Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What's in your deer camp?

OK, in case you haven't noticed, deer season is just around the corner. Every year I make a huge bunch of pasties and a large pot of venison chili for the event.
Then I got to thinking, I'll bet a lot of you viewers have that special signature dish you always make for deer camp. I want to hear what you make and special credit goes to those who include the recipe.

Grandma P's pastie recipe:

The dough: 2 cups of sifted flour with 1 tsp salt. Cut in 1 cup of lard and mix thoroughly. Slowly add cold milk until the stuff sticks together. Roll into
a ball, cover with wax paper and refrigerate for 2 or more hours.

The filling: 1 lb sirloin stak and 2 lb pork shoulder steak cubed into 3/4'. 2 med potatoes, cubed into 1/2". 2 large onions diced.
Carmelized the onions in a large skillet with butter. add the meat and cook until the meat looses its red color, then add the potatoes and cook for another 5-10 min, just enough to soften the taters. Set aside to cool (2 or more hours).

Sprinkle flour on a cutting board and set the dough on it. Quarter the dough, then subdivide each quarter into 6 little dough balls. On the floured surface, roll out the dough ball really thin. Place 1/3 cup or so of your partially cooked filling on the flat dough and gather the edges up together to seal the ball. Place the uncooked pastie on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg. Bake the pasties for 40-45 min until there a nice golden brown color. Enjoy!

I take baked corn flake chicken thighs like Mom made back in the 70's. Plus a sheet pan cherry cobbler from my Aunt Ruthie's recipe. Both ladies pass 30 years ago----keeping the tradition going.

Past couple years I’ve done Irish beef and Guinness stew, with fresh baked brown bread. This year I’ll change to venison shepherds pie or chicken cordon bleu. Still deciding.

Old70

"Polish Caviar". Cut up ring bologna or kielbasa, Bunch of sliced onions. Brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, some garlic powder, some red pepper flakes. Let it brine up in the fridge for at least a week before eating. I've also added pepper rings, pepperoncinis to the mix. The night before, you can add some small mushrooms and cubes of cheese too, but they both get mushy if left in too long. No real recipe, just use enough vinegar to cover however much you cut up, and add about 1 cup of brown sugar for every 2 cups of vinegar.

This summer, I even got fancy and cooked the kielbasa in the smoker for a few hours to get some of the fat out of it, made it better than it had ever been before, and I've eaten boat loads of it.

You'll definitely need your FartLok britches after it too....

We're not real big on the "food/cooking" experience.

Up before dark - jam a pop tart (frosted brown sugar and cinnamon) in your mouth. Back after dark and we'll make burgers or hot dogs or something. Maybe run to the tavern 20 miles away if feeling special.
Bout it.

I might make stew or something but it's just not a big deal for us.

Nightly cribbage game and camp hopping is about the only thing that happens each year - camp hopping less and less tho.

my signature dishes for the main week are Jaeger Schnitzel, stuffed cabbage, haluski, homemade pizza and chili. with my bum wing, i'll most likely be doing a lot more cooking and drinking than hunting this year.

Bob's Ragout

Diced potatos, onions, sliced sausage link, minced garlic all fried in pure hog lard.

Yum!

I have company the first week, the second I am generally o.n my own so eat left overs.

One meal is pulled beef sandwiches. Toss a beef roast or two into the crock with a packet of dried French onion soup for each roast, a can of beef consumme for each roast, some mushrooms, and sliced onions. Cook on low all day and serve on sour dough, French, or whatever rolls you like. I usually eat them without BBQ sauce but one can add whatever sauce they like. Serve with potato salad or some other easy to make side. We don't do separate vegetables as a rule.

Another meal is called The Mess and the basics can be found on the Internet under that name. I use brats, polish sausage, ringed Bologna, and whatever similar meats I have on hand. It calls for green peppers but I add red, yellow, and orange too for appearance. To this I add mushrooms, potatoes, baby corn cobs, shrimp, and what else I think of that would taste good. This is usually a lot more than a crock can handle so it ends up in a roaster set in the oven at 200 degrees for several hours. I prefer to serve with sour dough bread but hard rolls are a close second.

I have goose/duck stew I make. I can't recall the ingredients off hand but it takes me an afternoon to make it. The base recipe is one I pulled from a cook book put out by the late Bill Shrenk of the Minneapolis Tribune as I recall. I add to the mix and my wife always begs me to stop as she is afraid I'll eventually ruin it . I haven't yet but it is getting difficult to find additional ingredients. I like oyster crackers but most prefer soda crackers. I also like to offer warmed mini baguettes with it too.

Steaks cooked over mesquite wood, baked tators, jalapeño poppers, beans, and beer.

We've always eaten like kings at our deer camp. Several of our members, past and present, owned restaurants, diners, concession stands etc.
Probably our signature dish is Venison with Rosemary. Autofive and I cooked it for our September meeting. It comes out real tender. We pretty much multiply everything by 4 to feed our crew.
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. of venison steak, cut 3/8" -1/2" thick. (Trim off all fat)
2 whole rosemary (ground is preferred, if available, 1 tbsp. or less to taste)
Garlic Powder
Pepper
2 cans Golden Mushroom soup
Burgundy wine
3-4 cups shredded Monterey Jack of Mozzarella cheese

Place steak in a kettle, add rosemary and seasonings to taste.
Add enough wine to just cover the steaks.
Cover the kettle and simmer on top of the stove for approximately an hour or until tender.
Drain the broth from the steaks and reserve.
If using whole rosemary, strain broth and remove any rosemary on the steaks.
Place the steaks in a Pyrex dish large enough for a single layer.
Mix the broth with the Golden Mushroom soup until the consistency of thick gravy.
Pour over steaks until covered.
Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.
The last 10 minutes, add shredded cheese on top.
Adjust all quantities to your taste.
Serves 4.

Paula Dean's Beef Stroganoff recipe, substitute Venison I like to cherry pick a few lbs from a deer we're butchering.
Use Aldi's spatzel noodles and do some minute rice to give the guys a choice.

1 1/2 pounds cubed round steak, cut into thin strips
All purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion sliced
2 - 8 ounce packages of sliced mushrooms
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can beef broth
1 (10 3/4 ounce) cream of mushroom soup (garlic flavored)
salt
pepper
garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
cooked egg noodles

Directions

Season steak with salt, pepper and garlic powder then dust with flour. In a large skilled, quickly brown beef in olive oil and butter.

Add the onion and mushrooms to pan with drippings. Saute for a few minutes until the onion is tender. Sprinkle with 1 tsp of flour. Put the steak back into the pan with the onion and mushrooms. Add onion soup and beef broth. Cook over low heat for about 30 minutes, covered.

Serve over cooked egg noodles.

Grandma makes cubed venison stew with obviously venison, potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. Plop the stew onto one of her home-made buttered buns and use the last of the bun to clean up the bowl. Grandma also always makes at least 1 full glass brownie pan of apple crisp. For a while when the crew was bigger, she made 2 pans of apple crisp. One for me, and one for everyone else. Twas a HILARIOUS moment the day she made my 84yr old grandpa ask me permission to dip into my pan of apple crisp because the communal pan was gone.

Apparently, 2 dead partridges. Friend of our's called and said he visited his camp, which is located close to our's, and did a welfare check for us, on our camp. He said 2 partridges flew into a window at camp, broke the window, and ended up dead inside. Said the stench is terrible. I remember living at home when I was a kid and having that happen. It didn't break the window, though. Seems as though it was the spring of the year, and I vaguely remember my dad saying it was not all that unusual? Anyone familiar with this?

Beer can chicken in the cookstove is a favorite at camp.

Dang, it's not even 10 AM and I'm hungry for lunch! I love these ideas so far, keep 'em coming.
Paul

For years we had deer camp stew. I love that stuff. Not a whole lot of deer the last few yrs though and we went without the "deer" in the stew several years . We are out again and it will likely be nothing this year. A few years ago we made a pizza in the cast iron pan and left it on the wood stove for and hour . It worked well. We are going more to steaks on the grill the last few years.

Our family pasties recipe always used Venison, no onion, Turnips or rutabaga instead, No milk. Also they where large, 9" plate size.

A seafood feast. Time to make room in the freezers.

No signature dish for us. Though I do love to do jalepeno wrapped fresh backstrap wrapped in bacon.

When ( and sometimes if) it gets cold. Chili. The Carol Shelby mix kind with deer and pig.
And gumbo. With the gumbo starter in the quart jar. Mix in chicken, sausage ( andouille if it’s handy.) and shrimp.

Side note - the best store bought sausage is Conecuh. Out of evergreen AL.

Any good venison recipes to share?