Great Venison Cooking

Archive for the ‘BBQ and Grill’ Category

I made these venison burgers tonight for my weekly locally sourced meal—the Dark Days Challenge I’m doing via my sister site Backyard Grocery, which is about eating locally grown food. I generally don’t post my recipes on both sites, but this one is too good not to plaster it everywhere. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s 4:30 on Thanksgiving and family meal #1 is done and we’re heading out to family meal #2 shortly (although we may just have dessert there). I didn’t cook any venison for today, opting instead to contribute a pumpkin cheesecake to the festivities. But I did make a kick-you-know-what smoked turkey the other day. I posted that recipe on my sister site, Backyard Grocery. Check it out…it is the best turkey I’ve ever made. And may the rest of your Thanksgiving be wonderful.

For several years, Rick has wanted to smoke an entire deer on a spit. The problem? We don’t have a fire pit with a spit. Is that enough to deter my hunter? Heck no.

Our neighbors have one of those portable backyard fire pits. It’s small, but Rick figured a very small deer would fit over it. So, this summer he got a Spring buck that dressed out at 26 pounds and put it in the freezer until he could figure out how to make a spit for the fire pit. For the record, a whole deer—even a small one—takes up a lot of room in the freezer.

Alas, Rick was foiled on the spit. He just couldn’t find a non-commercial grade rotisserie that would hold more than 12 pounds, and a commercial rotisserie was not in our 2010 budget. So, he opted for option 2: to build a grill over the fire pit and slow roast/smoke the venison. Enter Home Depot where 1 grate, 4 steel rods, and a few bolts later, we had a grill for the fire pit. Better yet, we had a glorious early fall weekend day approaching. The BBQ was on!

If you’ve ever seen the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” specifically the scene with the lamb grilling in the front yard, then you can visualize the roast. We too were in the front yard. But we invited the neighbors, so it was okay.

In the end, this adventure in grilling was worth every minute. It was one of the best roasts we have ever made. Absolutely amazing. So, if you’re feeling up to the challenge, this is what we did…