Lollygagging in Lisa's Larder- Jan and Feb

Well as I stated at the end of December, we had feasted enough through the holidays that we needed some diet food. Thus, it has taken me 2 months to accumulate enough photo-worthy food items to make a post.  We have eaten a lot of food from the pantry during the last 2 months, watched the desserts, ate less and actually have lost a few pounds. We have eaten great food….just stuff that I thought no-one would be interested in seeing. So here is what we did make that just might fit the photo-worthy criteria. 

Venison-

Since venison has virtually no fat we are mixing it with beef or pork. You might remember that we purchased half a pig from our doctor who also has a farm.  Some of the cuts in our package are ground pork, which mixes great with the ground venison.  So we have made quite a few dishes these past 2 months using a combo of those meats. Some of the dishes are venison strips/loins, such as this

Venison stir-fry….we do a lot of stir-fry in the summer with lots of veggies and since we had some leftover veggies from other meals we put it into this stir-fry and mixed in some leftover pasta

Venison/pork patties in gravy….

this was a delicious easy meal.  I made up some meat patties and cooked them in the iron skillet. When they were about done I made a gravy with my homemade powdered soup mix and served it over some garlic spinach fettuccini noodles.

Mulligan…….

I can’t remember if this is just beef or if it is beef mixed with venison.  Either way Dad’s mulligan is always good on a winter day with a salad and a loaf of bread. 

Breakfast sausage……

Mixed the venison with a package of ground pork and cooked up this batch of sausage and portioned it out for the freezer. I then get one out at a time for breakfast.  All I can say is my iron better be up when they recheck it since I have started eating all this meat.

Blackberry-Applesauce-Rhubarb Muffins

I still have some frozen eggs in the freezer, which I have been trying to use up. (The girls egg production never decreased this winter as sometimes is common so we decided that we do not need to freeze eggs when we have an abundance)  So in my effort to use up some of the frozen eggs I sought out recipes that would help me out. I came across this muffin recipe which used 3 eggs. Bingo- made muffins for a nice treat. They are delicious and since they are muffins and freeze well we get to portion out this treat.

Ham and scalloped potatoes

I love the recipes from “The Pioneer Woman Cooks”.  Sometimes they are involved and might take a bit more time but in general they are delicious.  We had leftover spiral ham from Christmas that we needed to use up so I used her recipe and made this.  It is definitely a keeper. 

Veggie lasagna

Lasagnas are a big casserole for just 2 people so I always make it and freeze portions in wax paper. Then we get to enjoy it for months but only have to do the labor once. This one I have made before and believe I showed the pictures in a previous post but here it is again.  From the garden it has butternut squash, onions and roasted tomatoes. This time of year I had to buy the spinach.  Always delicious.

Homemade pasta

Since I had quilt guild on Valentines Day we postponed the celebration to Sunday.  We celebrated by making ravioli. We started late afternoon with making dough and popping the cork on a bottle of wine. It really is not hard, but is lots of fun and you get into a rhythm cranking them out. You end up with about 100 ravioli from a batch of dough.  We used 2 different fillings- ricotta spinach and ground venison and pork.  When we ran out of filling but still had dough left we put on the attachment to cut fettuccini. We hung lengths of plain fettuccini and then we made some “birds nests”.  All leftovers went into the freezer. When Patrick took some of the leftovers to lunch one day he was informed by his staff that he was “spoiled”.  He informed them that he fully participated in the production of these gems and no he was not spoiled; just fortunate to be married to a “foodie”.    Nonetheless, they all voted that they should have homemade ravioli for their next staff meeting birthday celebration.  If that happens I am coming to their staff meeting to eat lunch!!!!!

Plains peanuts

Mom and Dad have a friend from Plains Georgia who provides them with peanuts.  When they came at Christmas they delivered a 5-pound bag of raw peanuts.  We roasted them in the oven using three different varieties of spices.  I don’t know that they really retained the spice mix but they are nicely roasted and packed away in jars for snacking.  Unfortunate that Dad’s diverticulosis prevents him from eating many; fortunate for us that we are the recipients of them. 

Seed Starting

Let the 2013 garden season begin!  We started a large variety of tomatoes and peppers in addition to kale, celery, tomatillos and basil.  All other seeds will be direct planted into the garden soil.  To date, about 2/3 of the seeds have sprouted under the grow lights and they have only been there for 5 days.