Reclaiming the Bow

As a youth, the fact that archery season was much longer than firearm season appealed to me. I purchased a small Bear Silver Mag bow, adjustable in draw weight from 30 to 40 pounds, set up my hay bale back stop, and started what would soon become a passionate hobby of looking for arrows nearly buried in fescue turf.
I don’t know who I was trying to fool anyway. Early in life I decided that successful bow hunters were either:
a. Much more serious about hunting than I’d ever be; or
b. Hunting in an area with a much denser wildlife population.
I hunted exclusively on my family farm. You could hunt deer and turkey there successfully, or you could go days, or weeks, on end without seeing either. They were around, but seemed often to stay in the proverbially greener grass on the other side of the property line fence. I considered it a good day of deer hunting if I got within a couple of hundred yards of deer. Getting within bow range seemed about a likely as wrestling a deer to the ground bare-handed and putting it in a submission hold.
But we’re out of venison. Firearms season is more than a month away. I may not have much time to partake in firearm turkey season this fall. Urban archery is legal in Columbia. And Ann knows someone with backyard deer, and also thinks she knows where I might get close to a turkey. Maybe I should give urban archery a try.
I checked Bass Pro, and it looked like bows were going for $350 and up. I didn’t think I wouldn’t to go there at this point. It was time to dig up the Badger.
Back in the 1980s, before I abandoned archery, I decided I needed to upgrade from the Silver Mag so that I could lose arrows at greater distances. My friend Troy had just the thing: a Browning Badger, with a 70-pound draw weight. We struck the deal during a Tom Sawyer-like caving expedition in southern Gasconade County, and Troy retrieved the bow from where it had been bouncing around in the back of his ’68 Chevy pickup, and $60 later I was a set.
But now it’s 2011. For more than two decades this bow had been stored in a clean, cool, dry place. Would it work? Is a bow from my high school days still safe and effective? Would this lead me to start listening to Aerosmith and Whitesnake again? I took it down to the creek and set up one of those self-healing Styrofoam targets in a place where there was ample backstop to absorb any stray arrow. I backed off, really just far enough so that if I hit something hard the arrow wouldn’t bounce back and get me. I asked Ann to back away from me, in case the bow splintered or a string broke. Then I pulled it back and let one fly.
It hit the target. Not the concentric circles that really constitute the target, but the ample white border around those circles. The bow didn’t break, and I didn’t even lose the arrow. I shot several more times to relearn how the multi-range sight pins work. Soon I was lethally accurate, albeit at a very close range. It would have to be an extremely foolhardy deer or turkey that would fall prey to my arrow. I don’t think you’ll find many deer anymore rash than within the city limits of Columbia. I would have to give this a try.

My Hunt for the Elusive Hickory Nut

This weekend our family went to Fred’s folks’ farm to visit-and do farm things. Included on the list of things we wanted to accomplish during our visit was to collect hickory nuts for the Woods to Food project. On Saturday morning Henry and I walked through some fields to see if we could find any hickory nuts. Fred’s mom and dad said they had seen zero hickory nuts this year, but like a good daughter-in-law, I was skeptical. And, turns out they were right! Go figure that a farmer would know his own farm! We found several hickory trees and not one nut. I even hung from the lower branches and shook the trees hoping some nuts would fall, to no avail.

Shellbark Hickory Tree

When we got back to Columbia I asked a couple foresters who work state wide and they both said this is a very poor crop year for hickory nuts. Our MO Dept. of Conservation nursery manager told me that hickory trees only have a good crop of nuts every two to three years and the past two years hickories have had good nut production. So, he expected this to be a poor year, hickory nut wise. In fact several squirrel hunters have apparently called in asking where the hickory nuts are. Squirrel hunters tend to focus their efforts around hickory trees this time of year because they know that’s where the squirrels will be-feeding on the hickory nuts. Well, I NEED HICKORY NUTS, TOO (said while stomping). Humph. There are something like four h. nut recipes in Cooking Wild . . .and they really look good!
Before this weekend I was hoping to be picky and harvest only shellbark hickory nuts. Are you familiar with shellbark hickory? It looks like shagbark hickory except the bark in more stripy rather than platy when it peels away from the tree. And, shellbark tends to grow on sites with deeper, more fertile soil. They are not as common as shagbark hickory, but produce a much bigger nut than any of our other Missouri hickory trees. Anyway, now I’m apparently desperate for any hickory nuts.
We’ll see. Not all hope is lost yet. In fact, do you know of any hickory trees that are producing nuts in the Boone County area? Is so, please let us know. You can comment on this post. And, if a pile of hickory nuts suddenly showed up at our front stoop, I’d consider it a gift offering and borderline religious experience.
Until then, the hunt for the elusive hickory nut continues.

Fish from the Farm

Two weeks ago we were bemoaning the loss of summer on a chilly Saturday, but last weekend on the first weekend of fall it felt like summer was back. At the end of a quick trip to my parent’s farm we decided to get in a little fishing before we got back on the road.

We set out for the pond near the house, a mature pond that can provide bass, bluegill or catfish when the time is right. We have just about covered all the catfish recipes in the book, so today we were going for bluegill. The boys turned over some sticks and found a few worms, and I grabbed a grasshopper when I was opening the gate on the way down to the field.

I started with the grasshopper and Oliver had a nice bluegill hooked before I even had the second rod baited. I then baited the first rod with a worm, and the second with a grasshopper. It took a bit this time, but the grasshopper proved successful again.

I went to work to catch some more. There were plenty around, but most were pretty small, and in the hot afternoon sun they were also hard to catch. I learned a long time ago that the time to catch grasshoppers is in the cool of the morning when they are moving slow.

Oliver hooked a couple more fish that slipped off before he got them landed, so the demand for bait was running high. By the time we got our third fish on the bank it was time to get on the road. They were all good-sized, so I cleaned them and put them in the freezer when I got home. Hopefully soon we’ll get a chance to add a few more to the number.

Boone County Burgoo with squirrel, page 50

Funny how kids can pick up on nuances about food I thought reserved only for adults. Henry at 10 thought the tasty "Burgoo" was a a meal for a cool Fall day. And, Oliver, 7, thought it tasted like a Thanksgiving meal, imagining the Indians and pilgrims with a dinner similar to ours: onions, beans, vegies, squirrel, potatoes and corn all cooked together. It's neat to hear what those two are thinking about, especially when it doesn't have to do with legos. For this meal, Fred boiled his four squirrels for about three hours and deboned the meat, thank goodness. Really, I wasn't too looking forward to that process. The rest of the recipe came together pretty easily. I had to make some substitutions: couldn't find okra for one thing, added parsnips for another. Parsnips-there is an underutilized root crop. The burgoo (not a term I've heard before and I feel a little fake using it, but wow, what a cool word it is!) turned out better than I expected. Squirrel is a rather sweet, rich meat that I find not at all gamey. The flavors were rich and complex-I somehow expected a more standard, bland affair. Unbelievably, our little O-meister ate every bite-onions, tomatoes, peppers, beans and all. So, it must have been something because I've never seen him work through a dinner like this without mining out the couple ingredients he can stand and leaving the rest.
If you've never cooked with squirrel, I'd give it a try. I grew up not thinking there was anything wrinkle-your-nose funny about eating squirrel at all and am glad for that. Fried like chicken it's tasty. And, boiled and deboned it's very versatile. Just don't stare too hard at the pot of boiling squirrels because it's not the most appetizing site.

Squirrel Interupted

“We must get squirrel.”  - Natasha Fatale

Sometimes a squirrel can complicate things.

On Saturday we were at my parent’s farm, on the rare occasion of them not being around. We had been cutting wood, and were planning on doing some fishing. Ann went to town to grab something for lunch, and the boys and I were going to gather some bait. But I heard an incessant chattering that I couldn’t resist to investigate. I checked around the back on the house, and there was a fox squirrel in a walnut tree raising a ruckus. I knew we were out of venison, and there was one squirrel recipe and two squirrel cooking suggestions in the book that we would want to pursue. I currently had four squirrels in the freezer, so adding another to the mix would be a good thing.

I ran inside the house. I discovered the one thing in my parents’ home that follows a basic safety recommendation: don’t store guns and ammunition together. Although I’m pretty sure it was unintentional, I found guns and ammo all over the house in various places, but had a hard time finding any that matched.

I selected a Smith and Wesson 2206, a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a search of a few random drawers on the porch produced a couple .22 shells out of the bottom of each. This would do.

I went back outside. The squirrel went to the top of the tree, but it wasn’t hollow, didn’t have a nest in it, and there wasn’t another tree within jumping distance, so I had it. It took a couple of shots, but well within my limited ammo allotment I dropped him. Unfortunately he didn’t drop all the way to the ground, he got caught in a crotch of the tree on the way down.

I considered shooting him out, but didn’t think I could do it without potentially wasting a lot of meat. So I went to the garage and found an extendable pruning saw on a long plastic pole. Long, but not long enough. I climbed up on the fence under the tree. Shaky, and still well short of the mark. I went back to the garage and retrieved a step ladder. Even from the top step I was still too short.

At this point I consider getting out the tractor with the loader, and having Ann lift me up into the tree with the bucket, but employing a 100-horsepower 4x4 cab tractor seemed like a rather excessive measure to take in retrieving a squirrel. So I folded up the step ladder, placed it directly against the tree, had Ann hold the ladder, and I stood on the top-plastic part that is labeled “This is not a step.” From there I stretched out, with the pole pruner fully extended, and was able to eventually nudge the dead squirrel out of the tree.   Mission accomplished, although I had burned most of fishing time retrieving the squirrel from the tree.

Any of you who know my father, or any other 82-year-old farmer, might have been surprised to read that he has a Smith and Wesson semi-auto pistol, and if you haven’t known me for more than 20 years, you might be surprised to read that a handgun was my first choice for going after a squirrel to begin with.  I’ll explain both those things in a later post.

Squirrel

From Fred:

I was in college before I learned that some people attach a stigma to eating squirrels.

I was shocked to find out these people weren’t just PETA vegetarians, they were meat-eating city dwellers. Some of them even fished, and supported the idea of hunting things like deer. But they looked down upon eating squirrels.

I have come to understand that it’s because some city squirrels are practically domestic. They’ve never been hunted. They aren’t afraid of people. They get fed peanuts in the park. They are practically pets.

Not so with country squirrels. Take a leisurely hike in the backwoods, away from state parks and other areas with lots of people, and you probably won’t see any squirrels. If you do see them, they might be 100 yards in front of you, jumping from tree to tree. They are wary, and not particularly easy to hunt. The best method I’ve found is to find a place they are likely to be, and sit down and wait perfectly still for a while. If they don’t hear you, they’ll come out of hiding. This is why I see more squirrels when I’m deer hunting than when I’m squirrel hunting; when I’m deer hunting I have more patience to sit still for longer periods of time.

I grew up with squirrels being the first type of game that someone learned to hunt. Firearms started with toy guns, moving up to a non-lethal but potentially dangerous to eyes Daisy one-cock BB gun, followed by an Crossman Air Rifle that fired either BBs or pellets which could theoretically kill things, then advancing to a .22 caliber rifle, or a single-shot Winchester 20 gauge, either of which could be purchased on a garage sale or auction, possibly with a case and some miscellaneous ammo, for about $60. You were then officially ready to begin pursuing squirrels, your first real hunting.

After a couple years of squirrel hunting, you add rabbits, turkey and eventually deer to the list of prey, but never give up squirrel hunting. The idea of someone starting out hunting by hunting deer with a large caliber rifle seemed absurd. We would call such a person a city hunter, and avoid being within ½ a mile of said person during deer season.

It’s not that deer hunting is harder. The kill zone on a white tail being hit with a heavy center-fire bullet is dramatically larger than the kill zone on a squirrel being hit with a .22. That’s what makes squirrel hunting the logical first step before deer hunting- it is where you learn basic hunting skills and marksmanship. 

I realize this small game to large game progression in hunting is probably no longer the case. I see the faces of the incredibly young hunters in the weekly newspapers after they get their first deer. I wonder how they withstood the noise and recall of sighting in their deer rifles. And I say to these little tykes, “Congratulations on your first deer, but tell me, how many squirrels did you get this year?”

Spiced rubbed venison with plum sauce, page 45

Oh, my stars. That was good. I just pulled the last two packages of venison out of the freezer, two pounds of deer loin. Our loin meat is sliced already, so I tied the slices together in an attempt to bring it back to its pre-sliced state. The spices in this recipe are a mixture of thyme, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, garlic and probably a few others I'm forgetting. Sounds like an interesting mix, doesn't it, like Mexican meets a snickerdoodle? Well, it's worth trying, let me tell you.
The plum sauce to accompany the loin, if you'd like, called for Missouri plums. Somehow, wild plums did not cross my mind when I read "Missouri" plums. I went to the store hoping for something labeled Missouri plums, and not seeing anything began to get the large kind one usually finds at the store to eat. Then at the bottom of the shelf I saw little, dark purble plums that reminded me of the ones we picked from the neighbor's orchard tree when I was a kid called damson plums. The ones in store weren't labeled, but I thought these might be close to "Missouri" plums since they looked similar to ones from our neighbor. I quickly stewed them on the weekend and put the sauce through our old food mill to get the seeds out. The seeds were a bit too big for the mill and made for quite a clatter.

Anyway, last night I made the loin. All four of us loved it. The venison was flavorful and interesting and the plum sauce acted like a chutney and really added to the meat. My connotation with plum jam is to serve it at breakfast with toast and tea, not to douse my venison with it. So, the first bite I was hesitant. But, once again the combination of flavors grew on me and I quickly came to be crazy about the dish. At dinner I served the plum sauce humbly as a blob beside the meat. I think you could really dress this recipe up for a regal dinner by swirling the plum sauce over the venison and rest of the plate. No one is going to mind a bit extra of the plum sauce, it's totally devine.

So, now we are out of venison. Wah. I can't go any farther with the venison recipes until and if we get a deer this fall. Pressures on, baby!

Two New Woods To Food Blog Tools

I've added a gadget at the bottom of this blog so that you can now sign up to receive notice of new blog posts via e-mail. And immediately to the left of that gadget is a link to the website where you can buy Cooking Wild in Missouri.

Korean Barbecued Venison, page 40

Ann here. Oh, baby we are BACK! I’ve been feeling kind of conflicted since I blogged about the lemon and pecan catfish. I am happy to say the next recipe we tried I thought was AWESOME. I used venison loin because that is all we have left (I guess I was saving the best for last. Two more pounds of loin and we’ll be clean out of venison). The meat is marinaded , then skewered and grilled and served atop a Korean style salad and rice. Fred thought it was pretty similar to the Thai venison salad we made a couple weeks ago from the book, actually. However, in the Thai dish the venison was grilled and then soaked in a fish sauce and lime marinade. In this recipe, the meat is marinaded in a brown sugar/soy sauce/ginger type sauce and then grilled. For a lot of folks, I think the Korean version would taste more like something they’ve had before. And, I mean that in a good way. Sometimes, it’s hard to appreciate something the first time you try it. We still have mint and cilantro in our garden and used that in the recipe. The dipping sauce (miso, ginger, sesame oil, etc) was intense and added to the meal. We made one pound of lion and it wasn’t nearly enough for the four of us, at least not nearly enough if the qualification is having enough for the boys to be satisfied. Each of us had two skewers. The boys would have eaten 4-6 I bet. In fact, the skewers of meat would make a great appetizer or party food all by themselves.  Thank you, Bernadette, for the wonderful meal! If you can believe this, we have ½ a pig in the freezer we just got from the butcher and I haven’t even cracked into it yet because I’m so enjoying exploring the Cooking Wild in MO book.

Paw Paws

Gee. This gathering thing is not always so easy to do, is it? I got to thinking that this is about the time paw paws are ripe. Actually, since I rarely see paw paw fruits on their trees, I thougtht a good way to let me know they were ripe was to wait until I saw them being sold at the Columbia Farmer's Market. So, I waited and I waited and then realized that the vendor who brings paw paws was not participating in the market this year. This made me realize that I didn't have a good feeling for when exactly paw paws did ripen. This week I took a hike in the woods and walked by a few paw paw patches. I shook untold trees and came up with . . .one paw paw. Did I miss their season? Were the trees I was finding not mature enough to produce fruits? Hmmm. One paw paw. What's a person supposed to whip up with that?

My luck turned, however, when I asked my coworker if he could collect paw paws if he ran across any while he was out. Can you believe that it just so happens his neighbor has a nice sized paw paw in his back yard that produces 2-3 gallons of fruits per year?! John gathered up a couple dozen of those babies for me. Thank you! These were not large paw paws and it look maybe 12-15 to make a cup of pulp. I froze the pulp until persimmons are ripe for the 4-p cake recipe in the book (pear, paw paw, persimmons and pecans). Paw paws are such a cool looking tropical-like tree. I'm glad to be focusing on them this fall.

Catfish with Lemons and Pecans, and Opal's Cornbread, page 89

Hmm. What to say about these recipes? OK. I'm going to be honest. I'd like to sit down with Ms. Opal and ask if she ever had the chance to try  Jiffy cornbread. While I was at it, I'd also like to compliment Opal on her lovely name, that is if she'd have anything to do with me after the Jiffy comment. Jiffy is like half a buck per box and DE-Licious. It's not to say the cornbread didn't turn out in this recipe, but I'm kind of stuck on the sweet, Jiffy cornbread mix. It's the gold standard as far as I'm concerned. Am I burning in damnation, yet, for not appreciating from scratch corn bread? So sorry, Opal. Actually, Fred said he thought the cornbread from this recipe would go well with a sweeter dish such as ham and beans. That made sense to me.

I did use eggs in the cornbread recipe from our "urban chickens" and am including a couple photos of our eggs and chicken house.

As for the catfish, maybe I'm a bit sensitive to too much richness, but I didn't really need the lemon-butter sauce on the semi-fried catfish. Fred, who is not as adverse to the grease world as I am, thought the same thing, however. The dish is basically floured catfish fried in a bit of oil that winds up with a butter-lemon and toasted pecan sauce. Hungry, yet? But, for me I think I would have liked the fish a bit more before the sauce was poored on it. Sounds a little funny duddy, doesn't it, but the sauce wetted up a pretty, crisp frying job and added a heft I just didn't appreciate. I made this meal before an MU football game so we had to eat dinner super early and I hadn't  worked up much of an appetite before we ate. That could have a lot to do with wanting for a lighter fare. We served the cornbread and catfish with collared greens from the farmer's market. Was it good? You bet and I would have been proud to serve it to anyone. I mean, did you see the pictures!! The recipe makes for a very beautiful meal. Next time, however, I might just serve the catfish filets with a wedge of lemon and call it good.

Venison Green Chile Stew, page 39

This summer we planted 50 pounds of potatoes at my in-laws farm and harvested 200 pounds from them. Seemed  a pretty decent return to me-does any one know if that is a good rate? Anyhow, we used our own potatoes that we are storing in bread crates in the garage and cilantro from the garden that I planted about a month ago for the venison stew recipe. We made the dish on a Friday night 'cause we often go out for Mexican on Friday but on this particular chilly Friday we felt more like staying in. The recipe calls for fire roasted peppers. I managed that by cutting peppers in half and placing them directly over the flames of our gas stove-worked pretty well. The stew thickened up nicely after a couple hours. I served it with diced tomatoes and grated cheese on the side and tried to eat mine in a tortilla assuming the dish was kind of like carnitas. As a stew the potatoes made sense. Served in a tortilla I didn't need the potatoes so much.

Right now I'm bopping between venison and catfish as far as meat recipes go because that's what we have in. It's pretty fun that even though our meat selection is limited for the  Cooking Wild . . . project we still have a variety of types of recipes to choose from. For instance, last night we had a stew-y meal. Tonight I'm going to try the lemon and pecan catfish, a more dry affair. And, I bought ingredients at the farmer's market this morning for the Korean venison and spice rubbed venison loin with plums for latter in the week. Wee-ha. I'm really enjoying getting in to this book.

Ann's mom, the boys and Ann plant potatoes at Fred's parents' farm.

Bierocks

I would really like to know how to pronounce Bierocks, a German  bun stuffed with meat and veggies. At least that’s what Bierocks are in the “Cooking Wild. . .” cookbook. Anyhow, using the last pound of last year’s ground venison, I confronted the bierocks recipe. I was planning on making them last week, mid-week. But after the Best Buy/watery rice episode, thought otherwise. And, I’m glad. This is not a mid-week recipe. And, I have to say that my success rate at dough filled with filling of any sort, such as calzones, empanadas, or fruit dumplings, is somewhere close to 0.0%. And, bread dough in particular, has eluded me. I assume this is due to an overall lack of patience and attention to detail. Directions like let dough rise for an hour, or find a warm place for dough to double, have never struck me as crucial steps worthy of my full attention. And, certainly patience at rolling out small circles of dough and carefully filling them has not been my forte.  However, by waiting until I had the sort of day that I could find the time to make dough, and having the epiphany that I could set my oven on very low to rise the dough in (dude, I never said I was a cooking genious, how do you spell genous? ) the dough worked for me.  I was so proud of my little meat filled buns upon completion.  Yippee. The dough did rise. The stuffing wasn’t too runny. And the dough didn’t shred when I rolled it thin and folded up the buns. Wow. These babies even stayed together when baked.

The end result. Bierocks taste . . .German.  They reminded both Fred and I of something you’d take to a German cultural dinner, like some sort of 4-H program or something. They were quite pretty in their bun-ness , a bit bland without mustard, and enjoyed by the kiddos and adults very much. I find it interesting that someone with the family name of Koenig, for goodness sake, finds German food more foreign than sushi or catfish tacos. What a strange cultural phenomenon. I really felt like the Bierocks were more other culture than I could accept, almost.  My theory: we are so used to razzle dazzle rich or spicy dishes that old world foods taste . . .strange.  I mean, most Americans are very familiar with Mexican and Chinese food,  but a bierock? Never heard of it. Anyway, I did find that the further I got into dinner the more of a taste I was acquiring for by little bierock buns and am looking forward to having the other ½ of those babies for dinner tomorrow.

Caribbean Catfish

There are a couple things I have so little interest in that it's more like an aversion: cars and electronics. So, running by Best Buy after school to replace some blown speakers in our truck is not my favorite sort of errand. But, seeing as the appointment was only supposed to take 20 minutes, I thought I'd still have time after we got back to make Caribbean catfish. I'd bought the ingredients for it, the catfish was thawed and I was looking forward to giving it a go. Well, 2 HOURS later, the boys and I were still waiting behind the store in the stereo install bay (in case you can't picture it, imagine a place with as much ambiance as the inside of a cigarette trash can) for the stereo fellas to finish up. I have to say the Best Buy stereo guys were very good to work with. They really were. And eventually we made it home with the boys starvin' and momma starvin' too. So, I began getting the Caribean catfish made which didn't take much time especially if you cut the various 'cook this five minutes, add this and then cook 10 minutes more' to throw it all in and cook until you are reasonably sure you won't food poison the children.
The catfish dish was very nice. We didn't get the proportions on the rice to water correct somehow as it was a bit, as the boys said, 'watery'. Pouring the saucy catfish over the already 'watery' rice was a tad unfortunate. But, Fred loved the catfish dish. Honestly, I was tired enough that really wasn't able to enjoy it until the next day when I had a bit of the dish sans rice for lunch and was surprise by how tasty it was. Tomatoes and some okra were from our garden and mixed with garlic and ginger made for a fresh interesting sauce. This could be a company meal, but seemed more like comfort food for any day of the week. The boys had steak, goat cheese and toast sandwiches after since they were so hungry and the rice was, well, 'watery'. Oh, and I toasted the coconut and served in on the side as a garnish which worked well since not all of us are coconut fans.

Turkey Biscuit Pie

Wild turkey dropped biscuit pie. OK, Fred had made a trash can turkey for a campout (see the previous post), so we had leftover turkey and I am into my project now, so I went ahead and made this dish with the trash can turkey. Hey, it was cooked outside so that counts for something, right? Totally yummy. Actually I made two of the dish. The first one I used biscuits dough that I had already made and had in the freezer. The whole family liked it a lot, I would say especially Oliver. He had four servings for dinner. The second time I made the dish I stuck to Bernadette’s biscuit recipe, used the remaining turkey from the campout and then put the whole dish in the freezer before it was baked. I am hoping it freezes well-don’t  see why it shouldn’t.

Trashcan Turkey

OK, even though we’re only a week into this blog, I’m going to have to deviate from Woods To Food and do a Food to Woods post. I have no choice, turkey season is a month away, and there are a lot of turkey recipes.

Four years ago I heard about trash can turkeys, and wanted to give one a try. The formula I was given was simple – a 20 pound turkey in a 20 gallon trash can with 20 pounds of charcoal cooks in two hours. Not so much science, as easy to remember round numbers.

So I got a 30 gallon trash can, a 17 pound bag of charcoal (times are hard), and a turkey that may have been somewhat smaller than 20 pounds. The location of our cookout was an island in the middle of the Missouri River, near Columbia. We invited many friends.

The cooking process was pretty straightforward, and you can find many detailed sites about it on the Internet, but basically you drive a stake in the ground (easy enough on a sandbar island) and put a turkey over it. I nailed a litte “T” on top of my stake so the turkey didn’t slip down. Fire up the charcoal in a pile (I used the trashcan lid), and once they are all burning well, put the trashcan upside down over the turkey, circle the base (actually the top of the trashcan) with a few coals, and put the remainder on top. You’ve just created a giant dutch oven.

The turkey is baked, it is sealed away from the charcoal, so don’t expect a smoky or barbeque flavor. But it does make a very good baked turkey.

The Missouri River has been high lately, so the last few years we’ve done the trashcan turkey at Mark Twain Lake in the state park campground. We’ve had three families of four there for the past three years in August, and the turkey provides a big dinner and ample leftovers.

So although trash can turkey isn’t a Woods To Food recipe, several of the recipes do call for cooked turkey, and that’s where my trashcan turkey leftovers come in.

Elderberries Consumed

Oh, I almost forgot. .. the elderberries. I haven't had them before I don't guess because I certainly don't remember their flavor. It's like a blackberry without the tartness, sweetness or any other flaver . . . basically they taste kind of woody to me. Do elderberries always tast like that? I made the elderberry-vodka lemonade splash and a Shirly Temple version (elderberry lemonade) for my aunt. The elderberry juice looked brown to me and I thought it might make a murky looking martini, but the juice gave the drinks a fun deep pink cast. As for taste, the elderberry juice I added wasn't enough to flavor the drinks-which I considered good luck since the taste wasn't noteworthy anyway. Also, you might note the skimpy elderberry juice I used in the martinis due to not wanting the elderberry flavor to ruin an otherwise perfectly good drink did make for a Barbie pink beverage, which as my sister pointed out did not look too manly when sipped on by the men of the bunch. Next time I think I'd brave more juice for a richer red color. And, thanks very much to my boss and mother-in-law for picking the elderberries for us.

For breakfast the next morning, which was my dad's birthday, I made the elderberry-lemon corn muffins. I thought I'd finally hit on a recipe I could criticize when I tasted the batter. It was really sweet. But, the elderberries balanced the sweetness quite well. They are beautiful muffins and pretty darn tasty, too. I really enjoy cooking muffins and have tried several kinds. These would not be my absolute favorite, but I'd make them again and they were very attractive and unique to serve to company with the generous amount of elderberries. I served them with fruit smoothies and it felt like a great breakfast to start the day out strong. At the end of the weekend what I really felt was that I have an awesome family and sharing the woods to food project with them was pretty nifty.

Venison kabobs with lemony orzo and tzatziki

What a good time. To be honest, when someone says, "Really, I didn't even know that was venison" it's meant as a compliment. Many folks do not think of venison as having a flavor they savor, but rather as a beef substitute that sometimes even masks as beef pretty decently. We served the venison kabobs (quadrupling the recipe), orzo and tzatziki all together, just like the recipe says, for 16 family members on Labor Day weekend and it went great. You know how I said I pouted a bit after making the thai venison salad 'cause of the amount of work verses how many people got to see the end result ratio? Well, not so with this dinner. It was very satisfying sharing our woods to food project with our family. It makes for fun conversation to serve not only food you've grown but food you've hunted and gathered as well. People can relate to deer they have hunted or helping their parents pick elderberries. It was also fun to watch my sister, cousin and aunt flip throught the Cooking Wild in MO cookbook and amaze themselves with the tasty looking recipies. My sister quite likes the orzo dish and was surprised that it and the tzatziki recipe all came from the Cooking Wild cookbook as well as the venison kabobs. It really is seeming to be a well rounded cookbook so far.

Using cilantro, cucumbers and mint from the garden, it made for a good late summer dinner. The aroma from grilling the kabobs was just like a Greek restuarant. I must say I was a little scared the burger would adhere to the grill better than the kabob sticks and we'd be left with 4.5 pounds of dog food on and beneath the grill, but the little kabobs behaved prefectly well. We served the dinner with my cousin's leafy salad and Greek pitas grilled with copious amounts of olive oil. It was a tasty meal.

Elderberries

Having obtained the Wild Missouri cookbook as soon as it came out in August, and having it coincide with my catfishing outing, we immediately got started. After the catfish we were able to go to the freezer and use some of the remaining venison, which was vacuum packed and still excellent in quality. The seasonal nature of these recipes will require some advance planning. We thought we’d better go through the book and see what we might be missing.

Elderberries. They are ripe right now, so we hope. So on a Sunday morning, we all bike to Café Berlin, a restaurant that specializes in locally grown food, go to church downtown, and then head out on the MKT trail on our bikes in search of elderberries. We found a few in a spot that Ann was guessing they might be, but she had the spot pegged so precisely she figures it must be an old memory rather than a good guess. But there were almost no berries, probably already consumed by birds. The ones that remained were pretty dried up. We found one more patch, but they were in the same state: slim pickings.

Distressed that we may have missed elderberries for the year, I did the only thing you can do in a situation like this – I called my Mom.  As I predicted, she knew nothing of elderberries, but agreed with me that my Dad would know them, and would know where they are. So they set off together on their Mule (of the Kawasaki utility vehicle variety, not the long-eared type) to hunt them. She called back later that day. They had come up dry.

But the next day, I got a call from her again. My Dad had found some, and brought her back the stems. After an hour of de-stemming, she had three cups of elderberries. She froze them in a quart bag for us.

Later Ann’s boss also came through for her, providing several stems that were growing along the road near her house. It took a communal effort, but it seems we hadn’t missed the elderberry season after all.

Catfish Goes to China

Our second use of our fresh catfish was Catfish Goes to China. Very good. The dish filled the kitchen with wonderful aromas when cooking. I was proud to serve it. Looked quite nice. Fred did not fall out of his chair like he did with the tacos, but thought the meal outstanding.

Thai Venison Salad

Ann here. I opted to use some of last year’s deer for Thai venison salad. Oh, my golly. It’s amazing. It’s an outstanding enough dish that I found myself moping a tad about going to that much work and having that much success with just the four of us for dinner. The meal looks like company’s coming.

 Using cucumbers from the garden, it makes for a great summer dish. One thing I’d like someone to shake me like a paint can if I do again: I bought key limes rather than regularly sized limes to save a buck. So very not worth it. Juicing those little babies it mui frustrating to make a whopping cup of juice, especially for a week night meal. I wonder how Bernadette put those pretty grooves in the cucumbers. I cut them with a knife and got a similar but not as good a result.

 I grilled enough loin to make two dinners worth of meat.  And, I thought the amount of sauce to marinade the meat in was twice the amount needed for one dinner. So, it was a very easy second dinner a few nights later. All you have to do is make up the salad part the second night. So, it is as easy as leftovers while tasting unleftovery fresh. Like the catfish tacos, Fred did fall out of his chair again for this dinner. Henry, our 10 year old did great with it. Oliver, well he tolerated it, especially since we served it both nights with rice. What a colorful, healthy fresh meal. Make it, make it, make it.

Deer from 2010

Fred here. When I grew up on the farm I hunted quite a bit. Once I moved to town 15 years ago, it became something I fit in occasionally. I usually get in deer season, but it’s typically a couple hours of a couple days, not an every day, or even all-day for a single day, type of hunt.
Last year my brother Tim was up to the farm for his annual fall visit of helping with the harvest and working the cattle, which typically coincides with deer season. After finishing with the cattle, I was about to head back to Columbia with Ann and the boys, when Tim suggested they could all walk through a patch of woods that has been a deer hot-spot in the past, and see if any deer run out my way.
So I took my post as they walked through the woods. It’s exciting, because these are small woods, and you know if anything is going to happen, it will happen in the span of a few minutes. That day it didn’t. The four of them emerged from the woods, with no deer in the lead. It was about time to head back to Columbia, so we called it a day. But on the way back to the farm, we jumped up two deer.
They ran away from us at an angle through the woods. I quickly took the only shot I had, a head shot. The deer dropped instantly, and hard. The single 30-.06 bullet to the temple did its job fine. It looked more like a mafia hit than hunting prey. I certainly didn’t waste any meat on this one.
We took it back to the farm, and used our age-old method of hoisting it up with the loader on the tractor to hang it and gut it. I suppose I should tell you I then skinned it, cut it up and packaged it, but actually I just put it in the back of my truck and took it to a deer processing place near Linn. Bargain prices, on the way home to Columbia and they did fantastic job.
The venison was used for some great grilled steak recipes from the book "Grillin and Chilli'n" by Kate Fiduccia, and also burgers and chilli, and there is just enough left to get us stated on some recipes from the new book before this fall’s deer season comes around.

Catfish Tacos

The first recipe, Catfish tacos. Like a goofball, I went to the farmer’s market the day Fred went catfishing and what did I buy? Fresh trout! After Fred came home with several pounds of catfish meat, that trout went into the freezer. I definitely wanted to use at least some of the catfish while it was fresh and to get our project started. Fred had kept up his end of the bargain by bringing home the proverbial bacon. Now, it was my turn. I chose the catfish tacos as the first dish because tomatoes are in season and I had several from the garden and ‘cause I thought the recipe would show off Fred’s catch well. Oh, lordie, the tacos are so good. The family absolutely loved them as did I. They are so worth making. I’m a little bummed that I might not make them again for a bit since I want to use our remaining catfish for the other recipes in the book. I used cabbage rather than lettuce but other than that kept to the recipe.