A Meal Well Earned - Sweet Maple Dunkel Deer Balls

So ignore all the time it took to hunt, drag, bone-out, and grind any deer we harvested last season.  I thawed out a pound of the seasoned sausage we prepared late last winter and cooked up some venison meatballs for dinner Friday evening.

I chopped an onion and put the entire thing in a pan to simmer while I prepared the venison.  I put some BBQ sauce, teriyaki, and club crackers into the meat and hand-rolled some deer balls.  With the onions done, I put them in a 12x12 pan, and put the balls on the heat with a small bit of Leinenkugel's Maple Dunkel.  When the bottoms got browned, I pulled them out and put them in the pan with the onions.  I then sprinkled some McCormick's Smokehouse Maple (TM) seasoning on top of them.

When all the balls were done, I poured the rest of the Dunkel into the pan with a cup of brown sugar.  I brought that sauce to a boil and then poured that into the same pan.  See picture below.

Half of the balls done, half cooking up.
McCormick's seasoning and Leinenkugal Maple Dunkel shown.

I covered the pan of balls with aluminum foil and put them in the oven at 300 degrees F.  While they continued to bake, I grabbed some sweet corn from the 'garden' and put them on to boil.  I used 80% water and 20% milk to boil them. 

After about 45 minutes in the oven, everything was done and ready to consume.  Sandy thought they were too sweet and did not care for the seasoning we put into the meat.  Me?  I thought they were little balls of Heavenly Goodness.  I ate until I was overfull and then put the rest in the fridge for tomorrow night.  

Well earned and more than worth it!

Fresh sweet corn boiled in water & milk.  Deer balls done & ready to consume.



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