Cousin Reunion 2014 - Recipes

Held the Cousin Reunion this week-end.  Had cabins at Turkey Run for those who needed a place to rest the ole head.  Then everyone came to the farm on Saturday for photos and a meal.

First Cousins / Spouses & Zeus at the Lecklitner / Seager Homestead Sept 2014
Not pictured:  The Nelson family (flight got cancelled - bummer)
(Jim - Please note the Oregon Sweatshirt has made yet another appearance)


And man did we put on a feedbag.  I smoked elk tenders and chicken wings, grilled elk steak, deer steak, and Clinton County pork patties.  I also cooked some Italian Goose.  Guests brought veggie trays, desserts, and all kinds of dips.  Of course Sandy had her spin as well with pasta salad and cheesy potatoes, along with some desserts too.  A few beers may have been consumed.  Land Shark seemed to be the favorite, followed closely by Modelo and Shiner Bock.

The smoked meat was dry rubbed with equal parts of: chili powder, seasoning salt, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder.  They were left overnight in the fridge.  I wet smoked the wings for 1 hour, turning at 30 minutes.  Afterwards, I drowned them in a sauce of apple juice, honey, and BBQ sauce.  The BBQ sauce was warm, and the kiddos along with a few adults thought they were too warm.  I kept the elk loins on for 2 hours - all meat smoked at 250 F.  I probably should have pulled the elk off at 90 minutes as they were starting to get dry.

I then grilled the pork patties - with no additional seasoning.  Finally, I threw on the elk and deer steaks.  I had seasoned them with McCormik's Montreal Steak seasoning, pounded them, and then soaked them overnight in Coca Cola.  The acid in the Coke pre-cooks / tenderizes the meat and the corn syrup helps sweeten them a bit.  Absolutely NO gamey taste what so ever.

The deer seemed to go over better than the elk, but that's just because we corn feed the deer here in Indiana.  There is no finer eating.

The goose could not be distinguished from prime roast beef.  I took 2 goose breasts, added one packet of dry zesty Italian salad dressing, and then covered the breasts with Sprite in a crock pot.  I cooked on low for 8 hours.  After it was done, I shredded the breasts with forks, drained the crock pot, put the now shredded meat back into the crock pot and added half a packed of salad dressing.  I then poured the juice from two small bottles of peppercini peppers into the pot.  I cooked on low for 1 hour.  Normally, I would have added peppers, but I was not sure everyone would eat them, so I left them "on the side" for folks who did want them.  I call this Italian Goose.

The eating was awesome!  Or as Grant would say, "Epic!"

The kids had an absolute blast driving around on the Gator.  They suckered in any adult they could to go with them so they could drive.  Many stories were told, including the one about what you never want to hear come out of a Seager's mouth.  Too funny.

Many thanks to all who had to commute to join the gathering.  Your sacrifice was greater than any inconvenience we had to endure to host the event.  Very happy you could all make it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil.  All of that bakes in the son
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down into a channel in the housing."  Bam. 
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The two little "
Read more