Venison steaks

By Peggy | July 7, 2013 |

Another favorite venison recipe, as promised, from Chili, two ways.

The first thing Mark often cooked after a successful hunting trip was the venison backstrap, or tenderloin. I know some people soak the meat in buttermilk or wine to smooth out any gaminess that might be in the meat, but Mark rarely did that.

Instead, he would cut the meat on the diagonal into small medallions and dredge them in flour that was seasoned with salt and pepper, fry it in a bit of cooking oil and then serve it up with mustard. Pretty delicious, just like that.

Sometime ago, I stumbled across a recipe that took advantage of the little bits left behind in the fry pan that made a nice sauce, and that’s the way we’ve served it since.

If you want to make the sauce, choose a cast-iron pan and olive oil for frying the venison — a scant tablespoon per pound of meat. After removing the meat from the fry pan (keep it warm on a platter nearby), pour about a 1/2 cup of stock into the pan to pull up all the bits. With the heat on very low (so you don’t curdle the sauce), add a teaspoon each of dijon mustard and horseradish, and 2 tablespoons of Greek-style yogurt. When it’s hot, plate the steaks and pour the sauce over.

Posted in recipes, Uncategorized

Chili, two ways

By Peggy | June 30, 2013 |

Up north, we made chili with tomatoes, kidney beans and very little beef.

I know. The horror.

When I came down to Denton to go to college, my roommate, Terri, a San Antonio native, and I would make chili with buttermilk biscuits from her recipes. Another roommate, Charlene, a Houston native, would dump her chili over Fritos and put chopped onions and grated cheddar cheese on top.

Over time, the family recipe for chili has evolved based on what I learned from my roommates. When the boys were teens, Mark would head to the ranch near El Dorado each year during deer season so we could stuff the freezer with enough venison to get us through a year of hamburgers and chili. (I’ll share the recipe for my favorite, venison medallions, soon.)

Chili is going to be on the stove tomorrow night, after the kids scored some ground bison during a shopping trip this weekend. Sam won’t eat it. We’ll have to make him a bison patty on the side.

I know. The horror.

Quick Red-Meat Chili

1 large, or two medium, onion, chopped

2 T. chili powder (Penzey’s is best)

1 1/2 lb. of ground beef, bison, or venison

1 can of Ranch Style Beans (Want more beans? Use the big can. Don’t want to cook from a can? Prepare this recipe from Homesick Texan, using 4-6 cups in the chili.)

Saute the onions in enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a deep cast-iron skillet until they are very, very soft. Add the chili powder and saute another 1-2 minutes, until the spices are very fragrant. Add the meat and brown. Drain any excess fat. Stir in beans and heat through until bubbling, then serve.

Variation: For turkey chili, substitute 2 lb. of ground turkey and also add a pint jar of canned tomatoes when you add the beans. The tomatoes give the turkey chili more complex flavor and body.

 

Posted in recipes

Sam’s Peanut-butter lover ice cream

By Peggy | June 15, 2013 |

He came up with this combination himself. The recipe is loosely based on Ben and Jerry’s cookbook, published the year he was born and gifted to us by dear friends, Jan and Tracy Davis.

Peanut Butter Cookies  n’ Cream

DSCN09003 cups broken up peanut butter Oreos

2 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup crunchy peanut butter

2 cups cream

1 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Set the cookie bits in the freezer to chill them while you prepare the mix. Beat eggs and add sugar slowly, combining well. Whisk in peanut butter and when well combined add cream, milk, vanilla. Freeze in ice cream freezer according to manufacturer’s direction, adding cookies at the end and blending 1-2 more minutes.

 

Posted in recipes, What Sam says

Driving on the rims

By Peggy | June 11, 2013 |

When your kids are in college, you can learn vicariously through them, and I’m picking up all kinds of new things this summer from my daughter, Paige, who is majoring in English.

Sometimes it comes in longer talks (I had to work hard to remember why I didn’t like The Great Gatsby — sorry, Doni — and defend my opinion), but mostly we share observations, like one last night, seeing the unlikely outcome of a story and reminding each other that it was made possible through the omniscience of fiction.

Not something you get in real life, which probably explains my attraction to nonfiction. Paige took a nonfiction class and got some insight into that messy framework, (did it help that she was also taking a psychology class to meet a core requirement?) but in the end, I think she’ll be a fiction writer. That’s not fictional omniscience speaking, it’s just that her Shelfari is full of fiction and mine, not so much.

So, I shared with her a story about her dad and me that I thought would make a great scene for fiction. Maybe it could still be woven into some key moment of emotional truth in a piece of nonfiction, but the story sits in my memory as a random bit, like an old key in the junk drawer you are afraid to toss because, even though you haven’t figured out for the past 20 years what it goes to, you know as soon as you throw it away, you will.

When I packed up my things in Colorado and first moved to California, Mark came to help me drive across the desert. It was the end of summer. We had not yet figured out what we would learn a few years later, when the kids were little, that driving overnight, in shifts, is a far better way to get across the desert in the summer. But, we did drive as long into the night as we could before we stopped at a roadside park in Nevada to lay the seats back and get a few hours sleep. About 4 a.m., we were startled awake by such a noise I had never heard before, or since. The racket stopped by the time we were awake enough for our eyes to focus on a woman and two men as they slammed car doors and started stumbling around the car, yelling at each other. It could have been my stupor, but I believe it was more likely theirs, because what they were saying was completely, totally, utterly incoherent. The yelling went on for a few minutes, then, they got back in the car, slammed the doors and started up again. That’s when we saw the source of the racket. They were driving across the caliche on all four rims.

I didn’t think a car could do that. Mark was incredulous, too. But there they went, down a desert road on rims, a piece of fiction in real life.

 

 

Posted in Writing

Two things

By Peggy | June 9, 2013 |

Two amazing things happened with Sam this week. I’m sure that, to Sam, they are not amazing, they are just living and being. But for me, who knows how far he’s come, and for other parents and caregivers out there who know what minor miracles look like for a person with autism here ya go …

First, I helped Sam navigate another application for work at the Target Distribution Center in Denton. He filled it out himself, but he hit a wall when they asked for his GPA, and he realized that, as a graduate, he couldn’t access that information as readily as before. I helped him brainstorm other places he could find that information and he found it on a copy of a degree audit he’d kept. Sometimes the questions in the online application weren’t clear and I translated for him. When he was done, he told me that since I’d helped him, he needed to return the favor. He put custom ringtones on my phone, which now sounds like birds and frogs, and confuse the cat, which is fun on so many levels.

Reciprocity.

Then, Sam was out with friends having dinner at Chili’s Wednesday when he saw a game on the Ziosk on the table that he recognized as one built by the clients at nonPareil Institute, where he interned. He took a photo of the game while he was there at the table, posted it on Facebook and tagged one of the institute’s directors.

Higher-order thinking (and in a social context).

Two big, gold stars this week.

 

Posted in adults with autism, hope, social life