garlic and then I brown the steaks well and top with thinly sliced sweet onion. To that I cut red, green and yellow bell peppers into strips and layer them on top. Sometimes I add sliced mushrooms. Last I pour dark beer over the whole works, put the cover on and bake in the oven at 350-degrees for about an hour.

The buttermilk will tenderize the steaks and you will be able to cut them with a fork. This marinade works well for grilling also.

Find cast iron cookware at www.pothaven.com

Introduction

Woks have been synonymous with Chinese cooking since the emergence of Chinese cuisine. They have been used for some 3000 years in China for a variety of cooking methods, including stir frying, boiling, and steaming. A wok is a large, thin-walled, round-bottomed, metal cooking pan, and shaped like a shallow bowl with handles. The addition of a wooden rack and cover transforms the wok into a steamer. Although woks come in sizes ranging from 10 to 32 inches in diameter, a wok that's 11 to 14 inches should suffice for use in a household kitchen.

With the increasing popularity of Chinese cuisine, there are now many “Westernized” versions of the wok. There is the addition of a metal ring, which is set on top of a gas or electric stove to hold the wok to prevent tipping. Some have a small flat bottom instead of the traditional round bottom, for the same reason. The new versions will get the job done, but the 'traditonal' large round-bottomed woks are still, by far, the preferred wok of choice.

Since the essence of Chinese cuisine is to achieve food tenderness through quick cooking to retain the natural taste, flavor, and color of the ingredients, the wok's ingenious unique design makes it a perfect fit in Chinese cooking. Its bottom concentrates heat to achieve 2 objectives: 1) to direct the heat at the food, while sealing in the flavors and allowing food to be cooked evenly, and 2) to allow cooking food quickly with very little oil. The stir fry cooking technique shifts food around the wok quickly, coating it with oil during cooking, as opposed to using a flat frying pan where a lot more oil is required. Consequently, cooking with a wok is essential for a healthy diet. It also has curved sides to keep in food that is being tossed and flipped during stir frying. Food, when cooked, may be moved up the sloping side of the wok to stay warm without cooking further, while other food is cooked at the bottom. It is also ideal for deep frying as it requires less oil than any other kitchen cookware to do the job.

Next, in Part 2 of Wok this way!, we'll go over selecting a wok.

Helen Fan grew up in a family that has owned various Asian restaurants all over North America, from Vancouver (Canada), Houston (Texas), Decatur (Illinois), to Chicago (Illinois). She, and the rest of the Fan family are now sharing their decades of knowledge on the art of Chinese cuisine at http://www.ChineseHomeCooking.Com

Onions and garlic always add great flavor to most meals. But let me share with you a cooking technique on preparing them that will really enhance the flavor of your dishes. Your guests will rave about your cooking.

Many dishes call for onions and garlic in their recipes. You chop them up, saute them for 3 minutes and you are done. This is where, in my opinion, they miss the flavor boat.

When I was younger I would watch my husband's Italian Nana, cook spaghetti sauce and a number of other dishes and you know what she would do? She would always, finely chop the onion and slowly saute them in olive oil for about 35 to 40 minutes. It was a fairly slow process, because she would tend to the onions, stirring them frequently as they slowly cooked. Eventually the onion would cook down (to almost half of what she started with) and turn a nice golden brown.

When the onion was about done Nana would add fresh minced garlic and saute the whole mixture another 4 or 5 minutes. The aroma was wonderful. Her spaghetti sauce was incredible and this is why I believe her dishes were so delicious.

So I started using this technique every time I made a dish that called for onion and garlic. You know what? Every time I sauteed the onion slowly in olive oil my dishes were more flavorful. Special if you will.

So now I use this little technique every time I make spaghetti sauce, casseroles, beef stroganoff, taco soup and any other dish that calls for onion and garlic.

Once I made a Pampered Chef casserole with egg, zucchini, onion and garlic and used my little technique. Well let me tell you, that dish disappeared fast with many requests for the recipe. When I made this dish previously without using my onion technique the dish was nothing special.

So if you have the time, and I believe it is definitely worth it, try Nana's tip. One thing to keep in mind is that the onion cooks down to just about half of what you start with. So use double the amount of onion that the recipe calls for. Don't worry if it looks like way to much onion. Once it cooks down, the amount will be just right.

Again, here is all there is to it:

Finely chop up the amount of onion you will need. Pour olive oil into a frying pan. Be generous here. There is no set amount. Say 3 or 4 tablespoons for one onion. Turn the heat on to medium high. Add the onion stirring frequently, until it is reduced by 1/3 to 1/2. If the onion appears to be cooking too fast, turn the temperature down to low. Just make sure the onion doesn't burn.

When you think it's done, after 35 to 40 minutes, add the minced garlic and cook an additional 4 or 5 minutes. You are going to love the flavor.

Important

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Today you have almost as many choices of spice racks as you do of the spices they contain. Spice racks are wonderful kitchen cooking accessories and home organization gadgets. And a spice rack is a wonderful gift too for a cook. In our household, my husband is the chef. But I'm the shopper. And we own three functional and handsome spice racks that are in use every day. Before you buy your next spice rack for yourself or as a gift consider these factors about how to choose a spice rack:

1) WHERE WILL YOU PUT IT? Naturally, you want your spice rack in the kitchen so it's handy for cooking. The only caution here is that some people advise not putting your spices too close to the stove or oven for fear that the heat will be harmful to some of the spices' potency. So other than that spot, consider all the available spaces in your kitchen. There are probably more available spaces than you think. Here are some styles of spice racks that should give you more ideas about available kitchen space:

--No counter space? Buy spice racks that are 'wall mountable'. These spice racks usually have single or multiple vertical shelves.

--Hard to reach counter space? Put a 'carousel' spice rack in the corner. Think of a carousel spice rack as one that spins on a circular-shaped Lazy Susan. You can make use of that hard-to-reach corner countertop space with such a revolving spice rack.

--Like to view your spices in one glance? By a 'slanted' spice rack. Or buy a 'three-tier expand-a-shelf' (like a staircase or stadium seating) that fits conveniently inside a kitchen cabinet. You'll triple that cabinet space with this type rack too.

--Got a free drawer? Some stores are now selling a 'spice rack drawer liner'. It lays flat in your drawer much like the flatware drawer liner that holds your forks and spoons. You lay the spice jars or containers on their sides in slots (lay with labels upward for quick reading).

--Not utilizing the bottom of your kitchen cabinets? Buy an 'under-cabinet spice rack', also called 'undercounter spice rack' or 'pull-down spice rack'. Much like electric can-opener gadgets that attach to the underside of kitchen cabinets, so does this under-cabinet spice rack. It swings down for easy viewing and picking. Otherwise, keep it folded upward underneath the cabinet for its space saving attribute.

--Is the inside of your pantry door empty? Use a 'door-mounted spice rack'. Just a few screws and you can hang a multi-shelf vertical spice rack here. Also, some stores are selling racks that have slots that individually adjust to the jar size. The rack adheres to the inside of the door with double-sided tape.

--Lots of kitchen counter space or open shelf space? Get a 'free-standing spice rack'. You can buy a countertop spice rack that spins or one planted firmly on a solid base. Some of these come in tapering shapes so that they're narrower at the base but flare out at the top.

Also consider....

2) HOW MANY SPICES DO YOU USE? If you use a lot of different spices, would you like one large single-level or multi-tiered shelf spice rack that holds all of them? Or like me, would you like a few different spice racks clustered in one area of the kitchen? If you only keep a few spice jars, then perhaps a spice rack that holds six to eight spice containers is sufficient (especially if your space is limited to a small area of the kitchen). And if it's a gift for someone else, visualize the available space they have in their kitchen. You don't want to give someone a gorgeous spice rack that they have to stuff in a closet for lack of a place to put it.

3) CAN YOU CONVENIENTLY ACCESS THE SPICES? For instance, if you hang a vertical double-shelf spice rack on a wall underneath a kitchen cabinet, you need enough room between the spice containers on the top shelf and the underside of the kitchen cabinet to be able to easily remove and replace the spice containers. You don't want to keep scraping your knuckles against the wood on the underside of the cabinet. Wherever you plan to put the spice rack, it's probably a good idea to measure the intended space for it and then compare that to the dimensions of the product listed on its sales box before you purchase it.

4) ARE YOU BUYING A SPICE RACK WITH OR WITHOUT SPICES? Some spice racks come complete with full containers of spices and others come without jars or containers of spices. Some spice racks don't even use typical container or jars; instead you fill them and then turn a dial for the measured spice amount to filter through a dispenser, which is removable from the spice rack.

Remember that you're trying to save space when buying home organization gadgets. So if you buy a spice rack complete with new spices, you'll just have to store the new or existing set of spice jars in the pantry until the spice jars in use need a refill.

And if you buy a spice rack with containers, make sure they're what you want. Some are glass jars; others aren't. Some have corks as lids; others have screw tops. Some come with snap on sifters or shaker ports. Also check to see if the jars come pre-labeled or with an extra set of blank labels.

5) WHAT MATERIAL COMPRISES THE SPICE RACK? You can find spice racks or spice shelving in many types of material: wood, acrylic, metal/stainless steel/wire, plastic or chrome. What matches the style of or colors of your kitchen? Or if the spice rack isn't going to be clearly on view, maybe you're just interested in a durable material or one that wipes clean easily.

6) DO YOU LOVE. IT? Spice racks are very durable products. You'll be seeing your spice rack choice in your kitchen for a long time.

Karen Fritscher-Porter writes about kitchen organization solutions at http://www.easyhomeorganizing.com/articles-kitchenstorage.htm You can shop for spice racks here too.