This is a gardening and cooking blog. I started it because I love both those things. But it’s also a blog about our family, and you can’t talk about our family and not talk about hunting. I asked Walt to introduce the topic. Here’s what he says:
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t hunt. I’m not sure when I started, but I know that I killed my first deer when I was younger than my oldest grandchild is right now. People have asked me why I do it. After all, it is kind of an anachronism in the year 2011. But here’s what I know: I hunt because there is no other experience that brings me closer to God’s creation. All my life I have loved wild things and wild places, not just seeing them and appreciating their beauty, but being close to them, being a part of them. For me, the act of hunting – not the act of killing – is absolutely fundamental to that love. Jose Ortega said that hunting is peculiar among human endeavors in that one hunts not to kill – rather, one kills in order to have hunted. Our family does not eat a lot of domestic meat, for a long list of reasons. We believe that wild meat is healthier for us – physically, mentally and spiritually. So we hunt.
Hunting is about family for us. We all go – grandma, grandpa, kids, grandkids, babies – everyone. Our kids and our grandkids went from being carried in backpacks while we were hunting to carrying backpacks while they were hunting. They learn by doing. They learn to love and appreciate the beauty and freedom of wild animals and wild country. They learn to hunt safely and successfully. They learn to kill cleanly and humanely, with reverence and thanks to God for the gift of that animal. They learn to skin it and butcher it and prepare it for the table. They learn that elk eat grass and people eat elk, and so do grizzly bears and wolves. They learn that there are only a few special places that elk and grizzlies and wolves live and that we have to take care of them. We think that’s good. We think it’s honest. And we think it’s important.
Back to Kim: I don’t hunt with the same passion and intensity that Walt does. For me, hunting starts with weeks of planning the menus with my daughters. Who brings snacks for the kids, who cooks on what day, what is everyone cooking, and why do we always wind up with enough food to feed a football team?
After all the planning and shopping and packing, we go hunting. Fortunately, Walt has arranged all the actual hunting parts. This was the first year in a long time that I didn’t draw an antelope license, but we still did the same things – we get up fairly early in the morning when the stars are still out. We have a quick breakfast on hunting days, then everyone, and I mean everyone piles in a pickup. This year, we had three vehicles full of orange hats, kids, snacks, guns, binoculars, and spotting scopes.
This is why I go hunting – the early morning smell of sagebrush, seeing the sun come up over the high sagebrush desert, watching the antelope vanish like ghosts into the distance, and teaching the next generation to cherish these moments.
When we get the meat – whether its antelope, elk or deer – back to the cabin, we bone it out and put it in coolers. The nights are cold enough to keep the meat cold. Over the years, people have told us that they don’t like antelope. We’ve found that antelope needs to be cooled off as soon as possible. When we get the antelope, we get it back to the truck and dress it out. We always carry big jugs of water and rinse the inside of the antelope well.
When we get it back to the cabin, we immediately skin it out, and start boning it out if it’s still daylight. If it’s getting dark, we cover it with a tarp until the next morning. But it can still cool off this way.
After boning out the meat, the guys wash it in cold water to get off any remaining dirt and hair, then they bring the meat into the cabin in washtubs. We have a BIG table and cover it in cutting boards, knives and wrapping paper. Picture seven or eight people, from 2 years to adult, sitting around a big table. Most of the kids have on their hunter orange hats. Most of the adults, and some of the kids, are in camo.
We have always cut our own meat – it’s not hard, just takes time. The idea is to get all the fat, gristle, and tendons off the meat. We package the meat in muscle groups – backstrap, round, tenderloin. Since it’s already boned out, we don’t have to worry about saws. The trimmings go into hamburger or sausage.
Not only does everyone go hunting, but everyone cuts meat. How old you are determines how sharp your knife is. And how effective you are. We’ve got little 2 year olds with dull butter knives sawing away at whatever scrap we give them. They get a paper plate for a cutting board. Then they graduate to dull pocket knives when they’re about 5 years old. We start trusting them with the sharp knives – and we do keep them sharp with an electric knife sharpener while we’re cutting meat – when the kids are about 8 or 9. They get to clean up hamburger meat, not just the scraps. And they want to cut up meat – it’s a privilege, not a chore.
Some people like to clean hamburger, some like to get the steaks and roasts ready, some like to wrap and label meat. It all works and everyone works.
We wrap the meat in freezer paper, label with the type of meat, what cut it is, and the year. We bring a chest freezer to the cabin and run it off a generator so we can freeze the meat as soon as we wrap it. Usually, it is no more than 24 hours from getting the animal until it’s in the freezer. We’ve never had a bad antelope, deer or elk. We’ll cover cooking it in another blog.
But let’s get to the food part of hunting and we’ll do antelope hunting first. We cook. We cook lots. We eat. We eat lots. And lots. Then we do dishes. By hand – no dishwasher up there or running water. We heat the water to wash and rinse the dishes. And then we cook and eat some more.
Some of the wonderful things we ate this year included:
My brother makes breakfast burritos every year (he also took the pictures of the antelope). We SO look forward to those. They can take you through a long morning of hunting antelope.
Fried potatoes
Cooked bacon
Egg casserole/quiche
Green chile
Chorizo
Tortillas
My brother is a wonderful cook, however he’s the kind of cook that you ask him what his recipe is and he gives you a blank look. He doesn’t use recipes. He eats something, then tweaks it to make it better. So use your favorite egg casserole type dish and your favorite green chile recipe.
Beth made this lovely flan:
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 cans (14 oz each) condensed milk
6 large eggs
2 cans (12 oz. each) evaporated milk3 cups water
2 1/2 cups sweetened coconut flakes
Prepare caramel by heating sugar in a sauce pan at medium heat. Stir with a high heat spoon or spatula constantly until the sugar transforms into a light golden brown color. Quickly place caramel at the bottom of a glass 9x13 baking dish or individual serving dishes.
Preheat oven to 350F. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs well and add condensed milk. Mix water and evaporated milk and add to egg mixture. Add coconut flakes and stir. Place on top of caramel in baking dish. Place baking dish in a larger pan (e.g. a roaster). Add enough water to the larger pan to achieve a level that is at least half the height of the baking dish.
Bake for at least 1 1/2 hours. Let cool to room temperature and place in the refrigerator. Serve chilled. Oh my goodness – this was SO good!
She also made these cookies. My brother quickly became addicted to them.
½ c. butter
¼ c. peanut butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour (or use all white)
2 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
1 – 10 oz. pkg. peanut butter chips
½ c. chocolate syrup
Grease a 9x13” baking pan. Oven 350°. Cream butter and peanut butter. Add sugars and cream. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Blend in vanilla.
Stir together dry ingredients; mix with peanut butter mixture, blending well. Stir in peanut butter chips. Spread half of batter in prepared pan. Spoon or drizzle syrup over top. Top with remaining batter; swirl with spatula or knife for marbled effect.
Bake 35-40 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely. Cut into squares. Eat one, then another one, then another…
I put this recipe in the Peach blog, but it truly bears repeating:
PEACH PIE
2/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon (scant) ground cardamom
Cinnamon, about a teaspoon or to taste
Nutmeg, about ½ a teaspoon or to taste
3 3/4 pounds firm but ripe unpeeled (yes! unpeeled!) peaches, halved, pitted, each half cut into 4 slices (about 10 cups)
Pie crust for a 2-crust pie
This is a beautiful, tasty, filling chowder:
Autumn Chowder
4 cups cubed yellow-gold potatoes
4 cups water
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup white onion (chopped)
2 tablespoon chicken bouillon crystals
1 ½ cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 ½ cups shredded pepper-jack cheese
4 tablespoon flour
½ tsp. white pepper
2 cups half-and-half
2 cups milk
2 cans whole kernel corn
1 cup cubed ham
Boil yellow-gold potatoes for 5 minutes. Do not drain water.
To the potatoes and water, add carrots, onion, and bouillon and cook an additional 10 minutes.
In a separate bowl, toss cheddar, pepper-jack, flour, and white pepper together. Once combined, add to the pot with the potato and carrot mixture. Then add half-and-half, milk, corn, and ham, and heat (but do not boil) the ingredients. Serve hot.
We do some lunchmeat sandwiches or peanut butter for the kids. We’ve found that either bagels or sandwich rounds hold up better than bread. But these wraps make such a nice change, especially for the adults.
Black Bean wraps
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed
1/3 cup chunky salsa
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced1 tomato, thinly sliced
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded Pepper Jack cheese
1 avocado
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon lemon juice
4 (8 inch) flour tortillas
In medium bowl, place black beans and mash with a fork. Leave some beans whole for a chunky texture. Add salsa and mix well. Prepare bell pepper, tomato, and cheeses.
In small bowl, mash avocado with sour cream and lemon juice. I did all this the night before and put things in little plastic dishes with snap on lids. Then we just took everything in a cooler – that’s another advantage of antelope hunting – you have coolers in your pickup.
Spread bean mixture over tortillas and top with vegetables and cheeses. Place some avocado mixture over cheeses. Roll up sandwiches and serve.
That’s just a little idea of a typical antelope hunt.
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