Venison for the dogs

Since Angus has been keeping us away from home a couple of nights a week with his bagpipe practice, lessons, etc. We haven't been cooking at home as much. Hence, we're not consuming venison as we were. Hence, the freezer is not as empty as it has been in years past going into the start of deer season.

It dawned on me that Lily and Jay, the dogs, would gladly take the worst of what was in the bottom. I asked around the 24hourcampfire.com and got several suggestions that I boil chunks of venison and mix it with rice.

16 lbs of venison
7.5 cups of rice
4 hours in the kitchen later . . .

I used the same pot I use for lobsters. After boiling for an hour, the venison left a hearty broth. I used the broth to boil the rice, and then combined the meat and the rice and stuck it in single-serving freezer bags.


Angus fed the dogs that night, after I showed him how: bag of the new stuff in the wavy-micro for 1 minute while putting the kibble out and then dump the new stuff on top and mix.

. . .And then I went to bed. Lily, the beagle, finished hers and then ran in and jumped on the bed to thank me. No, she didn't thank the kid that fed her. She thanked the guy that cooked it for her 8 hours earlier. Seldom have I witnessed such a display of canine gratitude.

Once in a while, the gulf between species disappears, and you see a glimpse of exactly how close we really are to the animals around us.

Was it all worth it? For the stuff that's too far gone to give to humans, it's a great way to scrape out the bottom of the freezer.