I was curious-so I googled “Venison Price List”. After I weeded out the places that were just processing the deer that you brought in, and the places that sold it but were in Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand etc I finally found a place in Kansas that sells farm raised Venison.
Check out their Venison Price List. Ground Venison goes for $4.50 a lb. That loin that Yankee Bill butterflied? $13.50 a LB!!!
I apologize honey, your hobby is obviously worth even MORE than I thought 😉
‘Course I would NEVER be buying it at those prices. . . .
For a fancy dinner we were putting on, we bought farm raised venison from Maine, and it was overnighted with dry ice…. wow, expensive!
Yes, his hobby earns its’ keep!
Wow, that price list makes me feel really good about the freezer bags full of venison we have in our freezer right now! It was fun to go back and read your post about Yankee Bill and hunting. My husband loves to hunt, too. He loves being out in the woods and seeing nature in action. This year he came up really close to 3 otters, and watched them cavort around for awhile before he moved on. It seems to be quite the “male-bonding” activity also. My husband loves spending that time with his buddies, plus now our sons (14 & 19) enjoy going along, too. The fact that some years we get to fill the freezer is a bonus! As for the preparing, we have a couple of favorites. One is sauted in butter and rosemary on very high heat, till both sides are browned (we tend to cut it into bite sized pieces) then salt & pepper the pieces and add to the pan a good splash of wine (or wine vinegar), a good splash of worchestershire sauce and about a tsp of yellow mustard, mix it all around. This deglazes the pan and makes a nice rich brown savory sauce for the meat. You do it quickly on high heat, so the whole thing only takes 10 minutes or less, and the meat doesn’t have time to get dried out. You can’t crowd the pan though or things don’t brown up right. The other favorite is a stew done in the microwave. And though I don’t actually do a lot of real cooking in the microwave, for some reason our venison stew recipe just works best that way. This year I also tried grinding small amounts in my mini-food processor and that has also come out very well. Some years we have the meat professionally butchered, and get sausage and the whole 9 yards, some years like this one my husband does the job at home. We’ve also been trying to eat more local and organic where we can, and I figure you can’t get more organic and local than something that grew up wild in the woods behind your house! Happy Holidays to you and your family!
In the ten years we have lived here, my husband has yet to be invited to hunt. Hence, he hasn’t gone. And that was fine with me, up until the last year or two. It is getting so hard to find affordable meat that we can feel good about buying and eating. So now I am actively praying for him to be able to go next fall.
Before we moved here, it always amazed me that anyone would want to spend every weekend wandering around the woods in the rain. I think it was the Snickers bars. lol
At the warehouse club they have Australian lamb for $3.99 a pound and it is excellent!! Annette